Netanyahu and Hamas: The Best of Enemies

During a January 2000 study tour of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, I met with my students in Gaza with Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder of the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas.

I asked Yassin to share his views on the Oslo Accords, signed in September 1993 in Washington, DC by Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat.

“It was a bad agreement intended to bury our people’s inalienable rights,” he said.  “Our Shahids (martyrs) heroically paved the way (through suicide bombing) to restore our dignity and freedom. Although they are our archenemy, many Israelis also oppose this shameful agreement for their own reasons. They wish to prolong the illegal occupation of our land,” he added.

Hamas’ 1988 founding charter clearly states that the goal of the organization is to establish an Islamic state in place of Israel: “Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (trust),” belonging to the entire Muslim nation.

Few remember that Israel played a decisively supportive role during the embryonic phases of the organization in the late 1980s. Israel’s military governors in Gaza viewed Hamas as a conservative, religious group mainly active in the social welfare sphere. They had hoped to coopt the fundamentalist organization as an alternative to Israel’s nemesis at that time – the PLO. Yet, this scheme backfired, especially during the mid-1990s and the Second Intifada (2000-04) when Hamas launched multiple bloody suicide attacks inside Israeli cities killing over 1000 people, mainly civilians.

The shooting massacre of Palestinian Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron by an Israeli far-right extremist in February 1994 triggered an extended wave of suicide bombings which became Hamas’ mode of operation.

It aimed to derail the Oslo peace process through terror and panic and to convince the Israeli public that no agreement could be reached with the Palestinians. This strategy succeeded.

In January 2006 Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian National Council (parliament), followed by a brutal takeover of the entire Gaza Strip in 2007, when it violently ousted Palestinian Authority officials from positions of power, including throwing people off rooftops.

The other vociferous opponent of Oslo was the Israeli right led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party. The extensive toxic campaign against what was viewed as an illegitimate agreement that could lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza eventually culminated in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by an ultranationalist in November 1995. Subsequently, Netanyahu, campaigning as “Mr. Security,” was elected prime minister in May 1996.

The pincer movement by Hamas and the Likud against the Oslo Accords led to Netanyahu’s victory in the election. Absent the suicide bombing campaign by Hamas, it is likely that Shimon Peres, Rabin’s successor would have defeated Netanyahu.

Although he would never acknowledge it, Netanyahu has never forgotten Hamas’ suicide terror campaign during the mid-1990s and its powerful impact on Israeli public opinion which catapulted him to power. His support of Hamas after returning to power in 2009 resulted in bolstering the Islamic organization at the expense of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank which eventually led to its barbaric invasion on October 7^th.

Israeli historian Adam Raz quotes in his new book The Road to October 7^th (published in Hebrew) Tamir Hayman, former director of IDF military intelligence summary of Netanyahu’s policy toward Hamas: “Israel’s strategy has been predicated on isolating Gaza from the West Bank; pursuing unilateral actions without offering a political horizon; and preserving a weak Palestinian Authority so it can function administratively but not as a national entity. The implications of this strategy are strengthening Hamas and diminishing the Palestinian Authority’s power.”

A crippled and delegitimized Palestinian Authority at odds with Hamas has served Netanyahu’s objectives to ‘divide and rule’ by safeguarding the status quo – maintaining the military occupation and obstructing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Raz refers to this policy as “conflict preservation.”

Tzipi Livni, former Minister of Justice claimed in 2018 while serving as the opposition’s leader in the Knesset: “The official policy, repeatedly presented to the public, is to eliminate Hamas. But, the actual policy, hidden from the public, is the preservation of the terrorist organization in Gaza.”

The book meticulously details how Netanyahu derailed every diplomatic or military effort to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza and actively undermined any attempt to reconcile Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. During the 2014 war in Gaza, Netanyahu leaked to the media an internal IDF memo that detailed the possible number of IDF casualties in case of a ground invasion of Gaza. He did so to galvanize public opinion to oppose an invasion. The cultivation of Hamas’ garden of terror in Gaza became Netanyahu’s obsessive goal.

Israeli journalist Ben Caspit revealed that at least on three occasions, the IDF presented Netanyahu with concrete plans to eliminate Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar, yet he turned these down.

Much has been written about the transfer of dollars by Qatar to Hamas as requested by Netanyahu. Fact-checking by Time magazine, indicated that during 2012-2018, $1.1 billion in cash was distributed in Gaza. This money served as the organization’s lifeline, economically and militarily. Netanyahu argued that this money pacified the local population and brought tranquility along the border.

However, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert strongly believes that the Qatari money rescued Hamas from a colossal economic collapse. “Bibi saved them,” he told Politico.

On October 7, Israel was not only caught off guard, but its military, reputed for its highly effective intelligence, was also clueless about the extent of Hamas’ sophisticated network of underground tunnels. Almost eleven months have passed since the onset of the war and Hamas remains undefeated. An agreement to end the war has yet to be reached.

When future historians chronicle the origins and prosecution of the Gaza war, one person will surely stand out – Benjamin Netanyahu – who helped sustain a Frankenstein, located only 62 miles from Jerusalem, to the detriment of his own country.

The decades-long pincer movement against Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation by Hamas and Netanyahu’s Israel is responsible for the ongoing tragedy and bloodshed besetting Arabs and Jews who share the same land in the world’s most troubled region.