Captain Ed on "Terrorists with Bad Aim"

Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups which constitute the Palestinians' only political parties have recently been staging a convincing demonstration of why it is madness for Israel to pull out of Gaza. Captain Ed's analysis is particularly apt:

Neither Islamic Jihad nor Hamas would take responsibility for the botched attack, but IJ had spent the past few months defying the cease-fire as part of the triangle strategy I've described often here at CQ. That allows two of the three main terrorist factions -- IJ, Hamas, and Fatah -- to endorse cease-fire agreements while the third ignores them. When Israel responds in kind, then the other two blame Israel for violating the cease fire and begin attacking again. This strategy has played itself out more regularly than Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, and yet people routinely take the Palestinians seriously when they pronounce their willingness to stop terrorist attacks on Israeli buses, pizzerias, and so on.