[[link removed]]

THE NOT-SO-SECRET HISTORY OF NETANYAHU’S SUPPORT FOR HAMAS  
[[link removed]]


 

Ghousoon Bisharat
November 11, 2024
+972 Magazine
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ From sabotaging Oslo to funneling Qatari cash into Gaza, Bibi has
spent his career bolstering Hamas to help perpetuate the conflict.
Even after Oct. 7, argues historian Adam Raz, he's still advancing the
same strategy. _

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a press conference in
Jerusalem, September 2, 2024. , Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90 / +972
Magazine

 

When Israeli historian and human rights activist Adam Raz set out to
write “The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of
the Endless Conflict and Israel’s Moral Degradation
[[link removed]],”
he knew he was tackling a blind spot in Israeli public discourse. The
vast majority of Israelis, Raz believes, fail to grasp the full extent
of Netanyahu’s involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current
war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict.

Raz’s book, released in May of this year, sheds light on a
controversial policy whereby Netanyahu’s governments for years
routinely approved and encouraged the transfer of Qatari funds into
Gaza to prop up Hamas. While noting that the Israeli media has devoted
more attention to this policy in the aftermath of October 7, Raz told
+972 that this is “just a sliver of the bigger picture,” which is
rooted in Netanyahu’s broader opposition to a just resolution to the
conflict. “People need to understand the full scope of Netanyahu’s
strategy,” he said.

According to Raz, who also works as a researcher at the Akevot
Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Netanyahu’s
priority is not maintaining Israel’s security but rather preventing
any real chance of resolving the conflict through the division of
land, ending the occupation, or a two-state solution. Keeping the cash
flowing to Hamas served this objective by ensuring the Palestinian
national movement remained splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the
Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, thus
allowing Israel to maintain its dominance over the whole of the land.
Even after the devastating events of October 7, Raz warns that
Netanyahu’s playbook remains unchanged.

This book isn’t a history lesson about the conflict, Raz emphasizes,
but rather a damning exploration of a political alliance that
continues to degrade Israel’s moral fabric. “I didn’t write this
book, I yelled it on the pages,” he said. 

I spoke with Raz about the long history of Netanyahu’s symbiotic
relationship with Hamas and its recently-killed leader Yahya Sinwar;
why the current war represents a continuation of, not a break from,
the prime minister’s strategy vis-a-vis the Palestinians as a whole;
and why even after more than a year of war and the death of Sinwar,
for Netanyahu little has changed. The interview has been edited for
length and clarity.

WHILE READING YOUR BOOK, I COULDN’T HELP FEELING THAT YOU’RE A BIT
OBSESSED WITH NETANYAHU — THAT THERE ARE NO POLITICAL AND SECURITY
ELITES IN ISRAEL, NO NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS, NO PUBLIC OPINION,
NO MEDIA. YOU WRITE AS IF IT’S JUST BIBI-LAND. AS A PALESTINIAN,
THIS FEELS LIKE A WAY TO REMOVE THE BLAME FROM OTHER DECISIONMAKERS
AND ISRAELI SOCIETY WRIT LARGE AND INSTEAD PLACE IT EXCLUSIVELY ON
NETANYAHU.

This is a book about Netanyahu. I didn’t set out to write the story
of the occupation under Netanyahu, the history of Hamas, or the
collision between the two national movements. It’s the story of the
relationship between Netanyahu and Sinwar. I’m trying to understand
the motivation of the two most important actors in this game, who have
been holding their societies by the neck.  

Israel _is_ Bibi-land. Whatever is at stake in Israel, whether
it’s the Palestinians, the Iran nuclear deal, or any other foreign
policy issue, it’s all in Netanyahu’s hands. In my book you can
read how this came to be, and how Bibi changed Israeli politics.
It’s true that the security establishment was against Netanyahu’s
policy toward Hamas, but in every crucial crossroads where he went
head to head with them, Netanyahu won. 

 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits an army base near
the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, July 4, 2023.  (Photo: Shir
Torem/Flash90  //  +972 Magazine)
ONE OF THE CENTRAL ARGUMENTS IN YOUR BOOK IS THAT NETANYAHU’S
OPPOSITION TO A PALESTINIAN STATE IS THE MAIN PILLAR OF HIS POLICY
TOWARD THE PALESTINIANS. HOW DID THIS POLICY SHAPE HIS RELATIONSHIP
WITH HAMAS, GOING BACK TO THE 1990S?

