naraburns nihil supernum
7mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Question to those who have researched this: how true is it that Israel helped create Hamas? The general idea being that the Israeli government provided substantial resources to baby Hamas to act as a counterweight to the PLO. Which I want to put in my quiver of "governments being too clever for their own good," but the popular sources I've seen for mostly just repeat the story without sourcing it.
Long article, but the meat of it is that Israel allowed Islamist groups in Gaza, which had been repressed under the Egyptian government, to grow in influence after the six-day war, opting to focus on secular groups like the PLO. The precursor to Hamas, Mujama al-Islamiya, was officially recognized by Israel. The Israelis stood by and watched while the Islamists fought the secularists for power in the early 80s, but they didn't actively support them. HAMAS officially formed in 1987 during the first intifada, started carrying out attacks, and the Israelis finally realized that they were dealing with a serious threat, while the PLO moved towards diplomacy.
In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.
Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.
As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.
A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."
"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.
Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."
Diskin told the American envoy that although Fatah was desperate, its leadership was behaving as would be expected of people faced with such a difficult situation.
He told Jones that Fatah had thus turned to Israel for help in attack Hamas, which he termed a new and unprecedented development in Jerusalem's relations with the Palestinian Authority.
"They are approaching a zero-sum situation, and yet they ask us to attack Hamas," Diskin said. "This is a new development. We have never seen this before. They are desperate."
Diskin is also cited opposing a U.S. proposal to supply ammunition and weapons to Fatah, fearful that Hamas might get its hands on them instead.
Diskin went on to share with Jones sensitive details relating to the cooperation between the Shin Bet and the Palestinian security and intelligence forces in the West Bank.
Palestinian security was sharing "almost all the intelligence that it collects" with Israel," Diskin told Jones. "They understand that Israel's security is central to their
survival in the struggle with Hamas in the West Bank," he said, according to the cable.
The cable also exposes Diskin's concern that Abbas had begun to pose as a problem for Israel. "He's a paradox. He cannot function and do anything. Why is Fatah failing?
Because Abbas has become the 'good guy' whom everyone is trying to do everything for in order to keep him alive.
"He knows he is weak and that he has failed ... to rehabilitate Fatah. He did not start to take any action when he had the chance in 2004. Instead of choosing to be the leader for Fatah, he chose to be a national leader for all Palestinians," Diskin said, according to the cable.
A few days after the meeting with Diskin, when the clashes in Gaza had reached their peaks on June 12, Jones met Israel's then-Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin.In the cable sent to Washington, Jones said that Yadlin had been quite satisfied with Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip.If Hamas managed to take complete control then the Israel Defense Forces would be able to relate to Gaza as a hostile territory and stop looking at the militant group as an undiplomatic player, Yadlin apparently told Jones.A few weeks later, Israel's cabinet indeed reached the decision to relate to Gaza as a hostile territory.
A year and a half before Israel took offensive of the Gaza Strip in Operation Cast Lead, Yadlin referred to the territory as the fourth most hostile place in the world – following Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
You know, I like this situation for how it exposes the vileness of people. The US sometimes deposes hostile leaders in its growing sphere of influence, and is content to leave sycophants in charge; charitably, it even has some compunctions to have those sycophants not be utterly psychopathic. Israel, however, plays by a harsher rulebook: it encourages the whole opposing people to fall into extremism, to then be justified in their dehumanization. And what do we get? Buck-broken power worshippers nodding approvingly: «civilization is entitled to remove barbarism».
This is purely of historical interest: it has pretty much no bearing on what Israel, Hamas, or their international allies can or should do (aside from encouraging a general rejection of clever clandestine activities). My main complaint about the sources I had found is because they were primarily interested in scoring points against Israel, so I approach it with skepticism but still do care about the history (and do enjoy keeping a collection of government fuckups).
I honestly think you can just ignore it. People still talk about rumored CIA activity in Iran and Congo in the 1950s as the reason those countries still suck today. It's nuclear grade cope and not worth considering.
If Kermit Roosevelt can take a suitcase full of cash into Iran in the 1950s and force them to overthrow their democratic leader (not actually democratic by the way, but whatever), what does that say about Iranians? Why are they so weak? Why don't they have any agency at all? It's all so stupid. The people who would blame the current situation on trivial (or even non-existent) events that happened decades ago are in fantasy land and should be treated as such.
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Notes -
Question to those who have researched this: how true is it that Israel helped create Hamas? The general idea being that the Israeli government provided substantial resources to baby Hamas to act as a counterweight to the PLO. Which I want to put in my quiver of "governments being too clever for their own good," but the popular sources I've seen for mostly just repeat the story without sourcing it.
https://archive.ph/6mQ4Z
Long article, but the meat of it is that Israel allowed Islamist groups in Gaza, which had been repressed under the Egyptian government, to grow in influence after the six-day war, opting to focus on secular groups like the PLO. The precursor to Hamas, Mujama al-Islamiya, was officially recognized by Israel. The Israelis stood by and watched while the Islamists fought the secularists for power in the early 80s, but they didn't actively support them. HAMAS officially formed in 1987 during the first intifada, started carrying out attacks, and the Israelis finally realized that they were dealing with a serious threat, while the PLO moved towards diplomacy.
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No one actually knows anything about this stuff. It's all just conjecture. Healthy skepticism would seem like the default mode.
But even if Israeli did provide clandestine resources to Hamas 35 years ago, how does that relate to today?
Overall, the idea that Israel is responsible for Hamas would be similar to the idea that the Winklevoss twins created Facebook.
This is quite a take.
In any case, we know that half that time ago Israel refused Fatah's request for support against the takeover of Gaza by Hamas.
You know, I like this situation for how it exposes the vileness of people. The US sometimes deposes hostile leaders in its growing sphere of influence, and is content to leave sycophants in charge; charitably, it even has some compunctions to have those sycophants not be utterly psychopathic. Israel, however, plays by a harsher rulebook: it encourages the whole opposing people to fall into extremism, to then be justified in their dehumanization. And what do we get? Buck-broken power worshippers nodding approvingly: «civilization is entitled to remove barbarism».
Some light unto the nations. Gamma rays probably.
Is it vile to refuse help to your sworn enemy? Assuming they did help, would the world recognize, and palestinians be grateful for their generosity?
Which sworn enemy?
Fatah?
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This is purely of historical interest: it has pretty much no bearing on what Israel, Hamas, or their international allies can or should do (aside from encouraging a general rejection of clever clandestine activities). My main complaint about the sources I had found is because they were primarily interested in scoring points against Israel, so I approach it with skepticism but still do care about the history (and do enjoy keeping a collection of government fuckups).
I honestly think you can just ignore it. People still talk about rumored CIA activity in Iran and Congo in the 1950s as the reason those countries still suck today. It's nuclear grade cope and not worth considering.
If Kermit Roosevelt can take a suitcase full of cash into Iran in the 1950s and force them to overthrow their democratic leader (not actually democratic by the way, but whatever), what does that say about Iranians? Why are they so weak? Why don't they have any agency at all? It's all so stupid. The people who would blame the current situation on trivial (or even non-existent) events that happened decades ago are in fantasy land and should be treated as such.
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