By Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents, and News Agencies: Hamas policy: Escalation to force Israel into cease-fire in Gaza
Talkback
Title: It`s a new world. Does Israel prefer peace or war? Name: Natallie Durson City: Los Angeles State: CA
The easiest thing in the world would be for Israel to negotiate with Hamas. This could stop the rockets and return Shalit. Israels two most pressing problems would disappear. In exchange, Israel would likely have to give up raids upon Gaza, which have been shown useless anyway. Perhaps this action is too simple and straightforward? The Qassams and the Shalit problem have shown themselves to be beyond Israels normal solution of "bomb them into submission". I am not sure that this strategy ever worked for Israel, but it was too much fun to put aside. There is no time like the present to modernize Israels strategy.