They can't fire rockets because they might hit Israeli civilians.

They must stay in the open where they can be pulverized by Israeli airstrikes.

They must accept Isarel's blockage because "smuggling" arms is wrong.

No national liberation movement in history could follow these rules.

Gee. Any act of Palestinian resistence is wrong. Unless....it is entirely ineffective. So Abbas: How are those negotiating going in the West Bank? You're not firing rockets so those settlements and checkpoints are disappearing, right?

There is no moral light. "War is hell", said the General.

We ought not let the Arab League off the hook either. Would it be so painful of a concession to initiate some good will gestures toward Israel as part of the famous Arab League Initiative? Not necessarily even formal recognition, but parhaps something meaningful, yet reversable (should they see fit), like a formal end of the economic boycott or diplomatic exchanges beyond the three member nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Hamas and the Israeli West Bank settlers are BOTH dominated by ruthless fanatics whose beliefs are antithetical to the principles of the United States and whose actions are anathema to American interests in peace in the Mideast. These terrorist zealots are defacto partners in a so-far successful effort to condemn the region to eternal war. Having failed to deal with this challenge conclusively between 1967 and 2000, and having not lifted a finger to try to deal with it between 2000 and 2008, it may now very well be beyond even the capability of a still semi-strong "superpower" to significantly influence things in the direction of a two-state compromise. If Obama wants to make an effort, however -as seems at least possible- there is first a more fundamental roadblock to remove. America over the last eight years has been much worse than an incompetent bystander to the Mideast madness. The administration and the Congress have been craven tools, rubberstamps, and propagandists at the service of one of the two groups of warring lunatics. The foolish tolerance and pretended ignorance of that idiocy has to stop.

Since you keep repeating things, I can as well.

Human Shields:

Used by Hamas

Schoolgirls chanting their defiance of Israel were among the crowd that gathered to defend the two-storey home in the town of Beit Lahiya. Along with the girls had come old men, neighbours and militants.
All of them were ready to defy the Israeli air force. They were ready to put themselves in the line of fire.
But they knew too that a similar human shield tactic had worked a few days earlier.
The Israelis had backed off knowing that to strike would cause large numbers of civilian casualties which would, of course, have played very badly in the court of international opinion.
For years Palestinians have been completely at the mercy of the Israeli air force. But they clearly believe that now they have found a weakness.
If they know an attack is coming they can probably foil it by massing in the target zone.
The Israelis can no longer expect to limit civilian casualties by calling ahead and clearing people out.

It was his mother who met them in the hallway, Israeli soldiers in a Palestinian home. Behind her, Hazem and his two brothers emerged, one by one.
The three brothers were blindfolded, says Hazem, and their hands tied behind their backs. He shows me the wounds on his wrists from the plastic handcuffs - still sore and infected, but beginning to heal over.
He shows me where the soldiers positioned them: outside the entrance to his flat on the third floor, in the stairwell, facing down the steps.
"I think they put us here because they were expecting suiciders to come into the flat because none of the soldiers were on the stairs - they were all inside the flat. They put us here so we'll be shot first."

One of Israel's founding Ministers of Education and Culture, Professor Ben-Zion Dinur (1954), said it most sharply; “In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don't agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force" (History of the Haganah). With this theme as the explicit backdrop of a newly established State, it is no wonder that Israel, 58 years later, has had little chance of being a normal member of the state of nations.

15/4/2006 As many predicted, including myself, the newly elected Palestinian government led by Hamas has already started to show an impressive level of pragmatism, however, Israel and the U.S. seem to not be interested. As a matter of fact the U.S., in specific, is leading a global campaign to isolate the Palestinian government in such a haphazard way, that they are also causing a troubling level of despair among the average Palestinian citizen as well.

Dr. Robert Pastor, a professor at American University and senior adviser to the Carter Centre, who met with Khaled Meshal, chairman of the Hamas political bureau in Damascus on Dec. 14, along with former President Jimmy Carter. Pastor told IPS that Meshal indicated Hamas was willing to go back to the ceasefire that had been in effect up to early November "if there was a sign that Israel would lift the siege on Gaza".
Pastor said he passeda Meshal's statement on to a "senior official" in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) the day after the meeting with Meshal. According to Pastor, the Israeli official said he would get back to him, but did not.
"There was an alternative to the military approach to stopping the rockets," said Pastor. He added that Israel is unlikely to have an effective ceasefire in Gaza unless it agrees to lift the siege.

"It is irresponsible to exclude Hamas from international participation in UN and other diplomatic discussions relating to a ceasefire; Hamas demands for unconditional Israeli withdrawal, immediate ceasefire, and an opening of all crossings (i.e. lifting the blockade) are reasonable, deserve to be accepted, and accord with international law; to discount the relevance by labeling [it a] 'terrorist organization' is extremely dysfunctional from the perspective of conflict resolution, as it would be to call Israel 'a terrorist state.'"

"Anyone vaguely familiar with international law, or human rights principles recognizes that the siege and blockade of Gaza, which Israel has been carrying out for 18 month PRIOR to the present hostilities, is illegal and a gross violation of international law."

How did the recent ceasefire unravel? The mainstream media in the US and Israel places the blame squarely on Hamas. Indeed, a massive barrage of Palestinian rockets were fired into Israel in November and December, and ending this rocket fire is the stated goal of the current Israeli invasion of Gaza. However, this account leaves out crucial facts.
First, and most importantly, the ceasefire was remarkably effective: after it began in June 2008, the rate of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza dropped to almost zero, and stayed there for four straight months (see Figure 1, from a factsheet produced by the Israeli consulate in NYC). So much for the widespread view, exemplified in yesterday's New York Times editorial that: "There is little chance of restraining Hamas without dealing with its patrons in Syria and Iran." Instead, the data shows clearly that Hamas can indeed control the violence if it so chooses, and sometimes it does, for long periods of time.
Second, and just as important, what happened to end this striking period of peace? On November 4th, Israel killed a Palestinian, an event that was followed by a volley of mortars fired from Gaza. Immediately after that, an Israeli air strike killed six more Palestinians. Then a massive barrage of rockets was unleashed, leading to the end of the ceasefire. [Link to graph]
Thus the latest ceasefire ended when Israel first killed Palestinians, and Palestinians then fired rockets into Israel. However, before attempting to glean lessons from this event, we need to know if this case is atypical, or if it reflects a systematic pattern.
We decided to tally the data to find out. We analyzed the entire timeline of killings of Palestinians by Israelis, and killings of Israelis by Palestinians, in the Second Intifada, based on the data from the widely-respected Israeli Human Rights group B'Tselem (including all the data from September 2000 to October 2008).
...Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.
The lessons from these data are clear:
First, Hamas can indeed control the rockets, when it is in their interest. The data shows that ceasefires can work, reducing the violence to nearly zero for months at a time.
Second, if Israel wants to reduce rocket fire from Gaza, it should cherish and preserve the peace when it starts to break out, not be the first to kill.