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.
got it wrong
No? No they got exactly what they wanted. They’ll be able to annex all of Gaza and eventually the west bank.
They sacrificed their people to accomplish their colonist goals.The plan went swimmingly.
Correct, which is exactly the same thing the Zionist Federation of Germany did during WWII. They sold out their own people in order to keep much of their assets while beginning the process of annexing British Mandatory Palestine.
Make no mistake, these same Zionists went on to form Lehi, among other terrorist/militant organizations that share a direct link to modern day Likud. Every policy the modern right wing Israeli government has employed they borrowed directly from the Third Reich’s playbook.
They are literally genocidal, ethno-supremacist, crypto-fascist psycopaths. In no way is that hyperbole. They are essentially Israeli Nazi’s.
Gonna look into this myself later, but I hope you’re lying. That would be some fucked up shit
Go read that Wikipedia information I linked. This isn’t some rabbit hole conspiracy theory. There were multiple attempts by Zionist militant groups (including Lehi) to actively align with Nazi Germany against Britain during WWII. The context is more nuanced than what I am going to be able to explain in a comment here, but I encourage you to research the inter-war period of British Mandatory Palestine that lead up to the modern Israeli state.
Reading though it now and you’re pretty spot on. Obviously there’s a lot more nuance, but seeking an alliance with literal Nazis isn’t a good look.
Btw, your link to Lehi is broken.
Do you mind pointing out where “the Zionist Federation of Germany sold out their own people to keep their assets” ?
Regarding the nuance it’s not unimportant that Lehi was an offshoot of an offshoot and certainly not representative for the entire Yishuv. They were sentenced for their actions (but later pardonned).
In '40-'42 no on knew who was going to come out victorious, so different factions were betting either on both horses. The mufti of Jerusalem, for example, was going all in for the nazi’s. And a lot of Arab nationalists actually preferred Germany over the British which they hated for letting in (jewish) immigrants.
I love that “pointing out undisputed historical facts that are provable and verified through many sources” often gets met with “quit with the crazy conspiracy theories and anti-______-ism”, regardless of which group you are apparently making conspiracy theories about.
Though the money was meant for Gazan civilians, Western intelligence determined that Hamas was taking money from the funds to use themselves, the outlet reported.
Yep, sure totally meant for civilians guys, wads of money in suitcases. Nothing to see here, a totally legit way of sending funds to civilians.
The US did that with pallets of cash in Afghanistan, but that was explicitly money for warlords. No one tried to hide it. It was completely different.
“I learned it from you”
What about all those pallets that went missing?
I thought that was Iraq under W?
I have a vague memory of a $10B cash shipment going missing in Afghanistan.
I mean hamas is the government of israel. Did you want israel to distribute the humanitarian aid in palestine as well? Might as well govern them too right?
I mean, preferably. And then give them a vote, too. But then I believe in a one state solution.
It’s better than just keeping them all in an open air prison.
Hamas hasnt held a vote ;)
Obviously
if you’re american, that’s suitcases of your money going to terrorists because the corrupt right wing ruling authority of israel would sacrifice unarmed civilians in both israel and palestine to avoid a peace deal. the israeli government is not just rejecting individual proposed peace deals but sabotaging any attempt at peace because they need constant war and fear to stay in power. Bibi Netanyahu will kill your baby himself with his hands if he thinks it will help him remain in power. He’s a war criminal who deserves the Hague.
between this, the pullout in afghanistan and henry kissinger’s entire career, I have to wonder if there’s a terrorist anywhere on earth that isn’t shooting american guns and spending american money.
If imperialism was a timeshare…
You think I as an American wanted this money to go there? NOOOO! I did not.
What we want is just not something out government considers to be relevant. Since the cold war they’ve been operating on the principle that they know better than us stupid poors and that we should be grateful for the evil they do in our name. It’s very “a few good men”.
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.
Because it then gives justification to seize the land
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.
