"Israel must accept the demands of the Palestinian people or face a long war," Osama Hamdan, the head of Hamas's foreign affairs, said on Facebook.
When you consider that Hamas' ultimate demand is the elimination of Israel, why would the Israelis not choose "long war?"
Note also the implicit recognition by Hamas that while Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel, Israel would not choose a third alternative of wiping out the Palestinians to avoid the choices Hamas offered. Hamas can safely assume that an Israeli rejection of Hamas demands would be long war and not ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
And no, it is not a brilliant rejoinder to Hamas's ultimate objective to note that Israel's Likud Party has a party platform with some disturbing things to say about Palestinians (if what Palestinian supporters say is true, of course). If I may point out the obvious, the "militant wing" of Likud has not lobbed rockets at Gaza to carry out that paper platform.
