• @kibiz0r@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m not gonna allege specific knowledge of this attack, but there is plenty of evidence that Netanyahu and his cabinet saw continued provocations by Hamas as a key to retaining their power.

      Whether he did anything to make it happen, an attack like this was very much on his wish list.

      https://www.vox.com/23910085/netanyahu-israel-right-hamas-gaza-war-history

      a columnist at Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper unearthed evidence that Netanyahu has intentionally propped up Hamas rule in Gaza — seeing Palestinian extremism as a bulwark against a two-state solution to the conflict.

      Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” the prime minister reportedly said at a 2019 meeting of his Likud party. “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

      This is why Netanyahu reportedly saw Hamas rule in Gaza as something of an asset. So long as the Palestinians remain divided among themselves — Hamas in charge of Gaza and the moderate Fatah faction in power in the West Bank — then a peace agreement is likely impossible: You can’t come to a negotiated settlement without a unified negotiating partner. The terrorist threat Hamas poses, on this thinking, can be managed; the endless blockade and periodic military operations, euphemistically called “mowing the grass,” can keep the danger posed by Hamas within acceptable parameters.