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Unless Evangelicals in the US lose significant political power, it’s unlikely that the US will stop backing Israel. While Israel has been useful for foreign policy n the middle east, the base of Republican support is because they believe that Jews must control Jerusalem for Jesus to come back. (Yeah, I wish that was a weird joke. Sadly, it’s not. Lots of Evangelicals are antisemitic, while still supporting the state of Israel.)
Both parties show unwavering support for.israel, but evangelicals are only relevant to the Republicans. It’s not them, they’re a red herring. It’s weapons manufacturers. They exert a strong power equally over both sides of the aisle, and they make money when people are shooting each other. You can thank the likes of Raytheon, Northrop, and general dynamics for the state of Middle Eastern diplomacy.
The european world will come around once it realizes israel is the only reason the radical muslims arent targetting WEU.
dude did joshua tree enjoy tasting you you fuck?
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It might be a bit naïve to assume that wasn’t the initial plan. I’m not sure which is the case, but I wouldn’t put it past the right-wing coalition parties to be knowingly creating an enemy to have them attack you so you can attack back with the force of a thousand suns. It’s a pretty smart plan, they’ve just bungled what they thought would be the international response because the West has always backed Israel 100% without a hint of criticism.
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.
Of course they lobbied not to sanction Qatar. Once again how would it look to the world if Israel worked to deny aid to Palestine?
And I never said Netanyahu was a swell guy, he needs to be removed from power as well as Hamas.
The whole idea that they wouldn’t want to look bad that way is just stupid. They don’t want to seem like they’d deny aid to Palestine but have no problem shooting peaceful protesters in Gaza? Or doing air strikes? Or having long-term blockade of Gaza which keeps the entire region is a perpetual humanitarian crisis? No, not allowing Qatar to send money to Hamas under the guise of giving the people money is a step too far.
Oh and Netanyahu is the one who wanted money from Qatar to reach Gaza, other politicians (outside of his influence) were against it. Think about it, why would someone who doesn’t want Gaza to exist make sure that money reaches Gaza?
Given the thousands of rockets fired at Israel by Hamas from Gaza every year, the international community is understanding of a blockade being put in place.
Denying the passage of aid across that blockade however would be seen as far worse.
And the current air-strikes are a result of a large scale attack against Israel, so they are seen by many as justified. Though you can see most of the world now sees Israel as going too far. Thus proving that Israel can only get away with so much before their allies drop off.
Given the thousands of rockets fired at Israel by Hamas from Gaza every year, the international community is understanding of a blockade being put in place.
Is somehow understandable by the international community
Denying the passage of aid across that blockade however would be seen as far worse.
Not aid, money. And somehow not understandable by the international community despite the US verifying that the money sent goes to Hamas? So preventing funds for those rockets is not understandable by the international community?
Here the original & complete NY times article, for those who want to read what they have written, and not what is speculated.
This isn’t a new discovery, is it? People already know about this, it’s been like this for years. This has always been one of Netanyahu’s many criticisms, even at home.
It’s important to make the distinction between the Israeli religious authority funneling money to Hamas to create a political antagonist to the PLO/PA in the '90-'00s, and the object of this article.
Then there’s money coming from all over the world as support to Palestine. They need this money to buy food/commodities from the rest of the world. Israel has always overseen this flow of money, just like they and Egypt keep watch over which goods enter and leave.
This money was always passed to the PA as executive government of Palestine. But since 2006, Hamas took control of Gaza. So the aid money goes to Hamas. And because Hamas can’t have a bank account, it’s brought in cash.
How would the world have reacted if Israel had blocked aid money from entering Gaza since 2006? How many Gazans would have died?
Right, but Gaza needs aid because Israel has blockaded Gaza for decades (which Israel has claimed was an act of war when Egypt blockaded Israel). If Israel lifted the blockade, then they wouldn’t need to worry about funneling aid to Gaza.
