Quote:
Originally Posted by moe.ron
Interesting to note, in that article, is that Israel had no problem training and arming them in the 80s to counter act the PLO and Fatah. Now, their own project decides to bite them back.
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I'm missing that in the article. Where is it?
ETA: I see it now. Newspapers articles assert there was funding from Israel, as opposed to Israel having no problem training and arming them threw me off. Even if we accept the reports as true, I get the idea from the article that rather than counteract the PLO and Fatah in fighting Israel that they wanted to be able to use Hamas's attacks as a way of reshaping the issue as purely religious. I don't know what to believe on the funding issue, but it doesn't appear to be "bite them back" situation. They, again if you accept the claims, always knew Hamas would bite:
"Various sources, among them United Press International,[106] Le Canard enchaîné,[citation needed] Gérard Chaliand[107] and L'Humanité[108] have claimed that Hamas' early growth had been supported by the Mossad as a "counterbalance to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)".The French investigative newspaper Le Canard enchaîné claimed that Shin Bet had also supported Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO and Fatah. It speculated that this was an attempt to give "a religious slant to the conflict, in order to make the West believe that the conflict was between Jews and Muslims", perhaps in order to support the controversial thesis of a "clash of civilizations".[109]"
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle10456.htm I really wish they did have named sources.
ETC: it's creepy to me, but it seems a lot lot more involved that the kind of "the US armed Al Qaeda to fight the USSR" kind of stuff. It seems really odd to me that Israel thought they'd be better off with a religious vs. political enemy.
And it appears on further reading that to "counter" or "counteract" the PLO etc, may principally have referred to Hamas's more humanitarian efforts early on with hospitals and schools. It seems like Israel wanted to draw support away from the more political groups within the Palestinian community with an organization they expected to stay infiltrated in. I don't get the sense that they ever expected Hamas to actually fight the PLO with weapons. Going back that far, it would almost make sense for people to see Hamas as the more peaceful group, but at the time they were elected, not so much.
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