Netanyahu is the number one opponent of a two-state solution. In broad
terms, Fatah and the PLO are in favor of this solution, while Hamas is
against it, which means that on this very crucial point, Netanyahu and
Hamas’ interests align. So since 1996 [when he was first elected
prime minister], and especially since his second term in office from
2009, Netanyahu has been working hard to strengthen Hamas.

From the initial signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 until the
assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 [by an Israeli
who opposed the peace process], the PLO and Israel worked together
against the influence of both Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism. There
was a sort of informal agreement not to build new West Bank
settlements and outlining where the settlements that already existed
could expand. This marked a shift from the [Yitzhak] Shamir government
[that preceded Rabin], which oversaw the construction of approximately
7,000 [settlement] housing units per year. 

One of the first things Netanyahu did as prime minister [in 1996] was
to approve the construction of the Har Homa neighborhood in East
Jerusalem. During his first term in office, 24 new settlements were
built in the occupied territories. Of course, under Rabin, the
Israelis did keep expanding the settlements, but this was something
the Palestinian negotiators felt they could live with. 

The second important thing Netanyahu did was to open the Western Wall
tunnels in the Old City of Jerusalem, triggering the first violent
clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli army since the Oslo
process began. There had been discussions about this during Rabin’s
government, which planned to open the tunnels in coordination with the
Muslim Waqf and the Jordanians in exchange for the Waqf receiving
control over Solomon’s Stables [an area of the Al-Aqsa
compound/Temple Mount]. However, Netanyahu chose to disregard these
recommendations and make unilateral changes in one of the most
sensitive and sacred sites for all three Abrahamic religions. 

It was clear that this would lead to a crisis — and that is exactly
what happened. Netanyahu decided to open the tunnels of his own
accord, without informing the government or the security
establishment. The top security and military personnel heard about it
on the radio. The protests that followed the opening of the tunnels,
across East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, resulted in
the killing of 59 Palestinians and 16 Israelis. 

The third important thing Netanyahu did, which also went against the
advice of the security establishment, was to withdraw Israel’s
extradition request for Hamas’ political bureau chief Mousa Abu
Marzouq [the leader of the movement’s radical wing at the time who
advocated for continuing armed resistance, and the most important
Hamas figure outside of Gaza]. That request had been approved by Rabin
after Abu Marzouq was arrested while in the United States in 1995.
Netanyahu’s decision to withdraw it [and therefore avoid putting Abu
Marzouq on trial in Israel] came at a time when many Hamas leaders,
including the movement’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, were in
Israeli jails and there was an internal debate going on about the
right way to continue the struggle. 

 
U.S. President Bill Clinton has lunch with King Hussein of Jordan,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and Chairman Yasser
Arafat of the Palestinian Authority in the White House library,
Washington, D.C., October 1, 1996.  (Photographs of the White House
Photograph Office, Clinton Administration)
These three events strengthened Hamas and the people who wanted to see
the conflict as a religious one. 

IN YOUR BOOK, YOU MENTION SEVERAL OCCASIONS IN WHICH NETANYAHU DID
PUBLICLY EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR SOME KIND OF PALESTINIAN STATE, INCLUDING
HIS SIGNING OF THE WYE RIVER MEMORANDUM IN OCTOBER 1998, THE FAMOUS
“BAR ILAN SPEECH” IN JUNE 2009, HIS SPEECH AT CONGRESS IN MAY
2011, AND HIS SUPPORT FOR TRUMP’S “DEAL OF THE CENTURY” IN
2019-20. HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF THESE?

Every time he spoke about it publicly, there was a reason to do so.
Take his Bar Ilan speech, for example, which was the best-known
instance of Netanyahu “accepting” the two-state solution. There
was a foreign policy aspect to this: it was a short time after Barack
Obama entered office, and right after Obama’s famous Cairo speech
[[link removed]].
And there was a domestic aspect: back then, Netanyahu was trying to
build a coalition with the center-left. But you can read in my book
that the U.S. diplomat, Martin Indyk, understood it was a scam. 

There are different reasons and motivations for why he spoke in favor
of dividing the land each time. But as a political historian, my
methodology is not only to look at what politicians are saying, but
what they are doing. 

HOW DID NETANYAHU CONTINUE STRENGTHENING HAMAS WHEN HE CAME BACK INTO
OFFICE IN 2009? 

Since coming back to power, Netanyahu has resisted any attempt, be it
military or diplomatic, that might bring an end to the Hamas regime in
Gaza.

