Hamas – Israel Connection
Updated 2023-12-08
2023-10-31 For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group. The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip. Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
2023-10-24 THE MYSTERIES OF OCTOBER 7 Gaza and Hamas—the Islamist group that has led the territory since 2007—remain murky, confounding subjects today. Why did Hamas stage an early morning raid on October 7 in what turned out to be a series of unguarded kibbutzim in Israel south? Why were only a few Israelis Israeli soldiers on duty that morning?
We in the media do not know the full story. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is saying nothing about Israel’s failure to defend its citizens, although a number of leading generals have publicly apologized for their lapse, and Hamas has insisted that the mission it authorized was solely aimed at the capture of a few Israeli soldiers to be used for a possible prisoner exchange. Hamas operatives began the operation early on the morning of October 7 by blowing up the unguarded fences separating Gaza from Israel.
Hamas also has claimed that the bulk of the mayhem was caused by other terrorist groups and the aggrieved citizens of Gaza who flooded across the downed gates and fences, with no Israeli soldiers to stop them. It has been widely reported that Israel, at the instigation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was financing Hamas, via funds supplied by Qatar, in the belief that a strong Hamas would make a two-state solution, long sought by some in Washington, unlikely.
One serious complication that has not been publicly discussed since the October 7 attack is that the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, were not the sole attackers or collectors of hostages on a day in which there was no Israeli Army presence in the kibbutzim and villages under attack for at least eight hours.
“We know,” the American official told me, “that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade participated.” He was referring to a coalition of Palestinian armed groups that have been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, the European Union, and a number of other nations worldwide. (Hamas has also been designated a terrorist group by the US and the EU.)
“The goal of the Palestinian operation,” he told me, “was exactly what happened—a shocking and inspired military operation that humiliated the Israelis and shook them to their foundation. Hamas military commanders had a map of bases [inside Israel] and wanted to take computer servers with all of the potentially compromising information they contained and would probably have sent them to Iran for analysis.”
Another Hamas goal, I was told, was to take Israeli Army prisoners and force Israel to trade for the release of thousands of Gazan and West Bank prisoners, break the siege of Gaza, and continue to compete with the Palestine Liberation Organization that was initially designated by the 1993 Oslo Accords to control the West Bank and Gaza. “A further bonus of a successful attack,” the expert said, “would have been to stifle the ongoing normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
The expert said that the critical issue for the Israeli military today, in the view of the Hamas leadership, is that a planned Hamas commando raid aimed at seizing IDF soldiers “turned into a prison break.” News of the unchallenged penetration of the initial Hamas attackers quickly spread throughout Gaza, and spontaneous groups of Gazans and hastily formed martyr hit teams poured through the downed fence. The result, said the expert, turned “the operation into a catastrophic success.”
There are scores of videos providing evidence of what clearly was a fly-by-night attack that succeeded because of a stunning Israeli Defense Force failure that thus far has not led to the punishment of a single Israeli army officer. That possibility—that the initially limited Hamas goal turned into the horror that took place essentially because of the IDF failure—has yet to be acknowledged by Israel’s military and political leadership. (for full article will require membership) https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-mysteries-of-october-7?
