From: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9290.shtml

Aside from the United States, Israel is the only country where the murder of foreign leaders is openly debated as a policy option.

"The next logical step" for the Israeli government "will have to be a decision whether to target the top political leadership" of Hamas. So said an Israeli official quoted in The Jerusalem Post. Tzahi Hanegbi, a senior member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party and chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, echoed the call, arguing that "There's no difference between those who wear a suicide suit and a diplomat's suit." Following a cabinet meeting on 10 February, Israel's Interior Minister Shimon Sheetrit specifically called for the execution of Ismail Haniyeh, the democratically-elected Hamas prime minister, and added that for good measure "We must take a neighborhood in Gaza and wipe it off the map."

Israeli official propaganda presents all its recent actions as defensive and necessary to stop the rockets fired by Palestinian fighters in Gaza. 

When it was elected in January 2006, Hamas had observed a unilateral ceasefire for more than a year. After the election, Hamas' leaders offered a long-term total truce...

Last December, Haaretz reported that Hamas had secured the agreement of all factions to end rocket fire on Israel, provided Israel reciprocated. 

Olmert rejected the December ceasefire offer. "The State of Israel," he said, "has no interest in negotiating with entities that do not recognize the Quartet demands."

For Israel the potential that Hamas could turn to politics presents a threat, not an opportunity. 

But here is where the great danger lies: with its escalation in Gaza and refusal to accept a ceasefire, Israel may be trying to provoke more rocket attacks and force Hamas into abandoning its political strategy altogether to provide the needed pretext to "decapitate" the organization. Unfortunately, there are signs that Hamas is jumping into the trap.