And so it becomes clear

Updated As Israeli tanks and troops crash into Gaza, it becomes clear that what was suspected is true: The goal is not defense, it is destruction. Destruction of Hamas. Destruction not of Hamas as a "terrorist organization," but of Hamas as a government.

It was actually clear - it was admitted - days ago. On Wednesday, The Times (UK) was able to report that

"[t]he goal of the operation is to topple Hamas,” Haim Ramon, the deputy to Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, said. ...

Brigadier-General Dan Harel, the Israeli deputy chief of staff, said that his forces would erase every trace of Hamas from Gaza’s crowded cities.

“After this operation there will not be a single Hamas building left standing in Gaza, and we plan to change the rules of the game,” the general said.

“We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas Government and all its wings. We are hitting government buildings, production factories, security wings and more.”

Sunday's New York Times added the information that

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel said, “There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region.”

Vice Premier Haim Ramon went even further Friday night in an interview on Israeli television, saying Israel must not end this operation with Hamas in charge of Gaza.

“What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern,” Mr. Ramon said on Channel One. “That is the most important thing.” ...

Israel has not spared the trappings of Hamas sovereignty or limited itself to military targets. It says that the mosques it has destroyed were weapons storehouses and that the Islamic University, which it has hit repeatedly, housed explosives factories. But it has also reduced many government buildings to rubble without any claim that they were military in nature.

“The government buildings are a place where financial, logistical and human resources serve to support terror,” said Capt. Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the Israeli military. “Much of the government is involved in the active support and planning of terror.”

(That last, I'll note in passing, is an argument championed by the US in the 1991 Gulf War, when civilian targets like public roads and telephone switching stations were declared military targets because they "could help Iraq's military," a definition by which, I remarked at the time, "it becomes hard to think of anything that is not a 'military target.'")

But of course even in that face of that, the US media couldn't bring itself to acknowledging the fact. So the very same day, the NYT also said that

it remained an open question whether Israel would try to oust the Hamas government*

and ABC News was citing a conveniently anonymous Israeli "government official" who quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling his inner Cabinet on Saturday that

Israel's objective was to bring quiet to southern Israel but "we don't want to topple Hamas."

The latter report, if true, brands Haim Ramon a liar but actually sounds a great deal more like an exercise in CYA, because, as the NYT noted,

while it may sound decisive to speak of taking Hamas out of power, almost no one familiar with Gaza and Palestinian politics considers it realistic.

So talk tough for international and domestic consumption, lay out the real goal, but knowing you may well fail, have the fallback that "the Prime Minister never said that."

But here's my real point in raising this: Deputy Prime Minister Ramon also said that

“We will stop firing immediately if someone takes the responsibility of this government, anyone but Hamas. ... We are favourable to any other government to take the place of Hamas.”

Mr. Ramon, you are a liar. A damned bold-faced liar.

First, "anyone?" Who else is there? Fatah? They're not only seen as corrupt but as collaborators because of the utter failure of their moderation to secure any genuine concessions from Israel; taking over Gaza in the wake of an Israeli attack would only confirm that judgment. A Fatah government wouldn't last a month and that's probably optimistic. Egypt? It's already said no to the possibility and it has no intention of taking up the burden of guaranteeing humanitarian conditions in Gaza, the same burden Israel has shamefully and illegally shunned. NATO, as some have suggested? The answer there is also no.

The fact is, there isn't anyone else. And I find it impossible to believe that Mr. Ramon doesn't know this. Again, as so many times before, Israel has set down conditions for progress toward a wider agreement which it knows can't be met.

And second, suppose, just suppose, there was someone else. Are we supposed to imagine for a single second that when Ramon said "any other government" he actually meant any other government rather than "a government acceptable to Israel," a government, let's be blunt, of either pro-Israel foreign occupiers or Quislings?

(I'm flashing on Phil Ochs' song "Cops of the World," specifically the lines "We'll spit through the streets of the cities we wreck/And we'll find you a leader that you can elect.")

Even that begs the question: What sort of government would be acceptable to Israel? We've been down this road before. Not that long ago the cry was "Anybody but Arafat." But the truth is, no Palestinian leader is acceptable to Israel. Even when they got the one they said they preferred - Mahmoud Abbas - they set about to downplay and undermine chances for a settlement, changing the rules, upping the ante, moving the goalposts, even before he was inaugurated.

Israel does not want a peace which does not include Israeli domination of the Palestinians. That is, except among those members of the Israeli rejectionist front who don't want to dominate the Palestinians, they want them tossed out of Gaza and the West Bank entirely so it can all become part of "greater Israel."

(That expulsionist impulse is not limited to the more extreme elements of Israeli society, either. In November 2007, Foreign Minister Livni said that a future Palestinian state

will not be a solution just for the Palestinians who live in the West Bank. It is designed to provide a comprehensive national solution - for those living in the West Bank, and the refugees camps, and even for the [Arab] citizens of Israel.

That is, she envisioned that the Palestinians now living in Israel proper would either leave or be kicked out.

By the way, the link is from a group of Orthodox Jews called True Torah Jews Against Zionism which claims that the existence of Israel as a Jewish political entity is actually contrary to the Torah. I would not even dare to pretend to be enough of a Biblical scholar to argue that point one way or the other.)

Always it's the same. A ceasefire starts with much fanfare and grandiose expressions of hope and progress. But no progress is made, no Israeli concessions appear, more settlements are built, more demands are made on Palestinian authorities to do for Israel what it has been unable to do for itself, repression continues, the taking of land continues, Palestinian anger builds, the ceasefire ends or breaks down, and that very ending becomes the excuse for continued, even increased, repression - until the next ceasefire.

It's time to stop. Period. End it. Now. And the best thing we as Americans can do to that end is to demand an end to US military aid and sales to Israel until and unless Israel reaches specific agreements - not promises, not more "if they stop, we can talk" bull because, again, we've gone that way too many times before to have any faith in it, but specific agreements - to lift the blockade of Gaza, to accept the results of democratic elections among Palestinians (which means accepting a government lead by Hamas), to tear down any part of its "separation fence" that extends beyond the so-called "Green Line" (the borders of Israel proper), to remove settlers from the West Bank (except for any prepared to live under Palestinian rule), to restore lands illegally taken from Palestinians, to allow a limited "right of return," and to establish a truly independent, truly self-governing, Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Until then, there should be no aid except humanitarian assistance to both Israelis and Palestinians. We may not be able to stay the hangman's hand but we can at least stop paying for the rope.

*Interesting: A few hours later, with no indication the change was made, that phrase has disappeared from the online version of the story. In its place is a statement of the official Israeli position that "it is not their aim now to fully reoccupy Gaza," which of course is a completely separate issue from overthrowing the Hamas government.

Updated with the inclusion of the graphic, which reads "I, too, am against the war in Gaza." It apparently originated at a website in Israel, but unhappily for me, that site is in Hebrew, of which I can't read word one. I found it at The Magnes Zionist.