President Bush has used his weekly radio address to blame Hamas for the Israeli bombardment of Gaza this week.

On Saturday Mr. Bush said, "This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas."

In rather strong language the president said Hamas took over the Gaza Strip 18 months ago "in a coup."

"Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, but Hamas routinely violated that ceasefire by launching rockets into Israel," Mr Bush said.

"On December 19th, Hamas announced an end to the ceasefire and soon unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis, an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President Abbas," President Bush added.

What was largely being said on Saturday was what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last Saturday when the aerial bombardment of Gaza began.

"We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence there," Rice said. "The ceasefire must be restored immediately and fully respected."

The reality is the ceasefire was being respected by Hamas and was ended by it because Israel, according to Hamas, was not meeting its obligations under the agreement.

President Bush's statement Saturday that Hamas "routinely violated" the ceasefire is at complete odds with the State Department's understanding. Ms Rice herself, in remarks reported by The Associated Press on December 19, the day Hamas announced it would not renew the ceasefire, accepted the ceasefire had largely been observed, and in fact was concerned hostilities would be resumed.

“I sincerely hope that there will not be a resumption of the violence because that is not going to help the people of Gaza, it is not going to help the Palestinians, it is not going to help the Palestinian cause,” she said.

Hamas had been concerned about what it termed Israeli violations. In a statement posted on its Web site on December 19, Hamas said Israel had breached agreements by imposing a painful economic blockade on Gaza, staging military strikes into the densely populated coastal strip and continuing to hunt down Hamas operatives in the West Bank.

“Since the enemy did not abide with the conditions, we hold the enemy fully responsible for ending the truce and we confirm that the Palestinian resistance factions headed by Hamas will act,” the statement said.

What has been overlooked by President Bush and Secretary of State Rice is the incursion by Israel into Gaza on November 5 which left several militants dead. This incident is widely regarded as the main cause of the breakdown in the ceasefire, with both sides, until then, seemingly prepared to live with minor violations.

The Associated Press in an article published on December 19 validated this view.

"Though violence and casualties dropped significantly under the ceasefire agreement, the truce has increasingly unraveled since early November, when Israeli soldiers entered Gaza to destroy a tunnel that the army said could have been used in a cross-border raid. In response, Palestinian militants resumed firing rockets at Israel," The Associated Press reported.

Time magazine in a report published four days earlier on December 15 backed The Associated Press report, and calculated the ceasefire, until the Israeli military raid, had resulted in a dramatic decline in projectile attacks.

"From the beginning of the year until June 19, Israel was struck by 2,660 projectiles fired from Gaza. From June 19, when the tahdiya went into effect, to Nov. 4, the total was 65. But on Nov. 5 a new round of "negotiations" — with weapons — began when Israel struck what it said were militants tunneling under the Gaza fence. Hamas responded with a barrage of rocket fire that has continued for most of the past month," the Time report said.

A month earlier Yoram Cohen, until recently the Deputy Director of the Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet, wrote a similar account for the Washington Institute.

"Last week, Israeli forces entered Gaza, destroyed an underground border tunnel, and battled Hamas fighters, leaving several militants dead. In response, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired around eighty rockets into southern Israel, including the Israeli city of Ashkelon," he wrote

"On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas began observing an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which was intended to last six months with an option to extend. In general, Hamas has observed the ceasefire; the number of attacks and rocket launches has decreased significantly, and Hamas has prevented other Gaza militant organizations from striking Israel," wrote Cohen.

Five weeks before the November 5 Israeli raid Secretary Rice was asked, because of Hamas' observance of the ceasefire whether a future administration might reach out to them. In an interview with Reuters at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York she was asked, "Okay. Hamas, whatever you may think of them, have more or less observed a ceasefire in Gaza in terms of rockets into Israel. Would you think that it might be for, perhaps, a future administration to try to, if only indirectly, reach out to them a bit more than has been possible up to now?"

Secretary Rice: "I think the proper course is reaching out to the Palestinian leadership, which by the way President Abbas, as President of the Palestinian Authority, is the legitimate president of all the Palestinian people and he is the negotiator as head of the PLO."

On the day of the Hamas announcement of its ending of the ceasefire on December 19 State Department spokesman Sean McCormack repeatedly acknowledged the effects of the ceasfire but couldn't quite bring himself to say it should be renewed.

At a daily press briefing in Washington McCormack was asked, "Do you have any reaction to the surge in tension in and around Gaza now that the truce has been broken?"

McCormack: "Well, as I said the other day, the interests of the people of the region, both Palestinians in Gaza as well as Israelis, are served by not having violence along that border. The people of Gaza have been ill-served by Hamas. They have – Hamas has only sought to create tensions and to try to derail efforts to arrive at a peaceful political solution between Israel and the Palestinians. And we would only hope that we see a continuation of the diminishment in levels of violence along that Gaza border.

Reporter: "And then you would like to see a restoration of the ceasefire?"

McCormack: "Well, this is something that was worked out involving the Israelis, involving the Palestinians, and I believe with the help of the Egyptians, and we weren’t involved in those efforts. I would only comment it from the perspective of you don’t want to see violence anywhere, because it’s only innocent people that are affected by it."

Reporter: "So, but I don’t get why, I mean, the Russians, for example, have said that they were not directly involved in establishing the ceasefire, but they have come out and said publicly they’d like to see it restored. And I wonder why you –"

McCormack: "Whatever the mechanism is, I mean, ultimately, what you want to see is a group like Hamas turn away from use of violence, abjure the use of violence, abjure terrorism. We’re not at that point yet. So that’s what we would like to see. Whatever the mechanism is that is acceptable to the Israeli Government to not see violence used against its citizens, then, of course, we’re not going to stand in the way of that. But – so I’m coming it at it from a little different perspective."

"You know, what we would like to see is Hamas be an organization that has completely turned away from terror. They haven’t done that. In the meantime, you have had these efforts at a truce, a hudna. And certainly, the fact that you haven’t had for some period of time violence along that border is a good thing for the people that – "

Reporter: "Well, I mean, one other thing. You said that Hamas has done nothing but seek to derail the efforts to achieve a political solution.

McCormack: "Mm-hmm."

Reporter: "But presumably, the fact that – and the levels of violence have indeed decreased under this ceasefire. I know they haven’t gone away. There have been rockets fired, but at a much lower rate than prior to the ceasefire. And I know that there have been Israeli actions, too. But again, less than previously. Presumably, the fact that Hamas chose, to some degree, to abjure from violence to some degree over this period was, in fact, something that created political space for the continuation of the negotiations that you’ve worked so hard on.

McCormack: "I don’t know. I guess – you know, again, the lack of violence along the borders in the interest of the people there, whether or not that has actually contributed to the ability of the Israeli Government and President Abbas to move forward the negotiating process, you would have to talk to both parties. I’m not equipped to make that political assessment of the situation in Israel as well as in the Palestinian areas."

"And what I was referring to is the fact that, you know, Hamas continues to try to rebuild its strength, that it continues to be an obstacle to a political settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, this diminution in the use of terror and violence notwithstanding."

President Bush in his radio address made it clear his administration was not interested in "another one-way ceasefire." It would appear the president would be in accord with Hamas on that point, hence the decision Islamic militant organization took not to renew.

As for Mr McCormack he probably unwittingly let the cat out of the bag: The U.S. was not interested in the ceasefire being renewed - notwithstanding it had been largely successful.

And Israel by virtue of the November 5 raid, and its retention of the blockade throughout the ceasefire, seemingly wasn't interested either.