Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(03-22-2024, 01:15 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: OMG he allowed work permits so that the Palestinians could have access to better paying jobs and improve their SOL, and would pave the way for peace.

The other part looks like he THOUGHT he would work with Hamas vs the PLO to achieve peace, but it back fired. 
But I didn't see anything that says he directly Funded them as you claim.

You got that from reading this? 
 
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
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.

And this?
 
Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
 
The claim was never that Netanyahu directly funded Hamas. The claim is that he allowed for Hamas to receive millions in funding to strengthen it. Remember, Gaza is blockaded, with Israel controlling the flow of funds in and out.  A strong Hamas, the enemy of peace, would then BLOCK the peace efforts of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. That's what Netanyahu wanted.
 
Yet somehow you've concluded that Netanyahu's support of the war faction in the Palestinian administration against the peace faction was to "achieve peace." 

I gave you some of the back story to this on the "German Hostage" in my post #70, responding to your post #68, in which you claimed Palestinians had been offered 94% of the West Bank and Arafat turned it down. There was an apparent peace process in movement. The PLO had recognized Israel in return for administrative control of some of the West Bank, a stop to settlements, with the discussion of statehood and sovereignty to begin 5 years after the '93 sigining of the Oslo Accords.

But the Prime minister who signed those accords was assassinated by a religious zealot. Netanyahu became prime minister in 1999 and continued the settlements. He was re-elected in 2009 and served until 2021, relected again in 2022. He spent most of his time in office ramping up Palestinian dispossession in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He, along with Sharon (2001-06), did more than anyone on the Israeli side to crush the peace process and increase the settlements in the West Bank.

So empowering Hamas was a way to weaken the peace prospect, as was his annexation of the Golan heights and movement of the Capitol to Jerusalem.  Pursuing the Abraham Accords and normalization with Saudi Arabia was also a means to isolate the Palestinians, to make it easier for Israel to what it wanted in the occupied territories.