Numerous media articles have made the point that Israel's war aims are "ambiguous", but there is nothing ambiguous about the effect the Israel action is having on Hamas in Gaza.

A senior IDF officer estimated Saturday that roughly 300 Hamas men have been killed since the army launched its ground incursion in the Gaza Strip. The military official said IDF troops were able to wipe out whole battalions belonging to the Gaza terror group.

"Hundreds of people were killed in the various combat sectors," the officer said. "Some Hamas companies and battalions were simply wiped out. We also see cases of desertions and unauthorized leaves, while some terror activists are scared to undertake moves that would jeopardize them vis-à-vis IDF troops."

Earlier Saturday, the IDF killed Hamas' rocket chief in the Gaza City area, Amir Mansi. The senior officer said that shortly before his death Mansi clashed with his subordinates, who refused to come out of their hideouts. The rocket chief was left with no choice but to launch mortar shells himself, and was killed after being identified by the army.

No doubt some will cast doubt on the report, but I don't. When you have an organization like Hamas (or the PLO for that matter), built on a foundation of Chicago politics, profit, not sacrifice is the operative motivation. The rocket chief's death is an ironic symbol of how Hamas has been revealed to be nothing more than a street gang with an Iranian sugar daddy. If Israel accomplishes nothing else but discrediting Hamas, then this has been well-worth the effort.

I've mentioned Tom Friedman's book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" before--the most valuable book I've ever read on the culture and politics of the modern day Levant (an area encompassing the eastern Mediterranean). In it he has one chapter on Hama Rules, which is an insightful account into the Arab mindset. Hafez al Assad, the previous king of Syria, was having a terrorist problem of his own--the Muslim Brotherhood started challenging his rule by intimidating government officials and the population at large. Notably al Assad didn't take advice from the U.N. or any other western milquetoasts about ceasefires and negotiations, concessions of land, etc... al Assad just killed them all--anywhere from 8-25 thousand people in the Syrian city of Hama. He didn't attempt to hide the massacre, in fact he invited journalists to come and see what he had done, and inflated the numbers killed like lefties exaggerating about the number of protesters they had at a peace march. He had actually bulldozed the city flat to improve the perception of total destruction.

al Assad never had another terrorist problem.

This is what works in the middleeast--power and the willingness to use it--the "strong horse" as bin laden referred to it. Its why, contrary to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi's assertion, that we've clearly won in Iraq--we had the power and we demonstrated our willingness to use it to achieve final victory. Stop whining about how long it took.

The inverse of this rule (which some have said actually means no rules at all...) is that losers get no respect, and Hamas is definitely the loser in Gaza tonight. They've lost credibility with the Palestinian people, with Iran, with the rest of the Arab world--everyone. They are effectively finished as a political and military force in the region.

Jimmy Carter must be pissed.

Here's a thought.

I wonder if the time has come for the United States to offer political asylum to the Jews of Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe?

Politically that would be a devastating admission of failure by western governments, so I would say no--we'll not have refugee status for Jews. Yet, Jews have in fact, been quietly leaving Europe for years. In 2004, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon angered French leaders by encouraging French Jews to come to Israel after a spate of anti-semitic incidents left them feeling besieged.

While Sharon made public statements to the effect that the Jewish motivation for aliya should be to come "home" to their land, most French emigres acknowledge that rising anti-semitism by an increasingly radicalized Muslim population was a strong factor.

Gaza is calm and the post-mortems are coming out. Its not good for the amen chorus of anti-Israeli interests that do so much whining when Israel throws a punch.

"This hasn't solved the problem," retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, told me. "But it has introduced a completely different cost calculation for Hamas." The launching of Hamas rockets against civilians now has a predictable price -- the essence of deterrence. The smuggling of weapons to Gaza through Egypt remains a challenge. But Hamas leaders are currently occupied, Eiland argues, "not just rebuilding buildings, but rebuilding their political standing and legitimacy." And this makes Hamas more likely to keep a cease-fire.

The quote actually minimizes the challenges Hamas faces. The Europeans have already expressed deep reluctance to keep funding the rebuilding of the same infrastructure over and over again.

"All we do is pay. You know very well that from time to time we pay several times for the same infrastructure that is regularly demolished."

They're paying again, by only sixty million Euros--a token.

Hamas leadership in Gaza face anger from Palestinians, depleted weapons stocks, depleted ranks of gunmen and a serious lack of credibility with their sponsors in Syria and Iran. With so many alligators, its going to be hard to remember that they are supposed to be draining the swamp. Its a virtual certainty that some of the current leadership will be assassinated and replaced. Others will have to make new accommodations, and at the end of the day there is going to be a lot less freedom of action and much more concern for basic survival.

I think Gerson is being too cautious. My bet would be that we've seen the end of the rocket strategy in Gaza. They try something new next time around.

If violence really didn't solve anything, why are policemen armed?

The assassination of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was apparently caught on Dubai's massive system of video surveillance--well, not exactly the assassination itself, but the stalk that led up to it.

There is just something so odd about all this.

I'm not really dubious that Israeli agents exacted their revenge on the bad man, but its more than a little strange that Dubai authorities could put together surveillance from so many places, locating each member of the assassination team, especially when by their admission, the assassins frequently changed their appearance with the use of wigs and mustaches.

I can only surmise that Dubai authorities had al-Mabhouh under surveillance the minute he entered the country, which would seem reasonable considering Hamas relationship with Iran and Syria. When he was discovered dead (behind a locked and chained door...), the video was all cued up, and all they needed to do was examine the periphery.

No doubt the Left will be screaming bloody murder (actually its was rather neat and clean...), but its an eminently sensible policy by the Israelis to assassinate the assassins. Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama certainly seems to think so.