Over the past seven years, Palestinian terrorist groups have launched more than 3,000 rockets at Israeli targets, killing 13 civilians. Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in August 2005, and the following year, missile strikes multiplied by five times. Today, Palestinian groups that used to average 50 rocket launches per month are now capable of firing that many in one day. And making the already unbearable threat even worse for Israel, the border breach with Egypt in January opened the door for Iran to upgrade Hamas’s firing capabilities.

Last Wednesday, February 28, in Sderot—the Israeli border town that has absorbed about 45 percent of the missile attacks—an Israeli citizen was murdered by a Kassam strike. The next day, Hamas successfully launched a Soviet-built Grad 122-mm missile on an apartment building in Ashkelon, located 10 miles from the Gaza border. No one was killed in the strike, but the attack on Ashkelon—a coastal city of 120,000 people and popular tourist destination—represented a major escalation of hostilities.

In response to the constant barrage of rockets coming from Gaza, Israel launched a large-scale incursion into Gaza last weekend, killing at least 110 Gazans, most of them terrorists. Before the invasion, Israel’s defense minister, Matan Vilnai, made a statement that received widespread coverage in the media: “The more Kassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

The Hebrew word shoah, while often used to refer to the Holocaust, has a broader meaning in Israel. Jews use the word to describe disasters in general. Vilnai later insisted that he used the word to refer to a disaster or catastrophe—obviously not another Second World War Holocaust. But Arab propagandists and their many allies in the international news media were quick to manipulate Vilnai’s comment in the Palestinians’ favor, portraying Arabs in Gaza as victims of genocide.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Israeli strikes were worse than the Holocaust. Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal called Israel’s raid in Gaza the real Holocaust.

While there were civilian casualties during Israel’s counterstrike, that retaliation, quite unlike the 3,000 rocket attacks, was not aimed at civilians. In fact, Israel’s strict policy of not targeting civilians is precisely why terrorist groups use their own civilians as shields. On Monday, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center outlined several instances where Hamas operatives made public appeals for civilians to surround terrorist infrastructures. According to the report,

1) Hamas’s Al-Aqsa tv and PalMedia Website called upon civilians to form a human shield at the home of Abu al-Hatal in the Sajaiya neighborhood … because the idf had threatened to blow it up (March 1).2) Al-Aqsa tv called upon the Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to go to the house of shaheed Othman al-Ruziana to protect it because the idf was threatening to blow it up (February 29).3) Al-Aqsa tv called upon the residents of Khan Yunis to gather at the house of Ma’amoun Abu Amer because the idf was threatening to blow it up (February 28). An hour later dozens of Palestinians from Khan Yunis were reported to have gathered on the roof of Abu Amer’s house to serve as human shields to prevent the house from being hit (PalToday website, February 28).

This is a win-win strategy for the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists. They indiscriminately fire Kassams and Grads at Israeli civilians. Then, when Israel fights back, Hamas pulls civilians into the firing line and screams bloody murder, prompting a media-driven international outcry, followed by Israel’s retreat.

This is what happened last weekend. On Sunday, Mahmoud Abbas called off the peace process with Israel. Later that day, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe ordered Israel to withdraw from Gaza. “The violence needs to stop,” he said, “and the talks need to resume.”

But in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet that Israel had “no intention of halting counter-terrorism actions, even for a second.” The next morning, however, Israel abruptly halted its raid on Gaza, handing Hamas yet another opportunity to declare victory.

At a press conference on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary Condoleezza Rice expressed remorse for the innocent civilians in Gaza who had been “caught” in the crossfire: “I have said to the Israelis, both privately and publicly that when they are engaged … in defending themselves, they need to be aware of the effects of those operations on innocent people. They need to be aware of the effects of those operations on the next day and what can happen the next day.”

She then explained the rationale behind U.S. pressure on Israel to retreat from Gaza and to return to the negotiating table with Abbas. “The key is to make certain that the peace process continues,” Rice said, “because ultimately the answer to extremism, ultimately the answer to the indignities that the Palestinian people endure, ultimately the answer to a stable peace and security for the Israeli people is to establish two states living side by side in peace and security.”

This is a lose-lose strategy for Israel. Within the parameters of the so-called peace process, Israel cannot retaliate against terrorism—at least not forcefully. Despite repeated rebukes, Hamastan launches more rockets, including longer-range missiles capable of reaching larger Israeli cities. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are promised a state existing side by side with Israel. And the ever-present influence of the mullahs in Tehran gains deadlier momentum by the day.

“From Hamas’s point of view,” Dan Diker wrote for Power Line on March 1, “its current terror escalation from Gaza does not seem to make sense.” But when viewed through the eyes of the terrorist headmasters in Iran, the grand strategy comes into clearer focus. Diker wrote (emphasis mine),

The West must understand that the ongoing rocket war Hamas has been waging against Israel and a possible major escalation now appears to be the Gaza chapter of Iran’s ongoing war against the West.Unfortunately, the United States and European countries have already voiced their opposition to a possible Israeli ground offensive in Gaza. Tehran can be counted on to use this additional leverage wisely in its deadly chess game against the U.S. and Europe.The Iranian strategy of destabilizing Egypt and Gaza while attacking Israel and threatening vital U.S. interests serves the Iranian leadership. Igniting Gaza focuses international attention away from Iran’s nuclear program at a critical time. Tehran can now buy many valuable months as it races to complete its atomic program while the international community led by the UN will be busy trying to broker an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians at a minimum.

Last weekend, during his much-publicized visit to Iraq, even as numerous voices in the Arab world were comparing Israel’s Gaza raid to the Holocaust, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delightedly proclaimed, “I already said last year that the real Holocaust was in Palestine.” Israel, he says, is the only obstacle there is to peace in the Middle East. And many influential voices and policymakers throughout the international community actually agree with him about that. They may not call for Israel to be “uprooted,” but they see Israel as an obstacle to peace in the region.

Meanwhile, with no sizeable obstacles in its path, Iran can sprint to the finish line in its pursuit of an atomic weapon.