Instead of talking to gangsters such as Hamas, Israel should be hunting them down and putting an end to the threat they pose to innocent life and limb.
Well, now it is official.

After months of media reports and speculation suggesting that the Israeli government was conducting talks with Hamas, along comes a senior cabinet member and confims it once and for all.

Speaking at a faction meeting of the ruling Kadima party, Vice Premier Haim Ramon acknowledged that the government is in fact holding talks with the terrorist group - even though this violates the terms of a cabinet decision proscribing such talks as long as Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognize the Jewish state.

In a certain sense, I guess it should come as no surprise - after all, the government had little compunction making deals with Yasser Arafat, despite the rivers of innocent Jewish blood on his hands.

Nonetheless, Ramon's revelation is disheartening and even sickening. Hamas continues to fire rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns and cities, and remains inalterably committed to the Jewish state's destruction.

Instead of talking to gangsters such as Hamas, Israel should be hunting them down and putting an end to the threat they pose to innocent life and limb.

It is a sad indicator of just how much our current leadership has lost its way when it is willing to talk with Hamas terrorists, rather than eliminate them.