Perspective 122. A Strong Hamas: Netanyahu's Design?
Hamas marauders have perpetrated the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. But did Israeli government policy, under Benjamin Netanyahu, contribute significantly to the growth of Hamas military capabilities that made this atrocity possible?
Yes. During his earlier term as Prime Minister, Netanyahu followed a consistent policy of allowing Hamas to flourish, and consequently to develop from a relatively weak terrorist organization to a force capable of killing more than 1200 Israelis in a single day.
In perspective, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip unilaterally in 2007, Israel, in concert with the United States and other Western states and, yes, with Egypt, imposed a blockade on Gaza designed to weaken Hamas and, eventually, lead to its downfall. But between 2012 and 2018 Netanyahu undercut this strategy by allowing Qatar to transfer roughly one billion dollars to Gaza, much if not most of it directly to Hamas. In other ways as well, the Israeli government kept a lifeline open to the extremist rulers of Gaza.
What possessed Netanyahu to keep this deadly enemy in business? Even though he had, in 2009, conditionally accepted the concept of a two-state solution to the conflict, he was working to make such a solution impossible. By keeping Gaza divided from the West Bank, the idea of a Palestinian state, established through negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, would no longer be achievable. As with the ancient Romans, the dictum was: divide and conquer.
What is the source for this picture of Netanyahu’s thinking? It is Bibi himself, speaking to members of his own party in 2019: “The money transfer is part of the strategy to divide the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Anyone who opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support the transfer of the money from Qatar to Hamas. In that way, we will foil the establishment of a Palestinian state.” (This is reported by former cabinet member Haim Ramon; see Dmitry Shumsky, “Why Did Netanyahu Want to Strengthen Hamas?,” Ha’aretz, Oct. 11, 2023.)
If strengthening Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority seemed like a bright idea at the time, it certainly seems less so after the massacre of Simhat Torah 2023.
We can only hope that, after the coming storm, there will be a real accounting of the stupidity that contributed to it.