2023-10-20 “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/20/divide_and_rule_how_israel_helped
2023-10-09 Wikileaks Cable = Hamas and IDF Remember when Wikileaks revealed cables indicating Hamas might be working with/for the IDF to further Israel state policy? 👇🏻
HAMAS–RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAEL
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20. MANY WEST BANKERS BELIEVE THAT ISRAEL ACTIVELY SUPPORTS HAMAS IN AN EFFORT TO DIVIDE PALESTINIANS AND WEAKEN THE INTIFADA. THEY POINT TO THE FACT THAT HAMAS OPERATIVES ACT BOLDLY IN DISTRIBUTING THEIR LEAFLETS. SHOPKEEPERS IN JERUSALEM AND NABLUS REPORT THAT, WHEREAS UNLU LEAFLETS ARE DISTRIBUTED SECRETLY FOR FEAR OF ISRAELI SECURITY FORCES, HAMAS OPERATIVES WALK INTO SHOPS AND PRESENT THEIR LEAFLETS DIRECTLY TO THE OWNERS. MAYOR FREIJ OF BETHLEHEM CLAIMS THAT MEMBERS OF SOME WELL KNOWN FAMILIES WHO COLLABORATE WITH ISRAELI OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN SEEN AMONG HAMAS STREET GANGS IN BETHLEHEM. FURTHERMORE, DESPITE MASSIVE ARRESTS–AND THE PUBLIC IDENTITY OF MANY MB LEADERS–RELATIVELY FEW HAMAS LEADERS HAVE BEEN DETAINED. IN RECENT WEEKS, FUNDAMENTALIST LEADERS HAVE GIVEN INTERVIEWS TO ISRAELI PUBLICATIONS THAT WOULD HAVE LANDED SECULARIST LEADERS IN DETENTION. WE BELIEVE THAT, WHILE ISRAELI FORCES MAY BE TURNING A BLIND EYE TO HAMAS ACTIVITIES, THERE IS INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CONCLUDE THAT ISRAEL IS PROVIDING ACTIVE SUPPORT. Source: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/88JERUSALEM3168_a.html#efmDRFDi0
EARLIER IN THE UPRISING, SOME ISRAELI OCCUPATION OFFICIALS INDICATED THAT HAMAS SERVED AS A USEFUL COUNTER TO THE SECULAR ORGANIZATIONS LOYAL TO THE PLO. A NUMBER OF PALESTINIANS LOYAL TO THE PLO ALLEGED THAT THE IDF WAS USING HAMAS FOR SUCH A PURPOSE. Source: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89TELAVIV14032_a.html#efmAqcAue
2023-10-08 For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
2014-07-30 How Israel helped create Hamas It also obscures Hamas’s curious history. To a certain degree, the Islamist organization whose militant wing has rained rockets on Israel the past few weeks has the Jewish state to thank for its existence. Hamas launched in 1988 in Gaza at the time of the first intifada, or uprising, with a charter now infamous for its anti-Semitism and its refusal to accept the existence of the Israeli state. But for more than a decade prior, Israeli authorities actively enabled its rise.
At the time, Israel’s main enemy was the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, which formed the heart of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah was secular and cast in the mold of other revolutionary, leftist guerrilla movements waging insurgencies elsewhere in the world during the Cold War. The PLO carried out assassinations and kidnappings and, although recognized by neighboring Arab states, was considered a terrorist organization by Israel; PLO operatives in the occupied territories faced brutal repression at the hands of the Israeli security state.
Meanwhile, the activities of Islamists affiliated with Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood were allowed in the open in Gaza — a radical departure from when the Strip was administered by the secular-nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt lost control of Gaza to Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which saw Israel also seize the West Bank. In 1966, Nasser had executed Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood’s leading intellectuals. The Israelis saw Qutb’s adherents in the Palestinian territories, including the wheelchair-bound Sheik Ahmed Yassin, as a useful counterweight to Arafat’s PLO.
“When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake,” one Israeli official who had worked in Gaza in the 1980s said in a 2009 interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Higgins. “But at the time nobody thought about the possible results.”
Yassin’s Mujama would become Hamas, which, it can be argued, was Israel’s Taliban: an Islamist group whose antecedents had been laid down by the West in a battle against a leftist enemy. Israel jailed Yassin in 1984 on a 12-year sentence after the discovery of hidden arms caches, but he was released a year later. The Israelis must have been more worried about other enemies. Eventually, the tables turned. After the 1993 Oslo accords, Israel’s formal recognition of the PLO and the start of what we now know as the peace process, Hamas was the Israelis’ bete noire. Hamas refused to accept Israel or renounce violence and became perhaps the leading institution of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, which, far beyond religious ideology, is the main reason for its continued popularity among Palestinians.
