Hamas and Israel

Many years ago I by chance heard a line that stuck in my mind from an award-winning journalist doing a story on Israel/Palestine on a serious current affairs program - something about Hamas being funded by Israel in the past. It struck me as rather bizarre, but I knew next to nothing about this issue then.

Do a search on http://www.google.com/ by putting "Israel" "funded" "Hamas" and you will be as horrified as I was at what you find. Of course, you can find anything on the net, so you have to decide how credible you consider your source to be...

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Mideast Murder, Inc.
http://www.twf.org/News/Y1997/IsraelBotched.html
by Eric Margolis © 1997 Eric Margolis

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1998
The Real Significance of the Attempted Israeli Assassination of Khaled Meshal in Jordan
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0198/9801008.htm
by Dr. Israel Shahak

There is nothing new in the fact that Israel is a terrorist state which, almost from its inception, has used one of its intelligence agencies, the Mossad, to carry out violence or terror, including assassination, it considers necessary for its ends.

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Israel plays Hamas against Palestinians as Ross arrives
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/971005/1997100502.html
Palestine, Politics, 10/5/1997

It is not clear how the Palestinian-Israeli talks will resume today with both parties being over-occupied with the diplomatic and political aspects of what can now be named "Mishal-Gate" after the aborted Israeli Mossad attempt on the life of Khaled Mishal, head of the political department of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, in Amman some 10 days ago.

Palestinian official sources said they believe a new political role is being designed for Hamas to play in the region in an attempt to counter-balance the influence of the PNA. A senior member of the PNA cabinet said Sunday that Israel would like to see Jordan as the party strong and capable of eliminating Hamas military activities against Israel in order to discredit the PNA.

"It is difficult for me to guess what the upcoming steps of the PNA will be vis-a-vis Hamas. Israel wants us to combat Hamas while Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu releases Sheikh Ahmad Yassin," said the PNA official who did not try to hide his discontent at the recently-forged rapprochement between Jordan and Hamas.

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We expected it - which doesn't make it less horrible by Adam Keller
http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/10682.html
Sun Dec 2 '01

And 15 innocent bus passengers in Haifa, blown to death in another horrid explosion, don't open the eyes of Israelis for the fact that by killing Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu-Hunud a week ago, our army was actually putting an end to a tacit understanding between Arafat and Hamas, which had prevented this kind of suicide bombing over the past few months. (The possible implications of assassinating Abu Hunud were quite frankly discussed in the media just a week ago, but the size of today's horror seems to have caused in our society a sort of collective amnesia.)

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January 4, 2002
Is Israel more secure now? by Edward Said
http://www.counterpunch.org/saidsecure.html

The suicide bombers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have of course been at work, as Sharon knew perfectly well they would be when, after a ten-day lull in the fighting in late November, he suddenly ordered the murder of the Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud: an act designed to provoke Hamas into retaliation and thus allow the Israeli Army to resume the slaughter of Palestinians.

After eight years of barren peace discussions 50 per cent of Palestinians are unemployed and 70 per cent live on less than 2 dollars a day. Every day brings with it unopposable land grabs and house demolitions. The Israelis even make a point of destroying trees and orchards on Palestinian land. Although five or six Palestinians have been killed in the last few months for every one Israeli, the obese old warmonger has the gall to keep repeating that Israel has been the victim of the same terrorism as that meted out by Bin Laden.

...

He has had a well-publicised entente with Hamas since the latter's June bombings: Hamas wouldn't go after Israeli civilians if Arafat left the Islamic parties alone. Sharon killed off the entente with Abu Hanoud's assassination: Hamas retaliated and there was nothing to stop Sharon squeezing the life out of Arafat, with American support. Having destroyed Arafat's security network, his jails and offices, and having physically imprisoned him, Sharon made demands that he knows can't be fulfilled (even though Arafat, with a few cards always up his sleeve, has managed, astonishingly, to half-comply). Sharon stupidly believes that, having dispensed with Arafat, he can make a series of independent agreements with local warlords and divide 40 per cent of the West Bank and most of Gaza into several non-contiguous cantons whose borders the Israeli Army will control. How this is supposed to make Israel more secure eludes me, but not, alas, the people with the relevant power.

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This article deserves to be more well known. I'll post a more readable version later but I will include this link because of who the message was sent by - Yigal Arens, the son of Moshe Arens, a former Likud Defense Minister (1990-1992) and Foreign Minister (1988-1990) as well as Israel's Ambassador to Washington from 1982 to 1983. ( http://www.ou.org/chagim/yomhaatzmauth/arens.html )

The most honourable Yigal is a 'draft dodger' and I read elsewhere that he has to get special permission to visit Israel so as not to be arrested. He is now an academic living in the US. (Zio-spammers - don't fuck with him, you will make Moshe and Arik very unhappy and you wouldn't want that now would you?!)

