Israel doesn't want to topple Hamas, just rein it in

It''s plain to see our objectives here, 1. deplete & destroy Hamas's inventory of rockets. 2. demonstrate that we have the ability to obliterate Hamas if that becomes inevitable. And 3. Prove to Hamas that no Islamic country can or will send troops to Gaza to fight us, despite the "Arab Spring". Sympathy? yes, Money? maybe, Troops? Sorry guys, no way................

SURE.........JUST LIKE ONE CAN CONTROL EVIL....... JUST TRY TO EXPLAIN IT TO SOMEBODY.

One assumption after another. Stick to the facts. Yes, Gazans are suffering but their leaders do not show a weariness for war. Even during quiet times rockets land in Israel every day. Hamas will never stop the aggression as long as Iran's knee is in its back.

America is behind you, we consider Israel to be the home of many of our ancestors. I look at random pictures of Israel and I feel like I'm looking at my own family. Freedom.

I agree, Israel's goal is not to topple Hamas nor reoccupy the Gaza strip. Judging by Israel's actions over the past 30 years the goal is to simply annex Gaza and then the West Bank. Israel has never shown any serious interest in peace as is easily demonstrated by the steady expansion of settlements. Now Israel just needs a way to get rid of these pesky Palestinians. And please note that I and many Americans are not anti-Semitic, just anti far right hetro orthodox Israel.

As an american my eyes have been open for years now. I canot understand our support for israel and the actions it takes. I have come to the view that isreal's actions cannot be supported in good concious. I believe that normalizing relations with Iran and leaving israel to it's own devices is the smartest and most consistant "human rights" position we could take. Isreal's leaders have led their country over a cliff and I pray americans to educate themselves and force a mirror in the faces of isreali people.

Bibi wants to win the coming elections on the sorrows of the families of dead Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. Instead of winning elections on the basis of negotiating our conflict with the Palestinians, Bibi wants to win by fear mongering and war. Truly, when crooks run out of solutions, they resort to fear mongering and unnecessary wars to control the masses. In this case, the Israeli public. I think our Israeli culture has become a culture of Death, just like the culture of the Palestinians. We produce leaders like Bibi and the Palestinians produce leaders like Hamas. Can't Israel produce good leaders any more with a vision of a better future for our nation?

Very hard to get rid of Hamas without reoccupation of the strip, Hamas as a government and Hamas as terrorist organization. It is possible to run terror organizations, shadow governments from the shadows. But as a real Government that is not possible to do it from hiding.

Israel has planned this campaign for months, even advertising it. They gave it a cutesy code name a long time ago, taken straight from the American "Book of Code Names for Covert Operations".

"As of last night, since the start of the operation more than 40 Palestinians have been killed and more than 300 wounded. Most of those killed were members of terror organizations." It's a never ending source of amazement to rational persons that military actions tradiionally result only in the deaths of enemy fighters. Who makes this determination? What representative of the attackers has immediate access to bombed out buildings in enemy territory, toting up the numbers of dead and smartly recording their names and their previous military and/or political affiliations? It increasingly appears that in Gaza, as throughout the middle east, the quickest way to become a terrorist is by posthumous designation originating from those who carried out the killing.