Yassin was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. In 2007, after a legitimate Hamas election victory that rankled both the West and Fatah, the Islamist group took over Gaza — a move that led to strict Israeli blockades and the grinding cycle of conflict that is once more repeating itself. https://archive.ph/oZ5oO#selection-449.0-449.30
2014-07-17 Pounding Gaza – World’s Largest Open-Air Prison An already troubling humanitarian crisis has intensified with the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, an area about twice the size of the District of Columbia that has about three times as many residents (1.8 million). Israel has been using its highly touted precise missiles to hit numerous targets. This collective punishment, a war crime per se, wreaks havoc on civilians and their life-sustaining infrastructure.
That is only part of the continuing war against Gaza. For years, Israel has maintained a siege/blockade, restricting the importation of adequate food, medicine, water, electricity, construction materials and other necessities needed by the refugees in the world’s largest open-air prison. These daily deprivations have taken a deadly toll. Fatalities, sicknesses, untreated cancers have resulted. Half of the children are seriously malnourished due to the dire poverty associated with the Israeli air, land and sea encirclement. (There are even harsh restrictions on Gazan fishermen.)
Israel’s complex association with Hamas, the elected governors of Gaza, is rarely reported or discussed. First, the Israelis, with U.S. support, helped start Hamas over thirty years ago to counteract the influence of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) under Yasser Arafat. More recently, Israeli officials have been in regular communication with Hamas over the administrative details of the selective siege, custom duties and transfers of tax revenues by Israeli to pay for Hamas’ 40,000 public employees.
Even when open hostilities commence, the two adversaries remain in close communication to sense how far each can go, given their own internal political struggles, in the ensuing “lopsided battle,” as the New York Times calls it. Without any army, air force or navy, the Gazans have very limited military options. The Israelis have unlimited military options. The military invasion of the Palestinian enclave may unleash forces that may be uncontrollable and move Israel into a civilian catastrophe starting with no drinkable water and other human disasters. In recent years, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have suffered at least four hundred times more civilian causalities – both fatalities and injuries—than Hamas has inflicted on the Israelis whose immensely powerful forces occupy, colonize, brutalize, and loot the land, water and people of the remaining 22% of Palestine that has not already been taken by Israel. https://nader.org/2014/07/17/pounding-gaza-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/
2009-01-24 How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with “Yassins,” primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a “determined and successful military operation.” More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed.
Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm “requires more than a long cease-fire” and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state “living side by side in peace and security.”
A look at Israel’s decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals — including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists — reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel’s efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people. https://archive.ph/jxzhP#selection-1867.5-1867.37
2004-09-13 Spotlight: Hamas Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in mandatory Palestine. The group is unlikely to moderate its platform or meaningfully participate in the peace process in the foreseeable future. Consequently, Hamas will continue to be a well-positioned obstacle to a lasting settlement in Palestine, and by extension, a danger to American interests in the region and beyond. The Israeli assassinations of senior leaders has both enraged and handicapped Hamas. Nevertheless, as two recent suicide bombings in Beersheba suggest, Hamas remains operationally resilient and determined to make its presence felt as Israel contemplates its “unilateral disengagement” from Gaza and areas of the West Bank. The popularity of Hamas among Palestinians continues to grow, and it is unclear how Israel ’s planned withdrawal will impact its base of support.
Hamas coalesced as an organization in 1987 during the first Intifada. Its birth posed a challenge to Israeli security as well as to the primacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in the Palestinian national movement. Hamas established itself as a militant and Islamic alternative to the PLO, expanding into the void left by the expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon, its relative weakness in the occupied territories, and its subsequent participation in the peace process.
Hamas is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. The Islamic context of its platform has two important implications. First, it provides Hamas with an organic connection to Palestinian society that is not necessarily available to its secular counterparts. Second, it casts the struggle against Israel as jihad (holy struggle), insinuating a connection between the destruction of the Israeli state and religious devotion. This has locked Hamas into a doctrinal position that is difficult to modify for other than tactical reasons. https://www.pogo.org/investigations/spotlight-hamas
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