Israel gave major to aid to Hamas
http://www.shamash.org/listarchives/pjml/010225

“ Underlying this and countless other Israeli stupidities is their total blindness to the fact that their adversaries actually have legitimate grievances against them. As the Israelis saw it, the PLO's struggle against Israel was some kind of ego trip that Yasser Arafat engaged in -- not an attempt by Palestinians to right real wrongs and gain compensation for valid suffering. So they figure, if they just create a rival group, these "imaginary" causes will be forgotten in the internecine struggle. ”

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Israel gave major to aid to Hamas
By RICHARD SALE, Terrorism Correspondent
Saturday, 24 February 2001

NEW YORK, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas recently described it as "the deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to face." Active in Gaza and the West Bank Hamas wants to liberate all of Palestine and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of terrorism.

But Sharon had left something out.

Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.

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January 1996
A Painful Peace by Noam Chomsky
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9601-painful-peace.html

All universities in the territories were built solely with private funding and donations from foreign states, without a penny from Israel,” apart from the Islamic University in Hebron, originally supported by Israel as part of its encouragement of Islamic fundamentalism to undermine the secular PLO, now a Hamas center.

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A Devil Theory of Islam by Edward W. Said
http://www.thenation.com/issue/960812/0812said.htm

Although Miller is obsessed with Hamas, she is clearly unable to connect it with the sorry state of affairs in territories run brutally by Israel for all these years. She never mentions, for instance, that the only Palestinian university not established with Palestinian funds is Gaza's Islamic (Hamas) University, started by Israel to undermine the P.L.O. during the intifada.

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This passage is from the American feminist Robin Morgan’s ‘Demon Lover: On the Sexuality of Terrorism’. The chapter ‘What Do Men Know About Life? : The Middle East’ is about her time spent in Gaza and the West Bank in the late 80s. (I found of copy in a second hand bookshop years ago. An updated version was published after September 11 called ‘The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism’).

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The genius of male collusion pretending to be enmity is fascinating. Palestinian secular resistance is forbidden (the Palestinian flag is illegal, displaying the colors of that flag is seen as provocative, and the use of the word “Palestine” itself is regarded by the Israeli government as an insult to the State).

But “religious freedom” is much trumpeted. Is it surprising, in such conditions, that hitherto secular Palestinian resistance begins to merge with Islamic fundamentalism?

There is only one university for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It was founded in 1978 by the Saudi Arabian government and is fundamentalist; Al Azhar University in Cairo --- the greatest seat of Arab and Muslim learning in the world --- refuses to accredit it.

This fundamentalist school was welcomed by the Israelis. But when a group of Palestinian scholars in Gaza wanted to found a secular university there, that was not permitted.

Women attending the fundamentalist university must wear the full hijab, not only the head veil but the complete body veil, and must cover their faces and wear gloves. There is no other source of higher education in the Strip. So the women go, like movable bolts of cloth, and each day as they leave, they peel off the veils and gloves.
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Cries of Rage and Frustration by Karen Armstrong
http://cs.hofstra.edu/~vbarr/armstrong.html

Islamic fundamentalists initially directed their efforts against their own countrymen. Thus the movement that eventually gave birth to Hamas began as a revolt against the Palestine Liberation Organisation; members were fighting for the Islamic soul of Palestine, and wanted to give the Palestinian struggle a Muslim, rather than a secularist, identity. Israel recognised this and, at first, funded Hamas to undermine the PLO; it was only after the outbreak of the 1987 intifada that Hamas began to target Israelis.

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I find this interesting because while the writer is no leftist (and neither is Eric Margolis nor the late Israel Shahak above) and sees himself as ‘a friend of Israel’ (whatever he thinks that means) he does not seem too interested in making excuses for what he sees as his friend’s stupidity. I think he comes over as a rather snotty Brit actually, but anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that he is not the sort of person to make baseless accusations against Israel.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft talks to ex-prime minister Shimon Peres, revisits the history of Zionism, and considers which is the more divisive: proportional representation or the bombs of Hamas
http://www.unnu.com/newhome/Gallery/etexts/israelorthodox.htm
November 1997

Israel's system of PR has produced a mushroom growth of small parties. Not only the religious parties and the fringe groups on left and right; the Russian immigrants of the past 15 years, now representing 20 per cent of the Israeli electorate, have formed yet another party, under Natan Sharansky. This proliferation means that no one party ever wins a clear majority of seats in the Knesset.

PR means that every government is a coalition, as Paddy Ashdown would no doubt like. But it also means that every government is in hock to the small parties which hold the parliamentary balance. This is why the religious parties have imposed strict sabbatarianism on what is still a large non-orthodox majority. And it is why they can have the clocks changed at their convenience.

