Gaza violence

Violent conflict and war are appealing options for politicians, particularly in democracies and particularly before elections. The conflict tends to rally citizens against a common enemy. This effect can be seen in the high popularity ratings of George W. Bush following the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister and Labor Party leader, has been rescued from a political death by the attacks on Gaza.
These politicians, however, frequently ignore the longer term issues in favor of short term political gain. (This leaves out a discussion of the morality of the Bush Doctrine of preventative war.) These issues include: who is the enemy, where is the enemy, what are the objectives, can the resources be mobilized to achieve the objectives or do the objectives need to be modified to meet the resources.
In Gaza it is not clear that any of this has been considered. Besides electoral considerations, the stated Israeli objective is to stop Hamas rocket fire into Israel. How this attack will achieve this objective given the resources that can realistically be brought to bear is unclear to me.
There are a number of possible outcomes to the Israeli military attack on Gaza. Among them are:
One: Hamas accedes to Israel’s demands and meekly accepts the occupation. (Not likely)
Two: Israel ceases military operations and withdraws, threatening to return and bomb, and the cycle of violence continues.
Three: Israel succeeds in killing the Palestinian leadership and destroying the security infrastructure and Gaza deteriorates into a Somalia like failed state dominated by criminal gangs and tribal rivalries and is a fertile ground for al Qaeda.
Four: Israel invades and physically reoccupies Gaza. (Not likely as Israel would then be responsible for 1.5 mm Palestinians.)
Five: Israel invades, and, as in Lebanon in 2006, gets its nose bloodied (Like Americans, Israelis have a high tolerance for enemy deaths and a low tolerance for their own.) and agrees to a ceasefire that stops the rocket fire and opens the border crossings. (In my opinion this could have happened without the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people.)
In my recent conversation with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal he talked about Hamas’ commitment to the resistance, resistance only within Palestine (no cross border operations) and stopping the resistance when the occupation ends. (An excerpt from his comments is here)

It is likely that his view today would be different. (An interesting article on the internal politics of Hamas is here)