Yeah they would just need to worry about more weapons that could kill israelis lol. There is a reason the blockade is there
Great job they did keeping weapons out. Now combine this with all the intelligence they ignored that an attack was coming and try to take it seriously.
Mistakes happen. Doesnt mean you need to do more lmao.
Based on the facts that are coming out, i don’t think this was a mistake.
What facts? The only real thing is that mossad was too arrogant in thinking hamas couldnt paraglide in and kill israelis.
They blockade Gaza to keep weapons out so Gaza smuggles weapons in to break the blockade…
Huh.
Sounds like they’re creating their own problem.
The cause of the blockade premeditates the smuggling so no.
If you a lock a terrorist and other terrorists fight you over it, the terrorists are still at fault.
Dont let the anti semitism stop your brain from working.
The cause of the blockage was terrorism (or “freedom fighters”, depending on your POV) that was caused by Israel failing to negotiate in good faith on a two state solution, and actively repressing Palestinian organizations that were garnering international support.
Again: Israel is causing most of their own problems; it’s like they’ve never heard of blowback.
BTW - if you think opposition to Israeli politics is the same thing as antisemitism, well, you aren’t arguing in good faith. That would be like saying that opposition to US foreign policy is because you hate Jesus.
It’s just an inconvenient one. It makes it a lot harder to jerk about how “complex” the situation is when there’s such an obvious villain. Everything Hamas has done, Netanyahu is an accomplice to.
The only complexity here is for people who can’t fathom the concept of two bad guys. The only good people here are the civilians being happily sacrificed for Hamas and Netanyahu. Their leaders sip cocktails in luxury and don’t care about how many die.
Exactly. It’s heartbreaking. You don’t need to wave a flag to be upset. It’s just innocent people dying constantly.
Reporting on corruption, especially when fatal, needs to be repeated for as long as people are unaware.
It’s from the U.S. tyranny playbook: Allow a tragedy to happen, and then you get the support of the people to do whatever it takes to stop terrorism such as Pearl Harbor and 9/11.
This is every colonizer’s playbook: you make constant small incursions, then when the people finally push back, you use it as an excuse to wipe them out and take the land.
I understand you are not implying that pearl harbour and 9/11 where inside jobs.
I think, you just referencing to the public support that followed those events. Right?
Theres some who think the mistakes of Pearl Harbor wasn’t anything but incompetence/human error.
Not inside jobs necessarily but both events had credible foreknowledge of an imminent attack that wasn’t acted upon.
It was hubris and arrogance and incompetence.
You know false positives exist right?
Hamas also had credible foreknowledge that Israel would start fucking them and everything near them up if they committed an incredibly successful terrorist strike. That didn’t seem to deter them.
Of course not. Hamas isn’t responsible for israel’s genocide. If anything the israeli response has shown the world just how much of a Nazi state israel truly is.
Hamas isn’t responsible for israel’s genocide.
Yes, I agree (although it’s war, not a genocide). In the same logic, the foreknowledge that Israel had about Hamas’s strike does not make Hamas’s strike Israel’s fault.
No, not inside jobs, but not dealt with appropriately so as to get America involved or to pass the patriot act. We know for a fact that the CIA was still trying to flip one of the terrorist pilots the day of.
He is a conspiracy nut
No, not at all, but I understand new facts can change upheld beliefs.
What facts do you have that Jewish people allowed Oct 7 to happen?
Or even the american government allowing 9/11?
The Saudis are US allies. They did 911. Yet we remain allies. It doesn’t mean we ‘did it’ through them. But it’s suspect and deserves consideration.
Conspiracy theories and antisemitism go hand in hand.
Case in point right here.
I don’t understand how this is antisemitism
The belief that israel allowed hamas to attack them to take Palestinian land is anti semitic as fuck.
It has no basis in any available evidence. Israeli people were pissed at the incompetence of the government.
