Perspective 134. Netanyahu's Lifeline to Hamas: A Myth?
Perspective 122 reported revelations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu propped up Hamas during his years in power in order to stave off a possible Palestinian state. Netanyahu has vehemently denied this charge, pointing out that his government conducted three vigorous military campaigns against Hamas. Are the accusations in fact overblown?
No. The military campaigns of 2012, 2014, and 2021 can be characterized as “mowing the grass” to contain Hamas, and not as serious efforts to end its rule in Gaza. They do not contradict the general pattern of a policy of “divide and rule” designed to keep Palestinians from uniting and weakening the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the potential base for a Palestinian state. Recent revelations have only confirmed this picture.
In perspective, Muslim fundamentalist movements were at the beginning often seen by Israeli policy-makers as a useful counterweight to the more threatening (as then seen) Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and other radical nationalist movements. This was the case when the Gaza branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, organized in 1973, transformed itself into Hamas in 1987. Palestinian observers, such as Rashid Khalidi (in 2006). noted and documented this aspect of Israeli occupation policy.
After the Hamas seizure of Gaza (2007) and the beginning of Netanyahu’s almost unbroken term in office (since 2009), the policy was bureaucratized. Despite the presumed blockade of Gaza, Qatari officials were met at the Israel/Jordan border and escorted to the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza with suitcases of cash (Hamas having no access to banks). The cash was supposedly to supply humanitarian relief from the blockade, but there was little oversight. The former head of an Israeli Mossad task force informed Netanyahu in 2015 that much of the money was being used by Hamas for military purposes, but found that Bibi was uninterested.
Though he made no public declarations on the issue, Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting in 2019 that anyone opposed to a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza. The New York Times conducted over two dozen interviews that fill out the picture. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that Bibi saved Hamas in Gaza. Former Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman broke with Netanyahu over the issue – reflecting the fact that Israel’s security and intelligence establishment advised against the counter-intuitive notion of allowing Hamas to flourish.
Bibi’s far-right allies have been less reticent about going public in favor of sustaining Hamas. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly describes the PA as a burden and Hamas as an asset. With Hamas as the face of the enemy, one could justify the depopulation of Gaza.
At one point Netanyahu apparently went so far as to send emissaries to Washington to oppose U.S. sanctions on Qatar for its support of terror. The Qataris are, he insisted, playing a positive role.
Even after his return to office, in the months before October 7. Netanyahu was still extending a lifeline to Hamas. The number of Israel work permits, another source of income for Gaza, was doubled, in the continuing illusion that a flow of money would buy quiet as well as help keep the Palestinians divided.
The events of that tragic day showed the utter bankruptcy of this juvenile strategic illusion. No wonder that Netanyahu is anxious to cover his tracks.