Hamas, a group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, is the Nazis of modern times. Israel is right to pound military targets inside Gaza, but much of the violence Israel brought on itself by giving up land it had to know would be used to rain down death on its civilians. That is always the pattern.

Why is anyone surprised that after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the vacuum created was quickly filled by Hamas, whose sole purpose is the destruction of the “Zionist entity,” as it likes to call Israel, and the killing of as many Jews as possible? The fiction, which is greater than a belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, is that Israel, or the United States, or anyone else can do anything that will deter Hamas from its objective. What did anyone expect when Israel pulled out of Gaza? The establishment of a Disney theme park, perhaps?