– Netanyahu has blood on his hands. Of course he has. His policy has been to strengthen the terrorist group Hamas, says Eli Sheva to news. news meets the woman at a demonstration against the authorities in Israel. Family and friends of the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October believe the government is doing too little. Eli Sheva is one of 70-80 percent of Israelis who also believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must take responsibility for Hamas being able to attack defenseless Israelis on 7 October. This is shown by an opinion poll that the Times of Israel has mentioned. PRAYER: Eli Sheva is asking the authorities to do more to bring the hostages home. Here during the demonstration that has been going on in Israel since the attack on 7 October. Photo: Sidsel Wold / news Demonstrator Sheva explains why Netanyahu should strengthen Hamas. – His policy has been to strengthen the terrorist group Hamas by weakening the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is our partner for peace. It came with a terrible price on October 7, says Sheva. – Hamas is Israel’s trump card Many politicians, commentators and researchers agree. The policies of Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have backfired with ferocious force. Erik Skare is a Middle East researcher at the University of Oslo. – Hamas has been a very convenient arch-enemy, because Hamas is the Israeli trump card used to not lift the blockade of Gaza, says Middle East researcher at the University of Oslo, Erik Skare. He is a specialist in Palestinian resistance and state building. Dollars to Hamas Since Netanyahu came to power in 2009, his policy has been to oppose a Palestinian state. The recipe was to strengthen Hamas in the Gaza Strip and weaken Israel’s partner for peace, which was President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA), writes author and historian Adam Raz in Haaretz. Part of the strategy was to send money into Hamas, via Qatar. At a meeting with Likud party members in 2019, Netanyahu explained that financial support for Gaza and Hamas is part of the strategy to keep the Palestinians divided, writes the Jerusalem Post. UNPOPULAR: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference in Tel Aviv. Photo: POOL / Reuters Netanyahu left the line of his predecessor Ehud Olmert, the last Israeli prime minister to try to reach a solution with the Palestinians. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu gave Qatar the green light to introduce around one billion USD to Gaza between 2012 and 2018. The money was supposed to go towards salaries and better living conditions. But at least half ended up with Hamas. Both the money and the goods that flowed in through the blockade also strengthened Hamas’s military capacity. Warnings Around Netanyahu there was no shortage of warnings against this line. Former Minister of State and Defense Ehud Barak and former intelligence chief Yuval Diskin from the Shin Bet pointed out that Netanyahu’s strategy to keep Hamas active and strong was crazy, writes Haaretz. In 2019, Barak told Israel’s military radio Galei Zahal that Netanyahu sacrificed the security of Israelis in the south. In 2021, Shin Bet chief Nadav Agraman warned against the lack of dialogue between the PA and Israel, because this weakened the moderate Palestinians and strengthened Hamas. By weakening the PA in the West Bank and sitting with a strong Hamas, he could tell Western leaders that Israel has no “partner for peace”, because “the PA is too weak and Hamas are terrorists”. The Hamas regime was also allowed to import a number of goods and building materials that had previously been banned from Israel. Knowing that Hamas could use both the money and the goods to strengthen itself militarily, indirect support continued under Netanyahu. The cash also gave the Palestinians more purchasing power and almost 20,000 also received long-awaited work permits inside Israel. But Hamas has also been very important to Israel, since the group has managed to maintain law and order in the Gaza Strip, says Skare, because Hamas has mostly managed to keep the other armed groups in their ears, such as Islamic Jihad. Does not take responsibility The Israeli journalist Barak Ravid writes in Axios that Netanyahu is the only one who did not want to take any responsibility for the gigantic security failure that allowed Hamas fighters to enter Israel and massacre over a thousand people. This has enraged people and the demand that he must step down even stronger. Netanyahu has said that after the war, a commission of inquiry will investigate what happened and it will be able to ask tough questions. It will take years to repair the Prime Minister’s political line, treating a terrorist group as a partner and tolerating rocket attacks at the expense of President Mahmoud Abbas and a Palestinian state has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal, writes commentator Tal Schneider in the Times of Israel . Researcher Skare agrees that Netanyahu has governed by the divide and rule method: – Netanyahu has obviously pursued a divide and rule strategy among the Palestinians, in that on the one hand he says that no we cannot negotiate with the self-governing authorities in the West Bank because they do not represent all Palestinians. And when the Palestinians have tried to gather, Netanyahu has said that we cannot talk to the Palestinians if Hamas is involved, because Hamas does not recognize Israel. – It will be like catch-22. An impossible situation, where no one gets on, says Erik Skare to news.
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This is how Israel’s prime minister strengthened Hamas – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
