from somebody who fancies himself as being somewhere in the middle:

1) if anyone doesn't understand that on the israeli side this is about upcoming israeli elections, they need to go study some more. whoever's post (there are so many) who said it was to beef up the current administration's tough guy credentials versus the return of netanyahu is absolutely correct. as far as the west bank is concerned, it follows with irrefutable logic, this attack might be beneficial; the current administration seems to be slowly dragging its ass towards at least disengaging from the west bank, netanyahu will start colonising it again. there an be no doubt that Abbas is inwardly cheering as he is outwardly deploring.

2) does anybody else think that timing of this is significant, in terms of BO (before obama) and during the lame duckhood? i strongly suspect so.

3) does anybody else suspect that this might also involve some sort of message to Iran? hamas and hezbolla being the de facto forward units of the iranian military on the Israel front, and iran getting nuclear, and so on? not sure about this one, myself, just throwing it out there.

4) and finally, yes Gaza is a dreadful place, but then Gaza's always been a dreadful place since at least before Israel's formation in 1948. it didn't help when, come founding of the short-lived palestinian state in 1948, "the Gaza Strip became a slum backyard of Egypt while the Mayor of Hebron handed over the West Bank to the Jordanian monarchy at a ceremony in Jericho." (Robert Fisk, The Independent)

but some perspective...

"I must confess that when Hamas militants blasted holes into Egypt's border to end an Israeli blockade on Gaza, my first thought was how lucky those Gazans were. Landlocked and living on less than $2 a day—their plight rarely elicits envy, I know. But there are Egyptian slums that swim in more sewage and are submerged in even greater poverty. In those slums, chronic diseases go unchecked and uncured, and children grow up next to the dead in tombs turned into makeshift-housing.

Yet nobody rushes to blast holes into the imaginary border of poverty that suffocates those slums, nor are they sporting t-shirts urging us to sympathise. Why?

Because Israel cannot be blamed."

http://www.mideastweb.org/at_the_altar_of_palestine_cg.htm

and a similar view from the inside:

"In Gaza there is also enough money and food and goods to sustain entire communities and cities living in the neighbouring Arab countries; yes, there are poor people, but not as a direct result of the blockade. There were also poor people in the most flourishing times in Gaza, the days of our leader and symbol Abu Zahwa and his dog Lulu Dahlan, may God entertain him and defeat his enemies!

The Gaza citizen, with all the disaster he faces, lives a life of plenty in comparison to that of the Egyptian or Jordanian citizen; the Palestinian tragedy right now just consists of the lack of fuel and electricity, and not being permitted to travel. The dissemination of images of Gaza on satellite channels are absolutely not true, showing hungry children eating scraps of bread and leftover food.

This narrow band teeming with a strange mix of people and known as the Gaza Strip is a problem and a tragedy in itself even without the blockade. Forty-five percent of the population is under 18; it’s an adolescent, teenage society, so is impetuous, hot-headed, moody, and unaware.

This is a mass of humans, expanding in huge numbers, their mouths and muzzles demanding their right to live and carve up resources that weren’t there in the first place. These days if you want to rent an apartment in Gaza it is very hard to find one, especially as building materials have been blocked since the overthrow until today. When I look at the terrible numbers in schools and universities I am stupefied; where will these multitudes go, capable of wreaking havoc in a prison that swells with more prisoners and tightens its choking grip day by day? Maybe Mahmoud Zahar of the Hamas leadership was being farsighted and showing a fertile imagination, when he said that with his party he is determined to conquer Egypt and Jordan and establish an Islamic caliphate in both countries; he will be able to discharge this mass of humans here and there while Gaza becomes the nucleus of these Islamic states. "

http://nostaliga.blogspot.com/2008/12/blog-post_06.html

see also Mike Davis' "Planet of Slums, The Monster at Our Door" for a lengthy treatise on the slums of the world, gaza included, and how abandoning them to fester will inevitably bring retribution. The flip side of Thomas Friedman's 'flat world' of happy middle class bourgeoisie, if you will.

but make no mistake about it; the hamas leadership benefits from this invasion politically as much as the current israeli administration, and they knew exactly what was going to happen from the moment they decided to end the truce. the fact that the price ends up paid by rank and file Gaza residents and not Israelis doesn't somehow release the Hamas leaders from, at a minimum, an equal share of the guilt. some would think it even more morally outrageous to sacrifice some of one's own people in the service of winning the support of those who survive. oh, and in the meritorious hope of one's people eventually regaining freedom and honor and dignity, of course, as embodied in leadership by none other than one's own self.