The Fatah "good cops"--terrorists through and through--now blame Hamas' victory in the polls on Israel. If Israel, after all, didn't hold the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority responsible for the continuing terror under its watch and simply allowed Jews to be maimed and killed by Arabs with no retaliation, Fatah's Abbas, & Co. would be stronger today.

I believe that Prime Minister Golda Meir, of blessed memory, once said something to the effect that it's not what Gentiles think but what the Jews will do that ultimately will determine Israel's fate. She was right.

Nothing's changed for Israel of substance with Hamas' victory.

If anything, things are better off now than before.

Israel was slowly but surely being shrunk back to its suicidal, 1949, U.N.-imposed, 9-mile wide, armistice line existence while Fatah's well known destruction in phases scenario was playing out to perfection with the help of even Israel's closest friends.

Indeed, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the latest leading the pack, squeezing Israel to forsake such things as even the safety of its main airport while America itself claimed the right to act thousands of miles away from home for its own national security interests. The promise of 1967's U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 to replace the absurd 1949 armistice lines with secure and recognized borders was being sacrificed by those dedicated to the birth of the Arabs' 22nd state...regardless of what effects it would have on the sole, microscopic state of the Jews.

My main argument in that earlier article mentioned above was that with the Fatah wolf in sheep's clothing PA in power, terror by Hamas and such could be blamed on the other guy, the "bad cops."

But, with the people themselves being able to choose in an election whom they wanted to call the shots (both figuratively and literally), terror would gain--via the people themselves--an official address that could not be denied afterwards.

Indeed, the Arab voters have now willingly become the accomplices of the next atrocities.

So, the next bus, restaurant, shopping mall, or whatever/whomever that gets blown up by Arabs from Arab-controlled territory will have been victimized as a matter of the official policy of a democratically-elected Hamas-run state which openly calls for the death of Israel and the murder of its citizens.

What happens next is up to Israel.

What would any other country do under such circumstances?

The United States' own Powell Doctrine calls for the use of massive force against its enemies.

The time of Israel limiting its options to mere targeted killings is fast drawing to a close.

Hamas must at last be held accountable as it's never been before.

President Bush has said that those who harbor terrorists will share in their fate.

Israel must get itself leaders who will know how to draw the line and do so in a way in which Israel's security needs can be best addressed--regardless of the pressures that will be brought to bear on it.

While Israel can be expected to give up still more of the disputed territories for the sake of true peace (not a hudna), a meaningful territorial compromise must be worked out. Again, this was built into the final draft of Resolution 242 by its architects in the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War. A reading of Eugene Rostow, one of those architects, is essential for this subject. Lately, Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying the right things in this regard, but only time will tell.

Not only have the Arabs of would-be "Palestine" (the second, not first, Arab state to be formed within the original 1920 borders the Palestine Mandate--Jordan emerging on 80% of the entire territory after 1922) harbored terrorists, they've repeatedly elected them--starting with Arafat and his successor close associates dressed in suits, Abbas, Qurei', and so forth. The PA/ PLO's Charter calling for Israel's destruction was never really amended--despite all the claims otherwise. Hamas and Fatah's goals remain one and the same.

And now the Arab Street has spoken, once again, and brought an organization to power which is at least honest about its murderous intentions towards both Jews and the Jew of the Nations. When the next Jew is murdered, Arabs won't be able to claim any disconnection. Arab voters decided on this course of action collectively themselves.

So, Israel is actually now left in a potentially better position than it was before.

No reasonable nation can tell another that it can't defend itself from murderous neighbors whose official policy is the destruction of its state as well as its citizens.

While the double standard has been used repeatedly against Israel before in these regards, it now becomes much harder to apply it with these new circumstances.

While Abbas' official policy--despite the whitewashing of the American State Department and others--was also the destruction of a Jewish Israel, and his fellow "moderates" repeatedly called all dealings with the Jews merely a Trojan Horse, he could hide behind talk of a hudna (temporary ceasefire) and the façade constructed for him by others allowing him--with Condi and others tightening the screws--to sweet talk unilateral concessions out of the Jews.

With Hamas now elected, the façade is gone, the curtains are lifted, and the Arabs must--at long last--be held accountable.

After the next act of barbarism occurs, Israel must issue an ultimatum...the same way other countries would do.

When that ultimatum is predictably ignored and the United Nations predictably does nothing--or blames the Jews themselves--Israel must unleash massive retaliation...not the tit-for-tat variety.

Using expensive missiles and such to take out one terrorist is not cost effective. Taking out fifty to a hundred at a time makes the point much better. They have their rallying places. Israel needs to pay them some visits when the time comes.

There is no talking with a neighbor which openly admits that your death is its goal and acts accordingly. What would America--3,000 miles wide--do with such a neighbor? Or anyone else?

The war that must be fought will be better fought sooner rather than later. Later, Hamas' buddy, Iran, may have nukes.

As American bombers have targeted terror strongholds in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hamasstan must get at least this and more.

And when the Arab's launch their next revenge attacks, Israel must strike back each time exponentially harder than before.

If peace ever comes between Arabs--who elected a government dedicated to Israel's destruction--and Jews, it won't be because of any "acceptance" on the part of the Arabs. The latter are convinced that, despite the presence of scores of millions of non-Arabs in the region, only Arabs have political rights in what they see as purely Arab patrimony. Just ask the Copts, Kurds, Berbers, Black African Sudanese, Assyrians, one half of Israel's Jews whose families fled the Dar ul-Islam, and so forth if you have any doubts about this.

If peace ever comes, it will be because the Arabs realized the terrible price their attempts at Israel's destruction caused them. That's what brought the late president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, to Jerusalem three decades ago. I wish there was another way, but I seriously doubt it.

Taking out a like number of murderers for innocent Jews slaughtered won't do the trick. There comes a time when the body of the snake must be addressed along with its head.

Arab civilians who die in Israel's retaliation will die because their elected Hamas heroes hide behind and among them. Furthermore, those civilians will be virtual accomplices to the terror masters themselves...i.e. not exactly "innocent," and not the same as the Jewish kid coming home from school on the bus that gets blown apart.

As always, Israel must make clear its desire to be a good neighbor. Countries around the world have benefited tremendously via their association with Israel.

But Israel must also make unmistakably clear that it will no longer allow Arabs to dictate how the game will be played. And it must be willing to take a cut in American aid and such if it comes to that.

If Hamasstan does as is expected, Israel must fight to win--despite demands from elsewhere that it still fight with one hand virtually tied behind its back.

Israel won't make any new enemies that it doesn't already have. But it will eliminate many others that already exist.

Only afterwards, when the dust settles (as in other wars elsewhere), will there then be a chance for some kind of peace.