{"id":1610462,"date":"2024-04-15T05:57:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T05:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=318927"},"modified":"2024-04-15T05:57:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T05:57:47","slug":"netanyahu-bolstered-hamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/15\/netanyahu-bolstered-hamas\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu Bolstered Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
\"\"

Benjamin Netanyahu, Youtube screengrab.<\/p><\/div>\n

Since the start of the Gaza war, more than 200 hundred aid workers have been killed. As a result, the health situation of the civilian population, still reeling from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)\u2019s attacks, has worsened considerably, since many aid operations have been cancelled. One cannot but wonder what is crossing Netanyahu\u2019s mind who is unable to see the suffering of hundreds of thousands of human beings, a situation that is mainly his responsibility.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t escape anybody that, to a large extent, this has to do with Netanyahu\u2019s desire to escape accountability for his actions. What is becoming increasingly evident is that absolute power has transformed him, making him even more ruthless and more impervious to criticism or to the calls for human kindness.<\/p>\n

When he took office as prime minister for the second time in 2009, Netanyahu developed a perverse political doctrine that held that increasing the rift between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority would be to Israel\u2019s advantage. That way, the diplomatic paralysis created would eliminate the possibility of negotiations with the Palestinians about the division of Israel into two states.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy \u2013to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank,\u201d he declared years later. Consequent with this strategy, between 2012 and 2018 Netanyahu gave approval to Qatar to transfer a total of approximately a billion dollars to Gaza, half of which went to Hamas, including its military wing.<\/p>\n

On May 5, 2019, Gershon Hacohen, an Israeli major general in reserves, had told the Ynet news website, \u201cWe need to tell the truth. Netanyahu\u2019s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into its closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it\u2019s an ally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confirming Hacohen\u2019s point of view, on October 8, 2023, Tal Schneider, an Israeli political commentator, wrote in The Times of Israel, \u201c\u2026Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip. Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset.<\/p>\n

On October 24, 2023, Iris Leal, an Israeli journalist, showing a remarkable capacity to anticipate events, wrote in Haaretz, \u201cIf we don\u2019t want to show weakness, the goals of the war must be logical: a heavy blow, but not the insanity of flattening and occupying Gaza that has seized everyone. We have to rehabilitate, not spill more blood. We must concentrate our efforts on a major hostage deal and make time for the process of recovery and the defascization of Israeli society. It will begin with bringing down the government and its leader and establishing a commission of inquiry for the events of Black Saturday, the events of the black year that preceded it, and the rot of the years of Netanyahu\u2019s rule that led to them.\u201d Those words are as valid now as when they were written more than five months ago.<\/p>\n

Writing in Pagina 12, an Argentine newspaper, Juli\u00e1n Varsavsky, an Argentine essayist and communications expert said, \u201cNetanyahu and Hamas are mortal enemies that oppose the existence of two states. That symbiosis requires both to be in power. Hamas’ suicide attacks strengthened Netanyahu in 1996: the anti-terrorist struggle gets votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This situation will haunt Netanyahu for years to come. He is showing the characteristics of a psychopath, unable to listen to anybody\u2019s opinion but his own, particularly when his own political survival is at stake. Psychopaths suffer from a personality disorder manifested, among other features, by shallow emotions, absence of regret or remorse, impulsivity, inability to distinguish right and wrong, and behavior that conflicts with social norms, all of them present in Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

The relentless IDF\u2019s bombardment of the civilian population remind me of the poem The Pilot,<\/p>\n

by the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, translated by Peter Cole.<\/p>\n

The Pilot<\/strong><\/p>\n

When next you circle<\/em><\/p>\n

in your chopper<\/em><\/p>\n

over Jenin,<\/em><\/p>\n

pilot, remember the children<\/em><\/p>\n

and old women<\/em><\/p>\n

in the homes at which you fire.<\/em><\/p>\n

Spread a layer<\/em><\/p>\n

of chocolate across your missile,<\/em><\/p>\n

and do your best to be precise\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

so their souvenir will be sweet<\/em><\/p>\n

when the walls start to fall.<\/em><\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s unchecked arrogance makes him interested in a never-ending conflict with the Palestinians. As Haaretz columnist Bradely Burston has stated, \u201cHe wants the world to accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid, violent occupation and ethnic cleansing\u201d to make Israelis believe \u201cthe world hates us, and he is the only one who can save them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel will survive Netanyahu\u2019s ruling. However, the damage that he has caused to the social and juridical fabric of Israel has been immense. After the most ruthless and indiscriminate bombing of civilians in recent times, all that is left of Gaza are terrified survivors, a ravaged land, and the devil\u2019s footprints.<\/p>\n

The post Netanyahu Bolstered Hamas<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the start of the Gaza war, more than 200 hundred aid workers have been killed. As a result, the health situation of the civilian population, still reeling from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)\u2019s attacks, has worsened considerably, since many aid operations have been cancelled. One cannot but wonder what is crossing Netanyahu\u2019s mind who More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Netanyahu Bolstered Hamas<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266,204],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1610462"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1611242,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610462\/revisions\/1611242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1610462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1610462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1610462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}