Israeli officials are facing backlash after years of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu quietly allowing Hamas to remain in power.
But reporting in the New York Times has revealed that Netanyahu’s government was more hands-on about helping Hamas: they helped a Qatari diplomat bring suitcases of cash into Gaza, indirectly boosting the militant organization, according to the report.
The calculus — the Times reported on Sunday, citing Israeli officials, Netanyahu’s critics, and the man’s own reported statements — was to keep Hamas strong enough to counteract the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, allowing Netanyahu to avoid a two-state peace solution and keep both sides weak.
Israeli security officials got it wrong; they didn’t think Hamas was capable, or even interested, in launching a large attack against the Jewish state.
I mean this isn’t anything new. We’ve known this since at least 2015 when ex-IDF top brass officials that worked in Gaza during the occupation have come clean about it in interviews. And the motivation behind this is also logical. The palestinian authority was playing the white man’s game. They were going through the UN, filing motions against Israel, passing resolutions, and so on. Hamas is much easier to deal with. They don’t bother with all that civilised bureaucratic stuff, in part because no one recognizes them anyway. It’s easier to drop bombs on Hamas than on PA officials and thus continue the illegal occupation. As the current Israeli president has put it in an interview before: “Hamas is an asset” for Israel. [1] They’re easier to work with.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian-authority/
They fed a monster to destroy diplomacy and then act surprised when the monster mauled them.
I doubt it was the initial plan but that certainly seems to be how they are rolling now. Now they have a solid casus belli to justify massive bombing on a population.
Not quite. Hamas and Netanyahu are still quite comfortable. It creates a political situation they both want. The latter is “surprised” at all the innocent people the monster killed, but in reality they don’t give a shit. The government gets to consolidate its strength and kill more people.
They’re enriching themselves off the backs of the Palestinian and Israeli people.
It clearly is not known by people who go “Israel is needs to defend itself against Hamas”. It’s an obvious contradiction if you know Israel funds Hamas, which means, considering Hanlon’s razor, those people simply don’t know any better.
It wasn’t Israel funds being smuggled in, it was Qatari funds. And how would it have looked if Israel blocked official Qatari aid to Gaza?
If you want the technicality that it wasn’t Israeli money then sure, but everyone knew what that money was for and Israel wasn’t just complicit in handing it over, per the very article Israel actually lobbied in the US to not sanction Qatar. Furthermore Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset” and Netanyahu has expressed similar sentiment “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas”
The Israeli government wants to keep Hamas in power because when your opposition look like crazed lunatics it’s much easier to seem like the sane one for running the worlds biggest open air prison.