The only reason to peddle this lie is to propagate the belief of that Israel has no right to protect its Jewish citizens that Hamas wants to massacre.
I am not against Jewish people, but Netanyahu. There’s a difference.
And you even stated the people.were.pissed off over the incompetence of the government. So, it’s almost as if the government should have done better than they actually did.
So are you, in the context of this thread, under the belief that is a conspiracy to allow Hamas to do oct 7 in order for Jewish people to take Palestinian land? Despite that conspiracy theory having no evidence?
It is not nust Netanyahu trying to rescue the hostages. It is israelis too.
I don’t fault anyone for being born, but I fault them for what they do with life. I am not against Jewish people, but Netanyahu’s regime. I do not support HAMAS, but the Palestinian people who, along with ethnic jews, are being exterminated. Nuance. Fine details.
Do you believe jewish people conspired to let hamas attack on oct 7 in order to take Palestinians land? Despite no evidence?
If you do, that is anti semitic.
Israel was built for European immigrants. They’re not Semitic. Arabs are.
There’s jews that lived ther, jews that migrated from Europe, and jews that came from the Ottoman states and the Middle East to escape discrimiation under islamic regimes. Descendants of the latter group being the largest today iirc
Dna sequencing shows that the Y chromosome from israelis is much closer to other middle easterners and jews that never left the middle east than any europeans.
This is an anti semitic lie that you peddle. The jews in israel rn have always been middle eastern.
In 2018, Netanyahu’s administration came up with a plan, according to the New York Times. As part of a peace agreement with Hamas, Qatar would bring millions into Gaza to distribute to Gazan families, the outlet reported. (…)
Though the money was meant for Gazan civilians, Western intelligence determined that Hamas was taking money from the funds to use themselves, the outlet reported.
Let’s take this at face value. 1) Why has Israeli media decried all sort of help towards Gaza Palestinians as “financing terrorism” if Netanyahu was willing to send them money himself? 2) If the Israeli government wanted to provide financial support to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, why not make the peace deal public? Why not establish criteria of transparency to make sure that the money got where it should have? 3) If you’re willing to send money to Gaza, why not send the required supplies yourself, when you’re the main country blockading it?
If we accept the narrative of the article, it is like Israel wanted the money to be misused.
Israel is set to wipe Gaza off the map. Of course they wanted the money to be misused.
Does everybody not understand Israel’s goal is to eliminate Gaza and the West bank and replace them with Israeli settlements? They’ve been doing it for years.
No not everybody does understand that. When we cry genocide they really don’t understand that is EXACTLY what is happening. We’re not just throwing the word around. They are killing and ousting a people group, that is two forms of genocode
They made a blood tithe they feel can never be repaid. Compared to that it’s pretty clear they see all this *waves hand around* as trivial amounts of collateral damage.
That’s US taxpayer money. Mazel tov!
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 wholeheartedly don’t think they cared. Netanyahu and the other far right Knesset officials clearly knew about the impending attack, clearly they might as well have killed those people themselves.
they literally did. that is what “allowing an action you could have stopped” means. They chose killing.
At least Israelis have recognised that the blood is in Bibi’s hand on October 7 attack. Many predict that the next elections could oust him for good.
Fascists allowing a couple of “common people” from “their side” to die in order to open the door for more violent action by said Fascists is just tradition.
Israel is the absolute worst
How so?
I’d hardly call what they’re doing unique
Oh no, Israel can’t be bad since everyone else also kills and maims, but let’s forget they have killed a large number of civilians in a span of 2 months, more journalists and medical professionals and UN workers in any other conflict ever. Boo fucking hoo.
Israel can’t be bad
Where did you get that from?
You were responding to someone saying Israel are the worst. Worst, being the superlative of bad and all.
