Mark B, Leaving aside everything else, I feel sad for you.
That bombing the bombed; starving the starved; more than 50,000 deaths - a very conservative figure in my opinion - horrific injuries meted out to the children and no respite for the injured; hospitals, schools, all infrastructure destroyed, reduced to rubble; deliberate killing of health care workers; land theft; and untold misery for a besieged people; in fact crimes against humanity - doesn't seem to register with you.
>>"Hamas that was basically created by Israel and western intelligence/financial services"
Nope -> Hamas was established during the First intifada against the Israeli occupation in 1987, and has its origins in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement, which had been active in the Gaza Strip since the 1950s and gained influence through a network of mosques and various charitable and social organizations." Please read the book "Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance" by Tareq Baconi (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35793669-hamas-contained)
In an August 2014 interview on Israeli television channel i24News, former Israeli Ambassador to Germany and the EU, Avi Primor, emphasized that Hamas had been created by Israel:
“It was the Israeli government, it was us who created Hamas, in order to create a counterweight to [Yasser Arafat’s] Fatah at the time. And we thought it would be a religious organization that would quarrel with Fatah, we couldn’t foresee what would become of it, but it’s our creation, these are the facts.”
That's not my point. When I said "created" I didn't mean Israel literally came up with the idea and then introduced it fully formed like an astroturf operation. Hamas has its own murky beginnings. I suppose it would have been more accurate if I said "HELPED to create..." Please read the link I provided.
"Since the founding of Hamas in 1987, Israeli, American and Palestinian officials have repeatedly acknowledged that Israel did indeed help create and fund the Islamist group.
The point made by many of these officials is not that Israel “allowed” the rise of Hamas or that Hamas emerged in response to Israeli “occupation” of Palestine. Rather, their point was and is that Israel’s intelligence agencies actively helped create and finance the Hamas group.
As the officials cited below make clear, the overall goal of supporting Hamas has been to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state and avert the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestine question. From Israel’s perspective, a two-state solution would reduce Israel’s territory to the internationally recognized pre-1967 borders, prohibit any future territorial expansion, and prevent the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.
More specifically, supporting the Islamist Hamas group has served several Israeli objectives at once: first, it undermined Yasser Arafat’s secular nationalist PLO; second, it helped prevent the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Accords; third, it undermined the Palestinian National Authority and isolated Gaza from the Westbank; fourth, it impeded Western support for the Palestinian cause; and fifth, it justified Israeli (counter-)attacks on Palestinian territory.
In other words, by secretly supporting a group that does not recognize the existence of the state of Israel and does not accept a two-state solution, Israel does not have to accept the existence of a Palestinian state and does not have to support a two-state solution, either.
It is sometimes argued that while Israel initially supported the creation of Hamas, the Islamist group got out of control and Israeli officials came to regret their support (the “blowback theory”).
While this is certainly true for some Israeli officials and for the Israeli population affected by Hamas rockets and terrorist attacks, it is not true for Israeli grand strategists, as the quotes below make clear: for them, Hamas has continued to serve its intended purpose even after the Oslo Accords in 1993 and after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
For the grand strategists, the presence of Hamas in the remaining Palestinian territories might provide, one day, the necessary pretext for a “final solution” to the Palestinian question. [...]"
and
"Already in 1986, one year before the official founding of Hamas, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, David K. Shipler, revealed how Israel supported the Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip that would give rise to the Hamas group. Referring to Israel’s military governor of the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, Shipler noted in his book, “Arab and Jew”:
>>>Politically speaking, Islamic fundamentalists were sometimes regarded as useful to Israel because they had their conflicts with the secular supporters of the PLO. Violence between the groups erupted occasionally on West Bank university campuses, and the Israeli military governor of the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, once told me how he had financed the Islamic movement as a counterweight to the PLO and the Communists. “The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques,” he said.<<<
During the May 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis, Shipler reiterated these statements in a letter to the New York Times and emphasized the active role played by Israeli authorities:
>>>“Nicholas Kristof is right when he mentions that Israel once allowed the rise of Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization. But Israel did much more than “allow.”
In 1981, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, Israel’s military governor of Gaza, told me that he was giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. The funding was intended to tilt power away from both Communist and Palestinian nationalist movements in Gaza, which Israel considered more threatening than the fundamentalists.
Judging by a distressed phone call I got later from the army spokesman, General Segev’s superiors were not happy with his disclosure of a practice that did not look very clever, even at the time. They thought incorrectly — but apparently wished — that he had made his comments off the record.”
Not long now for the end of Israel and hope you go with it!
Mark B, Leaving aside everything else, I feel sad for you.
That bombing the bombed; starving the starved; more than 50,000 deaths - a very conservative figure in my opinion - horrific injuries meted out to the children and no respite for the injured; hospitals, schools, all infrastructure destroyed, reduced to rubble; deliberate killing of health care workers; land theft; and untold misery for a besieged people; in fact crimes against humanity - doesn't seem to register with you.
