Abu Wabu

UPDATED

Once again, Hamas is askin' for it, and the Israelis look like they are about to deliver.

Defense Minster Ehud Barak on Friday blamed Hamas for the escalating violence in the south, and said the Islamic movement would bear the consequences of it.

"Hamas is directly responsible for the current situation and will be the one to bear the cost of our response", Barak said during a visit to Ashkelon, adding that "an Israeli response is necessary and will be carried out."

...Also Friday, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said the IDF must reoccupy part of the Gaza Strip for an unlimited time and overthrow the Hamas government.

"The State of Israel must make a strategic decision to order the IDF to prepare quickly to topple the Hamas terror regime and take over all the areas from which rockets are fired on Israel," MK Tzachi Hanegbi (Kadima) told Israel Radio. He said the IDF should prepare to remain in those areas for years.

MK Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) said his party would back an invasion of Gaza, though he fell short of advocating reoccupation.

"There is no doubt that the security response needs to include a ground component," said Sa'ar. He said the "takeover of territory in the northern Strip" from which the Palestinians launch rockets at Israel would reduce the barrages from Gaza.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai went as far as threatening a "shoah," the Hebrew word for holocaust or disaster. The word is generally used to refer to the Nazi Holocaust, but a spokesman for Vilnai said the deputy defense minister used the word in the sense of "disaster," saying "he did not mean to make any allusion to the genocide."

"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," Vilnai told Army Radio on Friday.

As evidenced by the ridiculous "holocaust" accusation above, Israel will get clobbered in the international media and at the U.N., but there's nothing unusual about that. It's insane, but that doesn't make it unusual. The rockets fly from Gaza, Israelis die, no problem. The Israelis punish the assholes who fire the rockets, and the world goes apeshit.

UPDATE
That didn't take long.