Why Did Netanyahu Want to Strengthen Hamas?
There’s no doubt that in the immediate and short term, the reasons behind the disgraceful mishap of inconceivable scope that led to the Hamas army’s unhindered takeover of more than 20 Israeli communities near the Gaza border that dark Simchat Torah day involve an embarrassing military and intelligence failure.
Of course, they also involve the criminal neglect of the affairs of state by an indicted prime minister who is feverishly preoccupied with finding ways to escape trial. And the price is the destruction of the existential foundations of Israeli society and of the country.
But the deep roots of the feasibility of the murderous assault by the Islamist nationalist phalangists from the prison that is Gaza on Israeli citizens should actually be sought in an earlier period of Benjamin Netanyahu’s time in office as prime minister – prior to his criminal trial and his alliance with nationalist Kahanists and the judicial coup, back when he was considered “level-headed” and “rational” and “responsible.”
That’s because since he took office as prime minister a second time in 2009, that same Netanyahu developed and advanced a destructive, warped political doctrine that held that strengthening Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority would be good for Israel.
The purpose of the doctrine was to perpetuate the rift between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That would preserve the diplomatic paralysis and forever remove the “danger” of negotiations with the Palestinians over the partition of Israel into two states – on the argument that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t represent all the Palestinians.
That flawed strategy turned Hamas from a minor terrorist organization into an efficient, lethal army with highly trained, dehumanized stormtroopers, bloodthirsty killers who mercilessly slaughtered innocent Israeli civilians including women, children and the elderly.
This is solidly documented. Between 2012 and 2018, Netanyahu gave Qatar approval to transfer a cumulative sum of about a billion dollars to Gaza, at least half of which reached Hamas, including its military wing.
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www.haaretz.com