"reason for a ceasefire now...to stop the killing & to ensure that a year or two from now we are not all wishing that Hamas was still in charge.."

A warped opinion that makes sense... In TPM-Cafe, here

"Bringing Hamas to power is one of the most horrific legacies of the Bush administration. In retrospect, the decision to oust Arafat (who had demonstrated the ability to thwart terrorism, and had reduced it to almost zero between 1997 and 2000) was a blunder. The administration's subsequent stingy support for Mahmoud Abbas was incomprehensible and its decision to force the Palestinian elections that brought Hamas to power--and which Israel and Abbas opposed--was about as benighted a foreign policy move as any in history."