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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   28867 thread views

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.

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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.

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.

But even if Israeli did provide clandestine resources to Hamas 35 years ago, how does that relate to today?

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.

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».

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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