a military action, not a terrorist act

I agree with Hillel Halkin that there is a distinction, that it should be noted, and that the Palestinians’ attack on an Israeli military station and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier was not an act of terrorism:

It was in fact anything but that. If terror consists of randomly killing and maiming non-combatant civilians for the purpose of sowing fear and insecurity, Sunday’s raid, carried out by the military wing of Hamas, was the antithesis: A well-planned and well-executed attack on a strictly military target that was chosen long in advance and reached through the laborious digging of an underground tunnel half-a-mile long.

I also agree with this point:

The Palestinian Authority now has a Hamas government - and however this government may twist or turn, and however it may have tried to disassociate itself from the hundreds of Kassam rockets shot from the Gaza Strip into Israel with its complicit knowledge in recent months, it can not disassociate itself from the Hamas soldiers who raided the Israeli outpost on Sunday.

This point has not been lost on Abbas, who condemned the military action immediately and has ordered Palestinians to find the kidnapped Israeli soldier. On the other hand, the Palestinians cannot have it both ways—either Hamas is one entity or it has separate military and political wings. Surprisingly, the New York Times goes out of its way to underscore this point:

Ghazi Hamad, the spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said in an interview that Mr. Haniya and the government were not a party to the raid. “We are not involved in military action,” he said. “We are never involved with this. All the Palestinian factions have military wings and political wings. This is because we are still in a liberation stage and a building stage.”

But in an interview with The New York Times 10 days ago, Mr. Hamad insisted that Hamas was one organization with a single leadership, making decisions collectively.

This unfolding story will certainly change over the course of the day, and the next days and weeks, but I agree with Efraim Halevy that Hamas is at a crossroads:

Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, a senior adviser to three prime ministers and former head of the National Security Council, said the Shalit affair posed a serious test to Hamas, whether it could get its own house in order “and act like a responsible government.” If so, he said, “it could be a turning point” in the way the world views Hamas.