Palestinians Choosing Poorly

It's not often you get to see an entire people demonstrate to the world that they are not capable of running their own country, but that's what's happening in Gaza. Hamas and their supporters are just about to lose everything they gained when Israel pulled out of Gaza, all because of a 19 year old Israeli soldier. All they have to do is release the kid and the crisis is over, but instead of acting with any sense of logic, they persist in holding him and making demands that they cannot possibly enforce. Israel is ramping up the pressure:

Israeli warplanes struck the Palestinian Interior Ministry early Friday, setting it ablaze as Arab leaders tried to forge a deal that would halt the Israeli offensive and free a 19-year-old soldier held by gunmen allied with the ruling Islamic Hamas.

The bombing was one of more than a dozen across the Gaza Strip after midnight, though Israel called off a planned ground invasion of northern Gaza on Thursday in order to give diplomacy another chance.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said militants agreed to a conditional release of the kidnapped soldier but that Israel had yet to accept their terms, which he did not specify. Israel said it was not familiar with any such offer.

No one was hurt in the strike on the Interior Ministry in downtown Gaza City. The Israeli military said the ministry office, controlled by Hamas, was "a meeting place to plan and direct terror activity." The Interior Ministry is nominally in charge of Palestinian security forces, though moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas removed most of its authority.

Israeli warplanes also hit a Fatah office as well as roads and open fields. During the day, aircraft and artillery pounded sites across the coastal strip, including suspected weapons factories, an electrical transformer and militant training camps.

A strike at a Hamas facility near the Gaza beach ignited a fire and set off explosives, witnesses said. Another air attack, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, set an intelligence office on fire, Palestinian security officials said.

Casualties began to mount. The local leader of Islamic Jihad was seriously wounded in an airstrike in Rafah, hospital officials said, and three Fatah-affiliated gunmen were wounded in a gun battle in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

I believe it was Jed Babin who wrote the other day that Israeli soldiers are aware of two facts: #1 Their military will exercise any force that they have to do to get them back should they be captured, and; #2 Israel will not bargain for them no matter what. The Palestinians have decided to learn this the hard way, and when it's all over, there will be far more Palestinian casualties than Israeli casualties, and Hamas and their gangs will have lost Gaza forever.