Until 2009, the Israeli army — together with the PA — was trying
to eliminate the movement’s power in the occupied territories. Then,
Netanyahu gave an order
[[link removed]] to stop the
cooperation between the Israeli military and the PA security forces in
their fight against Hamas. All other forms of security coordination
continued, but this specific aspect ceased. From then on, Netanyahu
enacted a policy of not negotiating with the Palestinians under the
pretext that their leadership is divided, while at the same time
trying to undermine every attempt at reconciliation talks between
Hamas and the PA.

Fast forward to 2018, when PA President Mahmoud Abbas stopped
transferring money to Gaza completely, leaving Hamas on the brink of
collapse. Instead of letting the PA return to Gaza [after it was
kicked out by Hamas in 2006, following elections], Netanyahu saved
Hamas by allowing in suitcases full of cash from Qatar. He was
actually the mastermind and the architect of this Mafia-style money
transfer. 

DID THE TRANSFER OF QATARI MONEY INTO GAZA ONLY BEGIN IN 2018? 

Qatar actually started transferring money to Hamas in 2012, though
this was via bank wires and it was very small amounts. This changed
fundamentally in 2018, when Netanyahu persuaded his cabinet to approve
bigger transfers and change the mechanism of transfer to cash. After
that, a car carrying suitcases full of almost $30 million in cash
would pass through Rafah Crossing every month from the summer of 2018
until October 2023. 

As far as we know, most of the security establishment was against this
move, but it was very important for Netanyahu and he succeeded. The
minutes of that cabinet meeting are not and may never be open to the
public, but it is clear this was a move designed to weaken the PA.

 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara meet with
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during the state funeral of former
Israeli President Shimon Peres, Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, September 30,
2016.  (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO  //  +972 Magazine)
IN YOUR BOOK, YOU MENTION A MESSAGE THAT SINWAR SENT TO NETANYAHU
SHORTLY AFTER THE MAJOR TRANSFERS BEGAN. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT THAT
WAS? 

Israel and Hamas did not communicate with each other officially, but
they did engage in secret talks about what Israel calls the
“hasdara,” or the arrangement by which Israel allowed Qatari money
to flow into Gaza. In 2018, after the suitcases started arriving, the
Israeli representative in these talks, the then National Security
Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, received a Hebrew note from Sinwar addressed
to Netanyahu, which was titled “Calculated risk.” 

I remember being amazed to read about it when the note was published
[[link removed]] in the Israeli media
[in 2022]. Why would the head of Hamas write to the Israeli prime
minister, and why did he choose these specific words? What is the
“risk”? 

It was a very clever thing to write because both Sinwar and Netanyahu
took a calculated risk with this agreement [to continue weakening the
PA and eliminating the possibility of a negotiated solution].
Netanyahu knew that Hamas was not going to use the money for the
welfare of Gaza’s children or for modernizing the Strip, but rather
for building tunnels and purchasing weapons, turning Gaza into a
Spartan state at war with Israel. Yet still he did it for the sake of
eliminating the possibility of a two-state solution. 

The Israeli security establishment repeatedly warned Netanyahu that
Hamas was preparing for the next round of fighting. Throughout 2023,
he received a number of specific warnings
[[link removed]] that
Hamas was planning to launch an attack on Israel to kill and kidnap
people. But nobody, including Netanyahu, thought it would be as big as
it was.

In August 2023, when Israelis were demonstrating against the judicial
overhaul, Palestinians in Gaza were demonstrating against Hamas
[[link removed]]. Sinwar was
afraid of losing power in Gaza, so Hamas put down these protests with
clubs and weapons. Public opinion polls
[[link removed]] in September and
October 2023 in Gaza showed that over 50 percent were in favor of the
two-state solution. This means Hamas had failed: despite half of the
population in Gaza living most of their lives under its fundamentalist
doctrine, the majority remained in favor of dividing the land. 

With the [October 7] attack, Sinwar helped Netanyahu by eliminating
any opposition to his rule inside Israel and the possibility of peace
talks in the near future. Sinwar knew that Hamas wasn’t going to
conquer Israel on October 7; he didn’t think he was starting a war
to eliminate the Zionist project. It was a show of force. And he knew
what the response would be.

