When threatened - Do nothing!

From The New York Times:

JERUSALEM, March 31 — Hamas, the dominant faction in the Palestinian government, is building its military capacity in the Gaza Strip, constructing tunnels and underground bunkers and smuggling in ground-to-air missiles and military-grade explosives, senior Israeli officials say.

The officials, including a top military commander who spoke in an interview on Friday, said that Hamas had learned tactics from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, which brought in and stored thousands of rockets in bunkers near the northern Israeli border before its war with Israel last summer.

In Gaza, the Israeli commander said, Hamas has now recruited 10,000 fighters to its so-called Executive Force, a parallel police force intended to counter the control its rival Fatah exercises over the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. The Executive Force is now divided into five “so-called brigades, with battalion leaders” and is receiving more military training and sharing a common headquarters, he said, with the Qassam brigades, Hamas’s military wing.

The commander, who gave the briefing at the request of The New York Times and spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Hamas’s improved rockets had a range of about 10 miles, which would allow them to hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

But he emphasized that despite Israel’s growing concerns about Hamas, “we’re not going to start a big operation in Gaza.”

I'm sure that Hamas is glad to hear that. I'm not too sure about how the people of Ashkelon will feel about hearing that you will allow a bunch of them to be blown up before, maybe, thinking about doing something about the arsenal that a dedicated vicious terrorist group is amassing.

But then what can we expect from the clueless left-wing government of Ehud Olmert?

I hope the people of the United States are paying attention. This is what happens when you allow the left to run things. Of course we should already have enough evidence of that. The Iraq Surrender Act just passed by the House and Senate and the completely impotent way the UK is handling the capture of some of its sailors and Marines in Iraqi waters tell us all we need to know.

But then the presidential candidacy of George McGovern and the hapless administration of the loathsome and contemptible Jimmy Carter should have armored us against any temptation ot vote in left-liberals ever again. So the real question is this, can we ever learn?