Just some thoughts on the issue.

Lawhawk said:
" This would seem to fit my hypothesis that the current conflict is being used by Hamas and Fatah to try and get Israel to eliminate the other. "

and Shrinkwrapped cites Caroline Glick:
http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2006/06/the_rules_of_wa.html

" ..., Abbas was finalizing his deal with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh for the formation of a Hamas-Fatah unity government. Abbas and Haniyeh not only agreed to form a unity government, they also agreed that Hamas would become a member of the PLO. Aside from that, they agreed that to establish a unified force for fighting their joint war against Israel. That is, this week, as Israel trained its rifles on Hamas alone, Abbas effectively unified Hamas with Fatah. "

Not enough facts and too much speculation but certainly plenty of lies and deception from the arabs and abetting by the MSM.

Lawhawk also said:
"Now, there are those of you who think that Israel was wrong to give up Gaza and that this showed incredible weakness. ..............
..........
"Consider the following; that if the Israeli settlements were still present in Gaza, they would provide inviting targets to the same terrorists firing at Israel, would be far more difficult to defend, prove far more costly to a limited Israeli defense budget, and make it even easier for Palestinian terrorists to kill, capture, or otherwise attack Israelis than at present. Also the extreme responses demanded by some in wake of the WMD usage claims would result in many Israelis caught in the fallout. "

This he reasons, correctly in my opinion; But, why does he not include the absolute and total mess made by Rice and Wolfensohn of the Gaza/Egyptian border security issue when they forced Sharon to accept their vision, and which provided the impetus for the latest situation? It just shows how Sharon was "thanked" for leaving Gaza. And Rice was National Security Adviser at one stage?

The Egyptians turned a blind eye for nearly a week as Hamas and co., transported stockpiled arms, drugs and whatnot into Gaza from "Egypt".
Who believes that Mubarak, Rice and others did not know about that? We won't consider the CIA after their two terms under Tenet trying to train Arafat's security forces.

The European force to monitor the border should be called a Frappe du Farce.
Over the months the continued movement of Hezbollah and arms has strengthened the groups and provided the means for all those rockets fired into Israel; some 1000 this year and counting.

BY the way Hamas ordered the break in the Egyptian/Gaza wall this week. Did anyone pay attention?

The Israelis, all the time, showing restraint at the rocket bombardment were finally provoked.
That is Hamas strategy; get Rice and the Europeans to "exact more concessions"/hamstring the Israelis even more.