This is why you cannot give in to terrorist demands. This is why it is pointless to "try to understand why" those who commit horrific acts of violence against innocents to further a religio-political agenda do so. Hamas vows to continue fight

In a show of force, Hamas founders and political leaders appeared Saturday on a stage together for the first time in 10 years to tell the Palestinian people that the militant group's armed struggle will go on after Israel's impending withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. 'Tomorrow Jerusalem,' Abbas exults Less than three days after he urged Palestinians to refrain from excessive celebrations over the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday presided over a huge celebration in Gaza City where he declared: "Today we are celebrating the liberation of Gaza and the northern West Bank; tomorrow we will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem." The Israeli government acquiesced to the demands of terrorists. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO: these are terrorist organizations. They demanded land which was never theirs to begin with--that's right, the land of "Palestine" has always belonged to some other nation, including Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, so why aren't the Palestinians sending suicide bombers in to those nations?--through the use of terror. These are not "freedom fighters" or "insurgents," they are terrorists. The Israeli government caved, and it got them nothing. The reason is simple: the Palestinians, with the sometimes silent, sometimes vocal, backing of the entire Arab world, want nothing less than the complete and total destruction of Israel. They want all the Jews out of the land, dead or alive, but one could infer preferably dead. They want no Jewish state to exist. You cannot reason with people like this. You cannot give in to their demands and hope for the best. You kill them. You achieve total and complete victory, with overwhelming military force. Then you set about dictating the terms of the peace, and you help rebuild. It worked it Japan. It worked in Germany. It will work in Afghanistan and Iraq. It could have worked within the borders of Israel.