“Absolute worst” and “bad” aren’t equivalent
Hmmm, you’re right, I guess it would be more correct like this: “Israel can’t be more bad than the average genocider…”
It would be more correct of a statement by you
But the person I replied to could have just called them bad…or explained why they are worse than every other genocidal group
I mean, who hasn’t done a little Genocide here or there amirite?
Historically it does seem to be a reoccurring theme but they aren’t even the only group doing that today
What exactly is your point? Because I seriously doubt that it’s math…
My point was to ask why they think Israel is the absolute worst
Ok. How far back are we talking in history? Just to know if I should throw Genghis Khan in or not, so we can do a top 10 and see where Israel lands
Feel like everyone is fair game if we are using “absolute”
Americans meanwhile: “Hey, um we’re all going bankrupt and COL is insane and student loan payments just started back up again and my mortgage is up for renewal and no one can afford to receive medical attention, but keep donating billions of dollars to a country that doesn’t need donations!”
To an apartheid regime actively murdering civilians through collective punishment
Red welfare states keep electing Rs and wages there suck. The conservative extreme court blocked student loan forgiveness but Biden has managed to get an unbelievable amount of student loan relief but the MSM doesn’t give him credit for his wins.
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As part of a peace agreement with Hamas, Qatar would bring millions into Gaza to distribute to Gazan families, the outlet reported.
Israel should have allowed this!
Hamas takes all that money, historically, and gives little or nothing to the people of Gaza. They literally deny the UNRWA the ability to distribute material aid.
Wasn’t this so they can justify not doing a 2statesolution on the world stage?
Which apparently Hamas was fine with.
Is hamas fine with a 2 state solution? I thought the issue was that Palestine was beginning to concede one so net@yahoo propped up hamas so they can keep fighting
The New York Times is late to this party. We’ve known about it since 2019.
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.
The symbiotic relationship between Netanyahu and Hamas, The Hill, October 22, 2023
Netanyahu’s policy, however, was in direct opposition to most of the Israeli defense and security establishment, which viewed cooperation with the PA to be in Israel’s security interest. Fans of the Netflix series “Fauda” will recognize that cooperation. Most security experts felt the PA needed to be strengthened, not weakened.
Since returning to power in 2009, Netanyahu made no secret of his desire to keep Hamas and the PA apart for his own political purposes. For example, in 2017, the PA and Hamas were negotiating a possible takeover by the PA of civilian control of the Gaza Strip. Even though the United States and Egypt supported this reconciliation, Netanyahu was adamantly opposed — lest it empower the PA.
Why Netanyahu helped fund Hamas and how that backfired for Israel, India Today, November 1, 2023
“Whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Prime Minister Netanyahu as saying in 2019.
Prince Turki al-Faisal’s accusation against Israel comes days after a report by Reuters, citing a source privy to the matter, stated that Qatar’s financial aid to the Palestinian families in Gaza passes through Israel. The funds are transferred electronically from Qatar to Israel, following which Israeli and United Nations (UN) officials hand-carry the same over the border to the Gaza Strip.
How Netanyahu’s Hamas policy came back to haunt him — and Israel, CBC News, October 28, 2023
Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, told the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 2013 that “if we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas’s strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister.”
In August 2019, former prime minister Ehud Barak told Israeli Army Radio that Netanyahu’s “strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking … even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.”
Netanyahu’s current finance minister, West Bank settler Belazel Smotrich, explained the approach to Israel’s Knesset channel in 2015: “Hamas is an asset, and (Palestinian Authority leader) Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is a burden.”
“But each time Netanyahu was asked, ‘Why don’t you negotiate with Abbas,’ he would say, ‘I can’t negotiate with a Palestinian Authority that doesn’t represent all Palestinians.’ And so he would use Hamas and this division to justify his absolute objection to any negotiated peace agreement.”
“Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas, as though it was an environmental organization. This is a policy of submission to terror,” he said, adding that Israel was paying Hamas “protection money” to maintain the calm.
The prime minister also said that, “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for” transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Saved as a reference!