You mean Hamas that was basically created by Israel and western intelligence/financial services?
https://swprs.org/why-israel-created-hamas/
Don't take it from me, though. Read all the quotes and citations above.
>>"Hamas that was basically created by Israel and western intelligence/financial services"
Nope -> Hamas was established during the First intifada against the Israeli occupation in 1987, and has its origins in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement, which had been active in the Gaza Strip since the 1950s and gained influence through a network of mosques and various charitable and social organizations." Please read the book "Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance" by Tareq Baconi (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35793669-hamas-contained)
Here are some more references ->
(1) Hamas: A Historical and Political Background by Ziad Abu-Amr (Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.22, No.4) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538077]. Here is a more readable version (https://www.scribd.com/document/371883283/Hamas-A-Historical-and-Political-Background)
Here's some more: https://odysee.com/@swprs:3/avi-primor-israel-hamas-i24-2014:f
In an August 2014 interview on Israeli television channel i24News, former Israeli Ambassador to Germany and the EU, Avi Primor, emphasized that Hamas had been created by Israel:
“It was the Israeli government, it was us who created Hamas, in order to create a counterweight to [Yasser Arafat’s] Fatah at the time. And we thought it would be a religious organization that would quarrel with Fatah, we couldn’t foresee what would become of it, but it’s our creation, these are the facts.”
That's not my point. When I said "created" I didn't mean Israel literally came up with the idea and then introduced it fully formed like an astroturf operation. Hamas has its own murky beginnings. I suppose it would have been more accurate if I said "HELPED to create..." Please read the link I provided.
"Since the founding of Hamas in 1987, Israeli, American and Palestinian officials have repeatedly acknowledged that Israel did indeed help create and fund the Islamist group.
The point made by many of these officials is not that Israel “allowed” the rise of Hamas or that Hamas emerged in response to Israeli “occupation” of Palestine. Rather, their point was and is that Israel’s intelligence agencies actively helped create and finance the Hamas group.
As the officials cited below make clear, the overall goal of supporting Hamas has been to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state and avert the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestine question. From Israel’s perspective, a two-state solution would reduce Israel’s territory to the internationally recognized pre-1967 borders, prohibit any future territorial expansion, and prevent the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.
More specifically, supporting the Islamist Hamas group has served several Israeli objectives at once: first, it undermined Yasser Arafat’s secular nationalist PLO; second, it helped prevent the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Accords; third, it undermined the Palestinian National Authority and isolated Gaza from the Westbank; fourth, it impeded Western support for the Palestinian cause; and fifth, it justified Israeli (counter-)attacks on Palestinian territory.
In other words, by secretly supporting a group that does not recognize the existence of the state of Israel and does not accept a two-state solution, Israel does not have to accept the existence of a Palestinian state and does not have to support a two-state solution, either.
It is sometimes argued that while Israel initially supported the creation of Hamas, the Islamist group got out of control and Israeli officials came to regret their support (the “blowback theory”).
While this is certainly true for some Israeli officials and for the Israeli population affected by Hamas rockets and terrorist attacks, it is not true for Israeli grand strategists, as the quotes below make clear: for them, Hamas has continued to serve its intended purpose even after the Oslo Accords in 1993 and after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
For the grand strategists, the presence of Hamas in the remaining Palestinian territories might provide, one day, the necessary pretext for a “final solution” to the Palestinian question. [...]"
and
"Already in 1986, one year before the official founding of Hamas, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, David K. Shipler, revealed how Israel supported the Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip that would give rise to the Hamas group. Referring to Israel’s military governor of the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, Shipler noted in his book, “Arab and Jew”:
>>>Politically speaking, Islamic fundamentalists were sometimes regarded as useful to Israel because they had their conflicts with the secular supporters of the PLO. Violence between the groups erupted occasionally on West Bank university campuses, and the Israeli military governor of the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, once told me how he had financed the Islamic movement as a counterweight to the PLO and the Communists. “The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques,” he said.<<<
During the May 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis, Shipler reiterated these statements in a letter to the New York Times and emphasized the active role played by Israeli authorities:
>>>“Nicholas Kristof is right when he mentions that Israel once allowed the rise of Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization. But Israel did much more than “allow.”
In 1981, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, Israel’s military governor of Gaza, told me that he was giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities. The funding was intended to tilt power away from both Communist and Palestinian nationalist movements in Gaza, which Israel considered more threatening than the fundamentalists.
Judging by a distressed phone call I got later from the army spokesman, General Segev’s superiors were not happy with his disclosure of a practice that did not look very clever, even at the time. They thought incorrectly — but apparently wished — that he had made his comments off the record.”