The major objective, aside from stopping the missile & mortar attacks, is to hand Hamas a major public defeat. This defeat must be perceived as defeat by Gazans. In other words, Hamas must cry uncle. We cannot allow them to pretend some idiotic ''victory'' as they usually claim. If we do not achieve this, Hamas will actually emerge stronger - as did that jerk Nasrallah after our Lebanon fiasco. A secondary objective is that this should be the beginning of a policy to show left-wing anti-Israel NGO's, the international media, the UN, & various gov't. leaders that we will ignore them. Let them jump up & down, rant & rave, whatever - we should not be apologetic or defensive about our actions. The reason there is immediate clamor for us to stop whatever self-defensive measures we take is because it works. It must be shown NOT to work. At the same time, we need better spokesmen, especially spokesmen who actually speak English. I aleady heard three different Israelis explaining our position & let me tell you, it was pathetic. The Palestinian spokesmen were much better at presenting their pack of lies & distortions. Another objective is to seriously degrade Hamas infrastructure, to weaken their offensive capabilities which they have built up due to OUR negligence. The main thing to realize is that this current operation is only a very short-term band-aid - it is not the end of the story. Only re-establishing some BS lull or truce is a meaningless achievement that does nothing towards solving our long-term problem with Gaza.

Israel is the target practice preceding the war against the rest of the West, including the US. Israel will need in the time available to overhaul its military-training and preparing it adequately for the relevant challenges ahead. It will need to ensure that it has a national leadership that understands the capabilities of the military and that knows how to integrate this knowledge into a clear, stable national strategy with clearly defined goals and parameters, and to which it then adheres. It will need to prepare its public for the awareness that the country is engaged with an enemy pursuing a clearly thought out "long war" strategy, which may take years and may require further sacrifices--such as, for example, the inevitable cost in the lives of soldiers that would accompany a large-scale ground operation of the type which could deal a real military blow to its enemies. Israel will fight for its country because it is the land of the Jews and the Jews have no other as explained in 6 parts at : http://xrl.us/bi5c6

Nothing new about that:Simply put Jews are NOT allowed to defend themselves!

This needs to a small part of a much wider scoped operation. Stop hitting them with pin-pricks, use the whole military might and crush the terrorists once and for all.

in Lebanon 2006. I remember Olmert used these exact words.

I am not sure that what happened today serves Israel's interests the best. What we saw today was clearly disproportionate - yet, airstrikes appeared to strike mostly Hamas positions, which is good. But people elsewhere will stick at the death toll. They will see that, in a few minutes, Israel killed 10 times more palestininans than all Israelis killed by Qassams in 6 years. Although the airstrikes were aimed at Hamas police positions, it already appears clear that : 1)scores of civilians were killed, including women and children; 2)the airstrikes targeted Hamas political and security infrastructure, but the Hamas police are not those who launch the Qassams; 3) Israel is unable to inflict massive damage to Hamas' military wing, preferring to target the police, which, although on Hamas' payroll, do not launch attacks against Israel; 4) perhaps most importantly: any kind of success in Gaza will be obtained at the expense of a massive death toll. With the kind of reactions Israel will get today, I am not sure that it can repeat killing 180 palestinians-no matter their status- every day. For the short term, Hamas military capacity has not been affected at all, and they will launch massive rocket barrages at Israel. If Israel decides to take the real necessary steps to stop the rocket fire, it will have to launch a ground invasion.

Sorry to appear rude, but it is obvious from reading your articles in English on the Internet that are not being translated by a native English speaker. Whoever is translating them is using an English dictionary and translating them melah lmelah.

Even though Israel has finally attacked the terrorist in the Gaza Strip, they have done it with the wrong objectives. Who in Israel believes in ceasefire with terrorist organizations? With that in mind we need to finish Hamas and capture Gaza Strip. If we do not continue with this operation and start looking for a ceasefire than the lives of our brave soldiers are going to be spent for no reason. This is the reality; this reality asks us for victory. Please join our cause at: http://israelactnow.blogspot.com/ Where you can finally voice your opinions without any censorship, Where we encourage contributing your own articles to be posted on this blog for others to read and learn from. Once again: http://israelactnow.blogspot.com/

Upon hearing the developments, Bush says a prayer to his wooden idol, then wakes up Condellisa Rice for an emergency meeting with his state department. What is the christian world to do about Israel? He then issues a statement condemning the action as barbaric and hints at controlling Israel. Meanwhile, Iran is already making plans to replace the hamas puppets with more a more aggressive anti-Israel group. The cycle continues.

Ron talked about a secret plan ten days ago "Silence is the Key" that would gain many achievements. This is the start of that plan. All the talk of a limited operation must be simple deception. In order to force Hamas to beg for a cease-fire they must be hit harder than this. Apparently the IAF achieved surprise by delaying their attack a few days and attacking on shabat. Mozel tov. But this is no where near enough to make Hamas do anything except shoot back. Watch for the ground invasion. Without a ground invasion this will really be a simple limited op. I would expect to see an attempt to free Shalit under cover of a wider ground invasion. We'll see what happens.

Any nation, human group has a right to defend itself, even if any animals or group of animals including spiders, snakes and zionists have also right to defend themselves, therefore Israeli operation against Hamas may be within self-defence lines as long as it is not aiming civilians OR it is not byzINDISCRIMANTORY MASSACRES of AIR BOMBING Go and make war with hamas face to face not air bomb unless there are only HAMAS but no civilians!

are nothing but a bunch of murderers...

