[tslex]

Here's what I do not get: How EXACTLY did Hamas see this going? When the leadership sat around over glasses of tea and said, "Yeah, let's lob many hundreds of missiles randomly into Israeli residential neighborhoods because . . . " what was the next part of that sentence? Was it ". . . because the Israelis, ya know, might all just pack up and leave."? Was it ". . . because, you know those Israelis, they won't do jack to retaliate."? Was it ANY version of " . . . because ultimately raining down random missiles on Israel will get us a result we want and not, ya know, annihilated."?

Sure, predictably, Israel is being criticized by the usual suspects (Egypt, Russia, the BBC) for the nature of its response. But did the Hamas guys think "Yeah! That'll teach 'em. Those Israelis HATE to be the target of international criticism."?