MOST PALESTINIANS VIEW HAMAS AS A RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AND AN INTEGRAL
PART OF PALESTINIAN POLITICAL LIFE, WHETHER OR NOT THEY PERSONALLY
SUPPORT IT. IN YOUR BOOK, YOU CALL HAMAS THE ENEMY OF THE PALESTINIAN
NATIONAL MOVEMENT. ISN’T THIS A BIT PATRONIZING?

I think Hamas is part, maybe even a big part, of the Palestinian
national movement. But I think it is the enemy of the segment inside
the Palestinian national movement that wants to end the conflict and
the occupation.

 
Late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar attends the funeral of senior military
commander Mazen Faqha in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, March 25, 2017.
 (Wissam Nassar / Flash90  //  +972 Magazine)
Even inside Hamas, you find different approaches and views. It is not
a monolithic organization. In recent years, there has been a debate
over the way the organization should continue its fight and who to
align with — Egypt, Iran, Turkey, or Qatar. Sinwar, who was a
rational politician, is not synonymous with Hamas, just as Netanyahu
is not synonymous with Likud. 

But Sinwar was willing to put the lives of more than 2 million Gazans
at risk. He deals in death. There have been quite a lot of quotes from
senior Hamas officials explaining that Gazans are expected to shed
their blood for the Palestinian cause. When Sinwar said
[[link removed]] [in
2022] that a good Palestinian is one who grabs a knife and stabs a
Jew, he did not believe this was the path to ending the Zionist
project. He knew that such actions would make the conflict even more
entrenched and permanent. It is clear that Sinwar was an enemy of all
who value justice and peace.

IN THE SECOND PART OF THE BOOK, TITLED “THE PARIAH STATE: ON THE
FIRST DAYS OF THE FIGHTING IN GAZA,” YOU SAY THAT ISRAEL’S CURRENT
ONSLAUGHT IS THE CONTINUATION OF NETANYAHU’S POLICY. CAN YOU
ELABORATE ON THIS? 

I think that in order to understand the war you need to understand its
first 20 days. This was the “Dresdenization” of Gaza: an aerial
bombing campaign before the ground operation started. 

On the evening of October 7, Netanyahu gave his first speech to the
nation, during which he said — using a biblical term — that Israel
is going to turn Gaza “into rubble.” The prime minister reportedly
told Biden around this time, who expressed reservations, that Israel
is going to do what the Americans did in Japan and Germany during
World War II, meaning a strategic campaign of bombing entire cities. 

This Dresdenization was something that didn’t serve any political or
strategic logic: it didn’t give any thought to the future of
relations between the nations. During those first 20 days, Hamas’
fighters and the movement’s leadership were in tunnels underground;
Israel’s Air Force bombed thousands of innocent civilians
[[link removed]].
It did not help Israel gain control of Gaza, and it made it more
difficult to free the hostages
[[link removed]]. It
served the logic of revenge, which is the logic of Sinwar and
Netanyahu. 

The Dresdenization of Gaza helped Netanyahu. With it, he received the
approval of the vast majority of Israeli society, and this is a stain
on Jewish-Israeli society. This was a massacre, genocide, a crime
against humanity — I don’t think the word is important. And this
crime helped Netanyahu eliminate internal opposition. Domestically,
Netanyahu’s policy made the Israeli public complicit in the crime. 

 
Massive destruction is seen in Al-Rimal popular district of Gaza City
after it was targeted by airstrikes carried out by Israeli colonial,
October 10, 2023. (Mohammed Zaanoun  //  +972 Magazine)
AND WHAT IS NETANYAHU’S POLICY TOWARD HAMAS NOW, AFTER MORE THAN A
YEAR OF WAR AND THE KILLING OF SINWAR?

I think Netanyahu’s policy today remains the same as it was before
the war. He is trying to strengthen Hamas, or more precisely, the
interest that Hamas represents — that is, weakening support for a
two-state solution, and keeping us all in a state of endless war.
Sinwar and Hamas were not the main issue for him; his central interest
is never-ending war, and Hamas was a tool to maintain the conflict
while Israel had the upper hand.

Among the Israeli left, especially the Zionist left, many people are
now saying that, after October 7, the “conception” [the word used
to describe Israel’s policy of keeping Hamas in power while limiting
its military capabilities] has been proven a failure. I try to explain
that the “conception” worked. I don’t think anything fundamental
has changed since October 7; the excel sheets of victims have become
much longer, especially among Palestinians, but I don’t think that
something fundamental has changed. 

