The Hamas war strategy

During WWII, while the Holocaust was occuring, there was very little actual Jewish resistance. Certainly there were Jewish partisans in the forests of Eastern Europe, as exemplified by the Bielsky Brothers, whose story is told in an upcoming movie, and there were others. But, generally the Jews were passive and defenceless, cooperating with the Nazi German Government by paying indemnities that paid for their own rounding up, transportation and murder. It was the Allies, the USA and UK, that defeated Germany and then revealed to the world their disgusting treatment of the Jews, which was not only murderous but also deliberately humiliating.
Perhaps it was because of this history that there is a strategic policy in Israel that a war must never be fought on the land of the State of Israel and the Governments of the State have been determined to maintain a policy of "deterrence." Perhaps this is the origin of the so-called "disproportionate" use of force against a rather primitive terrorist gang that purports to destroy Israel, but has no major weapons systems. On the other hand, they make up for this in assymetrical warfare with rockets and suicide bombers.
According to reports of plans discovered in Gaza and interrogations of Hamas captives, the Hamas war doctrine, that was dictated by Iran, was in three parts. The first was to soften up Israel with rockets, which they did, and then with further suicide bombings, which they were prevented from doing. The Israeli building of the Security Fence and better intelligence together with targeted killings in Gaza and continued arrests and killings in the West Bank prevented this tactic from working.
The third stage of the Hamas strategy was to be an armed invasion of Israel from Gaza using the army of more than 10,000 men that were trained and armed by Iran. The intention was to capture one or two Israeli towns or cities, Sderot or Ashkelon, cause many casualties and take hostages, and then defeat the IDF. Of course, this aspect was "fantasy land", "pie in the sky," but the Arabs are good at this, especially since they believe Allah is on their side. The war in Gaza by the IDF was carried out to stop this plan. In the event of an Israeli counterattack, which the war in Gaza was, Hamas were to try to capture as many more IDF soldiers as possible to hold as hostages, and to capture pictures of burning Israeli ordnance, a destroyed tank or a personnel carrier blown up with IDF soldiers' bodies in it.
They were unable to accomplish any of these aims. They were forced to fall back on the usual tactic of showing photos of blood and babies and staging civilian casualties. No doubt there were civilian casualties, but has no other war caused them, have they never been seen before? No, never as much as in wars with the IDF. And the fact is that the tactic works, well-meaning but naieve liberals are falling all over themselves in the UK to help the poor people of Gaza with demonstrations and signs reading "We are all Hamas" and giving their hard-earned cash. Well meaning idiots, like the fellow travellers of the 1930s who were surprised to find out that Stalin was really as ruthless and murderous as his enemies said he was!
One hidden reason for the war on Hamas was the need for Israel to deliver a strong message that Iran's plans to attack and defeat Israel are futile and unrealizable. Only a deliverable Iranian nuclear weapon would, according to Pres. Obama, be a "game-changer."