To say that Hamas was democratically elected goes beyond exaggeration.

Hamas has essentially put Gaza on a war footing, and Israel is left with no option but to seal it off to prevent the murder of its citizens.

Hamas is so toxic that even Egypt has sealed off the borders and is taking action to close down the tunnels.

Andrew has frequently posted anti Israeli articles, but has yet to propose any viable solution.

Ending the siege that drives the populace into the arms of hamas would be a good start. But then maybe that isnt israels goal. They need hamas the same way the seppos need al queda. Without an enemy to terrify their population with they might have to start solving real problems instead of playing soldiers with other peoples children.

It's interesting to ponder the reasons that Israel has chosen to isolate Gaza to the extent it has in recent history.
In her book "The shock Doctrine", Naomi Klein sheds a little light on this by pointing out that during the 1990's approximately 1 Million Russian Jews emigrated to Israel. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union now account for around 18 percent of Israel's Jewish population.
providing a sizable pool of cheap labour. The largest wave came just as the peace process was beginning after Yeltsin's coup in 1993.
Klein says:
"This demographic transformation upended the agreement's already precarious dynamic. Before the arrival of the Soviet refugees, Israel could not have severed itself for any length of time from the Palestinian populations of Gaza and the West Bank....Roughly 150,000 Palestinians left their homes in Gaza and the West Bank everyday and travelled to Israel to clean the streets and build the roads, while Palestinian farmers and tradespeople filled trucks with goods and sold them in Israel and other parts of the territories. Each side depended on the other economically..."
The ability for peoples to cooperate is usually predicated on the notion of mutual advantage - tragically for the Palestinians - fate and the break-up of the Soviet Union intervened.

SM,

That's one way of looking at it but that's all.
Regardless of your political allegiances Gaza's suffering IS Israel shame.

You forget Hamas is a monster of Israel's creation. Israel didn't apply the old proverb "you may cower one dog with the stick but never the pack" e42
Israel is like a deliberately unmediated schizophrenic in a constant state of psychosis, follows the voices of its inner demons, instead of reality. Sadly the peace it says it wants is within its grasp and has been for years all it has to do is take its medicine.

No serious medicine is totally palatable but it is necessary.

Examinator,

Hamas is externally funded, and built most of its support from going around and handing out wads of cash, which Fatah could not compete with, finally ousting Fatah in a bloody coup.

Given the negation by Hamas of all the agreements and the commencement of a suicide bomber blitz and rocket attacks, I personally cannot see how Israel could have reacted differently and still protected its people.

Thus Israel's response is a monster of Hamas's creation.

Hamas are simply following the strategy and practice of Arafat before them:

Lie to achieve a goal

Be stubborn

be ruthless (especially with your own defenceless and extended family), its good when you can parade dead children around, regardless who killed them.

And as was often said about Arafat

Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity

It will always amaze me that people who claim even limited cognitive ability, can simultaneously write in support of Palestinian State endorsed terrorism and resist falling about into bouts of demented laughter.