Hamas is an ideology deeply embedded in the region’s social and
political landscape. Its politics are driven by the realities on the
ground. The rhetoric of “destroying Hamas” and Netanyahu’s
claims of achieving “total victory” are just spin for the public.
The key question is not how many weapons exist in Gaza — there will
always be more — but rather the social and political conditions that
prevail there. Not how many Kalashnikov rifles there are, but whether
people are willing to use them. 

[After the past year,] we are talking about maybe 20-25 years of
reconstruction in Gaza, meaning two generations of children in Gaza
will grow up in tents and refugee camps. They will not have the
opportunity to learn poetry and computer science; instead, they will
struggle for basic survival: food, a warm room, a soft bed. Thousands
of children will never feel the embrace of their parents. It’s
heartbreaking. These are the conditions that fuel resistance and
perpetuate segregation. The recruitment offices of Hamas will remain
busier than ever.

I think one of the things both Sinwar and Netanyahu wanted was
achieved: support for the two-state solution is at the lowest rates
[[link removed]] in
the history of this conflict on both sides. Now, the question is what
will happen in Ramallah: what is the plan of the PA and the PLO? 

HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE IMPACT OF THE WAR ON ISRAELI SOCIETY? 

In the second part of the book, I tried to deal with the question of
morality, and what happened to the values of Jewish Israelis. I sought
to understand the connection between the strategy of revenge and the
strategy of denial.

Since October 7, Israel has been committing multiple war crimes in
Gaza, which soldiers are photographing and filming and posting all
over social media. I saw the photo of two soldiers who bombed the
Central Archives of Gaza City just for fun, which left a mark on me
because I spend most of my time in archives. You can see there is a
policy of starvation, there is a policy of indiscriminate bombing,
there is a policy of torture. 

People know, but they don’t know: this is the strategy of denial.
Most Israelis do not read Haaretz or Local Call (+972’s
Hebrew-language partner site), but they could go onto social media or
visit any international outlet. I was amazed, during the bombing
campaign at the start of the war, how people simply closed their eyes.
But the denial is very important for us, the “chosen people,” to
grant legitimacy to what we are doing in Gaza and what we are not
doing for the hostages. 

I think that nearly 60 years of occupation has changed the heart of
the average Israeli. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the Orthodox Jewish
intellectual and Hebrew University professor, said as early as 1968
that the occupation is a corrupting force. The occupation has truly
corrupted us. 

When World War II ended in 1945, the [concentration] camps opened and
the world was exposed to the most brutal form of extermination in
history. I think something of this kind will happen when the gates of
Gaza are opened. When that happens, the Israeli public will need to
decide which road they’re going to take: responsibility or denial. I
believe they will choose denial. And this is why I think Netanyahu won
the war.

_[GHOUSOON BISHARAT is the editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine.]_

_OUR TEAM HAS BEEN DEVASTATED BY THE HORRIFIC EVENTS OF THIS LATEST
WAR. THE WORLD IS REELING FROM ISRAEL’S UNPRECEDENTED ONSLAUGHT ON
GAZA, INFLICTING MASS DEVASTATION AND DEATH UPON BESIEGED
PALESTINIANS, AS WELL AS THE ATROCIOUS ATTACK AND KIDNAPPINGS BY HAMAS
IN ISRAEL ON OCTOBER 7. OUR HEARTS ARE WITH ALL THE PEOPLE AND
COMMUNITIES FACING THIS VIOLENCE. _

_We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The
bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to
engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed
by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on
Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is
ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence
Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies._

_This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the
past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and
militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized
siege on Gaza._

_We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need
your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity
of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians
and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the
fight of their lives._

_CAN WE COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT 
[[link removed]]? +972 MAGAZINE IS A LEADING
MEDIA VOICE OF THIS MOVEMENT, A DESPERATELY NEEDED PLATFORM WHERE
PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI JOURNALISTS, ACTIVISTS, AND THINKERS CAN
REPORT ON AND ANALYZE WHAT IS HAPPENING, GUIDED BY HUMANISM, EQUALITY,
AND JUSTICE. JOIN US._

* Benjamin Netanyahu
[[link removed]]
* Hamas
[[link removed]]
* Oct. 7
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Israel-Gaza War
[[link removed]]
* Hostages
[[link removed]]
* Ceasefire
[[link removed]]
* ethnic cleansing
[[link removed]]
* war crimes
[[link removed]]
* Genocide
[[link removed]]
* Two-state Solution
[[link removed]]
* Palestinian Authority
[[link removed]]
* Oslo Accords
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]