Uri Averny on the first Gaza War (2009)

WHAT WAS THE AIM?  Tzipi Livni [Minister of Foreign Affairs] announced it openly: to liquidate Hamas rule in Gaza.  The Qassams served only as a pretext. 

Liquidate Hamas rule?  That sounds like a chapter out of “The March of Folly”.  After all, it is no secret that it was the Israeli government which set up Hamas to start with.  When I once asked a former Shin-Bet chief, Yaakov Peri, about it, he answered enigmatically: “We did not create it, but we did not hinder its creation.” 

For years, the occupation authorities favored the Islamic movement in the occupied territories.  All other political activities were rigorously suppressed, but their activities in the mosques were permitted.  The calculation was simple and naive: at the time, the PLO was considered the main enemy, Yasser Arafat was the current Satan.  The Islamic movement was preaching against the PLO and Arafat, and was therefore viewed as an ally.

With the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, the Islamic movement officially renamed itself Hamas (Arabic initials of “Islamic Resistance Movement”) and joined the fight.  Even then, the Shin-Bet took no action against them for almost a year, while Fatah members were executed or imprisoned in large numbers.  Only after a year, were Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his colleagues also arrested.

Since then the wheel has turned.  Hamas has now become the current Satan, and the PLO is considered by many in Israel almost as a branch of the Zionist organization. The logical conclusion for an Israeli government seeking peace would have been to make wide-ranging concessions to the Fatah leadership: ending of the occupation, signing of a peace treaty, foundation of the State of Palestine, withdrawal to the 1967 borders, a reasonable solution of the refugee problem, release of all Palestinian prisoners.  That would have arrested the rise of Hamas for sure. 

But logic has little influence on politics.

~ Uri Averny, "Molten Lead," Gush Shalom, January 9, 2009

Brahma Chellany on how Israel supported Hamas in order to thwart a two-state solution

Hamas, for its part, is alleged to have emerged out of the Israeli-financed Islamist movement in Gaza, with Israel’s then-military governor in that territory, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, disclosing in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists to counter the rising power of Palestinian secularists.  Hamas, a spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was formally established with Israel’s support soon after the first Intifada flared in 1987 as an uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. 

Israel’s objective was twofold: to split the nationalist Palestinian movement led by Arafat and, more fundamentally, to thwart the implementation of the two-state solution for resolving the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  By aiding the rise of an Islamist group whose charter rejected recognizing the Israeli state, Israel sought to undermine the idea of a two-state solution, including curbing Western support for an independent Palestinian homeland. 

Israel’s spy agency Mossad played a role in this divide-and-rule game in the occupied territories.  In a 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception,” Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky contended that aiding Hamas meshed with “Mossad’s general plan” for an Arab world “run by fundamentalists” that would reject “any negotiations with the West,” thereby leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.”  Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official involved in Gaza for over two decades, told a newspaper interviewer in 2009 that, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.” 

~ Brahma Chellany, "Israel's historical role in the rise of Hamas," The Japan Times, November 21, 2023

Zack Beauchamp on how Netanyahu propped up Hamas

Q: Tell us more about these payments that it sounds like Netanyahu continued to be in support of.  Tell us about what this money ostensibly being used for and why from teh Netanyahu perspective it was a good idea.

A: The basic idea behind these payments, facilitated via Qatar, sometimes very directly with Israeli support, was to prop up the Hamas government.  Netanyahu has said as much, not in public - he doesn't openly admit this, he in fact denies it - but in reports of comments he's made privately, that the basic idea here was you need to keep the Palestinians divided... between the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, and Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007.  Now why do you do that?  In his mind it's very simple: because Hamas is - or thought to be prior to October 7th - more responsible than other militant Palestinian factions in Gaza and second, and more importantly, because when the Palestinians are divided, there's very little pressure on Israel to make any final two-state agreement... because there's no one to agree with.  There's no unified Palestinian political structure.  And so from the hard-line Israeli point of view, Netanyahu's point of view, "This is perfect.  This is ideal.  We can keep doing whatever we want and we don't have to worry about the pesky international community as long as there are these violent fanatics in charge of Gaza."  

So it was sort of a win-win from his point of view prior to October 7th, which changed everything because it joked this entire conversation that Israel could buy a certain kind of quiet from Hamas by quietly supporting them on the security front just was wrong, entirely wrong.

~ Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent, Vox, "Behind Bibi Netanyahu's FAILED PLAN To BUY PEACE By Propping Up HAMAS," The Hill, 1:00 mark, December 11, 2023