Money intended and used for humanitarian purposes can free up money that Hamas collects (through taxation and back-channel funding) to support their military operations. That doesn’t mean humanitarian assistance was the fatal mistake that allowed October 7th to happen. More on outsider humanitarian financial support to Gaza, which was supported by a string of Israeli governments: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html … Qatar’s work in Gaza during this period was blessed by the Israeli government. And Mr. Netanyahu even lobbied Washington on Qatar’s behalf. In 2017, as Republicans pushed to impose financial sanctions on Qatar over its support for Hamas, he dispatched senior defense officials to Washington. The Israelis told American lawmakers that Qatar had played a positive role in the Gaza Strip, according to three people familiar with the trip. Yossi Kuperwasser, a former head of research for Israel’s military intelligence, said that some officials saw the benefits of maintaining an “equilibrium” in the Gaza Strip. “The logic of Israel was that Hamas should be strong enough to rule Gaza,” he said, “but weak enough to be deterred by Israel.” … The funds were intended to pay salaries and other expenses, but one senior Western diplomat who was based in Israel until last year said that Western governments had long assessed that Hamas was skimming from the cash disbursements. “Money is fungible,” said Chip Usher, a senior Middle East analyst at the C.I.A. until his retirement this year. “Anything that Hamas didn’t have to use out of its own budget freed up money for other things.” Naftali Bennett, who was Israel’s education minister in 2018 when the payments began and later became the defense minister, was among members of Mr. Netanyahu’s government who criticized the payments. He called them “protection money.” And yet, when Mr. Bennett began his one-year stint as prime minister in June 2021, he continued the policy. By then, Qatar was spending roughly $30 million a month in Gaza. …
@Nook bidens popularity in Israel is forcing bibi to make concessions. Now bibi is open to the PLO returning to gaza where before he refused to even think about it
If trump was in office Israel would've annexed all of Gaza. Don't be fooled for a minute and he wouldn't have gotten any pushback. It's just crazy how much us leadership matters.
‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/...prop-up-hamas.html?smid=nytcore-android-share Have you not read this???
The NY Times is quite far left, who knows how much of that is true. I recently let my subscription expire.
We can point to a lot of things that helped Hamas to kill more Jews. Including West Bank settlement expansion which diverted IDF resources away from the Gaza border, and Israeli policy of undermining initiatives towards a 2-state solution by propping up Hamas. Better not to abridge a long story just because it creates a narrative (Israelis can only be made safer by making Palestinians suffer) that you happen to prefer.
Hamas are the ones who cause Palestinian suffering. As long as they remain a threat to Israel, Israel must continue to work on eliminating that threat.
I told you about the woke You can’t support multiple things that do not logically intersect you want fat inclusion on airplanes but you don’t want fat people on the rockets no you can’t breh
This is one of the biggest questions that will come out of this situation. It is mind boggling they Netanyahu wouldn’t know that funds going to Hamas wouldn’t be used to harm Israel. That he still pushed for those funds was either a horrendous miscalculation on Hamas’ intents or in the IDF’s ability to protect Israel.
The view that Israel can do no wrong and that it’s all the Palestinians fault is willful blindness. It’s similar to the willful blindness that affected the US after 9/11.