Who cares about international condemnation? Every country is not only allowed but morally and legally required to defend its citizens. A lot of us have just been wondering what the hell took Israel so long.

No, you in Cali are the disgusting murders of morality. You sit on your beach doing yoga and have no conception of what it is like to live next door to people wishing for your death. You make me sick, go and protest prop 8 and do something useful!

as i read from the readers responds ad tlakbacks i cannt see any peace in your bloody eyes

you will pack and sail

This is an election ploy. Why now? What a joke Kadima is. We need Bibi!

I live in Chicago. The total area of Gaza Strip is about one-half the size of the City of Chicago. To my friends in Israel... if the shoe was on the other foot... if you were in Gaza ,and the Arabs controlled Israel's land.. they would have attempted to wipe you out in one day a long time ago. I say the time has come to stop letting your virtues be used against you. Stop allowing them to use your own sense of humanity as their shield. Protect yourselves. Gaza could be solved in one afternoon.

are the intentions of hamas' rockets not to murder? are they not indiscriminately aimed at civilians?

Tayfun, the problem is that Hamas are cowards who hide themselves and their armaments among the civilian population, most of whom support Hamas, just as Hezollah did in Lebanon. So bottom line is too bad, but in war civilians get killed. Hamas does not accept Israel's right to exist, so Israel needs to obliterate Hamas at any cost, including the lives of civilians. Sorry!

Thanks for your very biased views. I see you were last in line for intelligence. What do you call continual rocket fire into Sderot by Hamas? Huh? People like you are just a waste of space on the planet - and with people like you, there will never be peace between nations. You're blind stupid and pathetic.

Does the systematic destruction of the Armenian people ring any bells? Well over one MILLION innocent Armenians were murdered by the Turks. You degraded them and massacred them. Civilans, all of them. How easy it is to forget your past - and judge another country's action for finally responding to rocket fire into its towns. So, I'm thinking here that you had better keep quiet and look back at your own history before you DARE judge other country's actions. The difference being here, is that the Armenians were not firing rockets into Turkey.

Sadly sometimes I wonder if our enemies are right when they say this country has no right to exist. When you have a country and your not willing to fight for it do you have any right to that country? As usual we are running away from a fight, air power in this situation is more like a gesture rather than a solution. Its like hitting a bail of straw with a sledgehammer in the hope you will destroy the pin. To solve the rocket problem can only be done with the kind of precision you get from a ground operation. These air strikes are nothing more than an attampt for the government to look like its taking the action the public demand but at the same time garunteeing and attempting to make Hamas think are getting serious and will use force. if they dont stop the terror. Hamas though are not stupid and know after a couple of days we will give up the air strikes especialy when the international community condem it then we will come looking for a deal based on Hamas terms. This country was once feared and respected by its enemies today we have all these weapons which we are unwilling to use and the enemy knows it so they dont fear us and the fact we are unwilling to fight to defend ourselves means there is nothing for them to respect. In the old days Assad would not be saying its ok for me to carry on arming Hezbullah untill I get the Golan he would be making gestures to show he is dedicated to peace not expcting something for nothing like he is getting now. Hamas would be thinking about making a deal on our terms because they would know that we would make sure their organistion is smashed in Gaza before we pulled out. Israel is no longer the safe haven for jews it was created to be if anything they are now safer in the diaspora because Israel isn't willing to fight to protect them.

First of all, Tayfun, when you compare Zionists to spiders and snakes, it is offensive and disgusting. If you want your posts to be treated seriouly, please give minimal dignity by not comparing people to animals. As for the rest of your post, you say, "Go and make war with hamas face to face not air bomb". Well, in this case I must say that we Israelis agree with you wholeheartedly! You certainly hit the nail on its head! We would much rather fight face-to-face with Hamas, only Hamas doens't want that! Hamas chooses to dig down and hide among women and children, using them as a human shield. After all, Hamas people know they have no chance fighting face-to-face with the IDF. This way they would be the only people hurt, and the world media wouldn't care much. Having Palestinian children die in IDF attacks (as human shields), is the wet dream of Hamas. #14. I wonder how the US would react if rockets were constantly fired from Tijuana to San Diego. Answer me this will you? And if you call people who defend their citizens from a constant barrage of rockets, as "bunch of murderers", then I consider myself a very proud murderer.

We can't make war with Hamas because they are cowards who hide in schools and mosques and fire their rockets at our children from behind their children--bombs are the answer. And "Disgusted"? Hey, where have you been with your "disgust" during the last two years while Hamas has pounded our civilians with rockets? Another liberal California hypocrite!

but hear it is not shock nor treatment .please find another name .........whatever it is --it will solve nothing to israil as israil look only to its benifits .. it is nothing locally or internationaly

Have you been reading the same reports I've been reading for the last several months? I'm surprised the IDF has waited this long to respond. If Mexico allowed extremests to continually shoot missles into your yard, wouldn't you be screaming for an immediate response from the US? Imagine you worrying about your kids playing in the yard because you never know when a bomb will be fired in the area? All those that are critical of Isreal's response need to realize, Isreal tried to avoid this action. If those in Gaza had clamped down on the Hamas and put a stop to the bombs -- Isreal would not have reacted this way.

And exactly how long would you hold still for daily rockets from Mexico???