The Attacks on Gaza: Orwell in Israel

Posted by Ian Welsh, Firedoglake

AlterNet.

"The government ordered the strikes on Hamas only after it saw no other way to stop rocket attacks on its southern towns ... "

This beauty from Tzipi Livni is completely Orwellian:
The government ordered the strikes on Hamas only after it saw no other way to stop rocket attacks on its southern towns, she said.
I can imagine no scenario under which bombing Hamas will stop rocket attacks. In particular, these attacks were aimed at the security forces, killing the police chief and the security chief and 140 Hamas Security forces.
Now, who do you think enforced the truce? Who is it that Hamas uses to make sure rockets only get launched when Hamas wants them to? That would be... the police and the security forces.
Bombing Hamas is not going to stop the attacks, if anything it will increase them. But Israel has degraded Hamas's ability to control the various folks who launch the missiles (many of whom are not Hamas).

It is also notable that Hamas's actual military forces, as opposed to security forces, were not targeted.
This attack occurred for domestic political reasons, not to stop the missile attacks, unless the Israeli political class is completely delusional.
That is, I think, possible. After all, these are the folks who thought they could destroy Hezbollah with an air war and that the route to peace is to continue to build more and more settlements. Either they don't want peace, or they are criminally incompetent, or they are driven entirely by craven personal political motives.
Whichever of these it is, it's clear that the attacks weren't launched to stop the missiles.