"I have no easy solutions," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said during his visit to Sderot earlier this week. With that short statement, he seemed to have summed up the entire dilemma.

Israel has difficulty deciding on a military response, because it lacks one single address on which to focus that response; an entity capable of making decisions and executing them. The same applies to a political response. This is because the fire from and within Gaza is designed to produce instability, and because new factions are taking up arms and using them. Hamas itself is divided between its political and military wing.

Over the past week there have been gunfights in the refugee camps of northern Lebanon between soldiers of the Lebanese army and militants belonging to a group called Fatah al-Islam, whose combatants hail from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. They aim to fight Israel and liberate Jerusalem, while using the camps as a platform for destabilizing Lebanon's current political structure.

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The militants in Gaza promote a similar agenda. The Strip, too, has seen the emergence of a new prodigiously funded and armed group called the Army of Islam. There, too, armed clans are trying to disrupt what little remains of administrative stability, while attempting to bolster their force amid anarchy.

Given this state of affairs, is Hamas the enemy, or is it the only address that can achieve calm? Can the Palestinian national unity government halt the firing of rockets at Sderot and the towns of the northern Negev, or is its agenda dictated by fundamentalist factions?

One can hardly blame the Israeli government for not being more active or for being reluctant to embark on a ground offensive in Gaza, whose success is doubtful.

Any action aimed at curbing the firing of Qassam rockets at Israel is vital. However, in exchange for a Qassam cease-fire, the Palestinian government is demanding that Israel first stop arresting suspected militants in the West Bank. In doing so, the Palestinian government is stating an unreasonable claim.

The only thing keeping the West Back from erupting into violence as well is the constant activity of the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet.

In lieu of military or political solutions and lacking a ruling party with which to negotiate, it seems the only chance to halt the deterioration we are witnessing is the effort to curb the smuggling of arms into Gaza. Whether this is achieved by the Israel Defense Forces or with the help of other countries, the arms-flow must be contained as the driving force behind the conflagration.

A temporary cease-fire will provide the Palestinian militants with time to amass weapons and develop longer-range ballistic capabilities, which would constitute a veritable threat to Israel. Israel has no reason to comply with such claims, even if they are expressed by the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and even if they stem from good intentions.

MK Effi Eitam (National Religious Party) knows what he's talking about when he says that talk of agreements with moderate Palestinian forces are a thing of the past, no longer pertinent to the current situation. He is nonetheless unprepared to accept responsibility for failed past opportunities.

For years, the Israeli left advocated helping to consolidate the moderate Palestinian forces, which have meanwhile lost what remained of their former strength.

The penury the inhabitants of Gaza are suffering offers a rich nursery for various armed militant factions, whose hatred for Israel and the constant war against it constitute their sole raison d'etre and the only purpose of life.

And in that respect, any military action against Gaza will vicariously serve to harm Israel.