Israel Arrests Hamas Thugs

Israel has rounded up 33 Hamas thugs, including two mayors and several parliament leaders. You can be assured that Hamas will throw a hissy fit. Hamas is about to get a dose of its own medicine and Israel would have to play its cards right in order to get the kind of movement on the Shalit situation and the end to rocket fire for this to work. Israel is treating the terrorists for what they are - terrorists. It doesn't matter that they've claimed that they're now politicians. They continue to support and condone terrorist attacks:

Israeli security forces arrested 33 senior members of Hamas during overnight raids in the West Bank and are questioning them, an IDF spokesman said Thursday.

"Among those arrested are the Education Minister (Nasser Al Shaer), the mayors of Nablus and Qalqiliya, members of the parliament and senior activists in the organization," the statement said.

Palestinian Information Minister Mustapha Barghouti condemned the arrests in a statement released Thursday, calling the arrest of elected Palestinian officials "a massacre to Palestinian democracy and civil society."

He said 41 Palestinian legislators are now being held in Israeli jails.

Hamas militants have launched hundreds of Qassam rockets into Israel from Gaza in recent weeks.

Hamas came to power in parliamentary elections in January 2006 after more than a decade of Fatah rule over the Palestinian Authority. But the United States and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and the European Union joined them in cutting off aid over the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Earlier this week, Israel's top defense official said all options were open as his country tries to halt Hamas' rocket attacks. Those options include possible strikes against Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, who heads Hamas, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that Hamas may be considering an end to the rocket attacks.

Israel's threat to target senior Hamas leaders in response to the Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza has prompted the group to agree to a unilateral cease-fire with Israel, Palestinian Authority officials said Wednesday.

"Hamas wants to stop the Kassam rockets. They are especially worried about reports that Israel may assassinate [PA Prime Minister] Ismail Haniyeh and [Hamas chief] Khaled Mashaal," the officials told The Jerusalem Post.

The officials were speaking shortly after PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Haniyeh met in Gaza City to discuss the possibility of declaring a unilateral truce with Israel. Journalists were not allowed to cover the meeting, which was held under tight security.

"At first, Haniyeh did not want to attend the meeting because of Israeli threats to kill him," said one PA official. "The venue and time of the meeting were only agreed upon at the last minute for security reasons. Hamas is taking the Israeli threats very seriously."

Apparently, the fact that Israel might consider targeting Meshaal and Haniyeh was enough to prompt the response. I don't entirely buy the response, but it suggests that the terrorist leaders are more interested in their own personal power than they are in dying for their cause. They'd much rather have other hapless Palestinians die for them and don't entirely buy their own rhetoric. The Palestinian terrorist leaders have been quite good at that.

Israel needs to capitalize on this situation further. However, this news may also signal that Hamas is running out of terrorists to man the rockets or the equipment and know-how to launch them, and needs time to regroup.

Still, rockets continue to hit Sderot, have damaged and destroyed Israeli crops, even as Abbas claims that the rocket attacks are pointless. Well, the attacks aren't entirely pointless. They've managed to kill and wound quite a few Israelis, but the Palestinian terrorists have been hurt badly. Abbas is trying to retain what little diplomatic sway he has with this.

UPDATE:
Israel is continuing its assault on Hamas positions, attacking another Hamas strongpoint in Gaza City. The EU states the obvious - that the PA is nonfunctioning. One could only consider the PA functioning if you believed that a functioning government's sole obligation is to condone terrorist attacks and provide political cover to terrorist groups and be used to launder international aid to terrorists.

And even while Abbas calls on Hamas to stop firing the rockets, they keep getting fired into Israel.