This is a question of democracy, not of religious rights, or of contempt for the orthodox. It is hard not to be impressed and moved by the groups of haredim walking through Jerusalem on high holy days, wearing a costume designed for the 18th century Lithuanian winter rather than for the Levantine summer - heavy black coats, heavier prayer shawls, even heavier fur hats. But these are also the communities which produce those zealots who massacre worshippers in a Hebron mosque and assassinate Israeli statesmen.

Their zealotry is matched on the other side by the killers of Hamas. But then that is partly a problem of Israel's making. The Israeli intelligence services do not always seem very - well - intelligent. When they were looking for a Palestinian terrorist in Norway some years ago they bumped off the wrong man, who was completely innocent. When they tried to bump off another man in Jordan a few weeks ago they cocked it up, got arrested and caused huge political embarrassment.

In a fine demonstration of what "too clever by half" can mean, it was secret Israeli support that built up Hamas in the first place, in Gaza in the late 1970s. What the Israelis wanted was an Islamic counterweight to the secular PLO. What they got were young men and women prepared to blow themselves to pieces - as well as anyone else in the vicinity - in the sure and certain hope of Paradise (not to say the voluptuous sensual delights promised there), and an insoluble challenge to the fundamental Israeli belief that every problem must have an answer.

The reality of this new terror was brought home to me as I walked up the street in west Jerusalem where the latest bomb had gone off, and later as I sat at a pavement restaurant with an Israeli writer. He jumped up suddenly and walked over to embrace a man who was passing by. On returning, my companion explained that this man's young daughter had been horribly injured by the latest bomb; he had been taking a break from the vigil he was keeping at her hospital bedside.

And yet the most startling reaction to that latest suicide bomb came from the mother of another victim. Nurit Peled-Eichanan blamed the death of her 14-year-old daughter on her own country, or at any rate on the Netanyahu government, who "betrayed me. They are sacrificing our children for our megalomania." This is a country which 30 years ago, in the summer of 1967, was more united than any country in history, more than England in the summer of 1940. Today it is a country where 42 per cent of people said in an opinion poll a year ago that they feared a civil war: not war with Arabs, war between Jews.

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Finally, it pays to read widely and you can find some gems in the Israeli English language (less so than what’s printed in Hebrew but it's better than nothing) "mainstream" media that you are not likely to find in the US...

Tuesday, December 04, 2001 Kislev 19, 5762
Careful - you could get Ahmed Yassin
by Akiva Eldar

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The report of the bombing in Haifa halted Silvan Shalom's speech. He quickly shifted gears and told the members of the cabinet that no government can survive if it does nothing in the face of such a wave of terror. "Either we drop everything and get out of there," he said, referring to the territories, "or we throw him out," meaning Arafat.

Usually, that's when Shimon Peres interrupts with an angry retort, "What nonsense! Arafat's our only partner." This time, Peres's depression was evident on his face. He preferred a much less forceful warning that if we get rid of Arafat, we'll end up with the Hamas.

None of the ministers protested when Shalom threw back at Peres, "There's nothing to be ashamed of if you admit a mistake. Between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas."

Shalom said Arafat is a terrorist in a diplomat's suit, while the Hamas can be hit unmercifully. Everyone will understand who we're dealing with, he implied, and there won't be any international protests.

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How interesting this recent quote looks here:

“This exactly what Sharon wants,” a Palestinian political analyst from the West Bank told the Palestine Chronicle in condition of anonymity. “Every time you have some progress and calm, Sharon provokes Palestinians to retaliate. It’s his policy and ever-successful agenda.”

“The fact that the attack targeted a Hamas leader was a response to the offer made by Sheik Yassin to end hostility and occupation. Sharon doesn't want to give Hamas the chance to appear reasonable before the world media. Now, what else do you expect from Hamas but to hit back, and when they do, the Israelis will scream foul and say that they are fighting a war on terror.”
http://www.jerusalem.indymedia.org/news/2002/07/60932.php
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Shalom didn't invent that approach. But up until recently it's been hidden away in the pages of Nekuda, the settlement movement's weekly, and at the Yesha council's Web site. Ministers Uzi Landau, Natan Sharansky and the Shas representatives in cabinet - and of course Avigdor Lieberman - constantly reiterate that there's no reason to fear Arafat's successor will be worse than him. As far as they're concerned, Arafat is the worst of all.
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Check out this quote from the article:

"According to several reliable sources, Arafat gave permission to Prof. Sari Nusseibeh and then to Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabo, to publicly announce that the PLO recognizes the Jewish identity of the State of Israel, and that the solution to the Palestinian refugee problem would not be at the cost of that identity. "

Was this widely reported in the US media???

It's no wonder the Palestinians look elsewhere for hope and Israel has done its bit to make Hamas that elsewhere.

www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=101891&contrassID=2&subContr...