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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
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There's a large difference between creating and supporting Hamas and a politician taking advantage of the situation, and playing two enemies (Fatah and Hamas) against each other.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middl...ntl/index.html
The first article you quoted deals with release of payments from Qatar that were earmarked for Gaza social services, but also likely would have filtered through or to Hamas.
These payments started in 2018, over 10 years after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, which is what this discussion is about. By then Israel's reality with Hamas had changed. Also from your article:
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There was also an illusion, he added, that “if you fed them (Hamas) with money, they would be tamed.”
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Israel was under pressure to allow Gaza funding:
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An Israeli official told CNN that any suggestion that Netanyahu wanted to maintain a “moderately weakened” Hamas was “utterly false” and that he had acted to weaken Hamas “significantly.”
“He led three powerful military operations against Hamas which killed thousands of terrorists and senior Hamas commanders,” the official said. “Successive Israeli governments before, during and after Netanyahu’s governments enabled money to go to Gaza. Not in order to strengthen Hamas but to prevent a humanitarian crisis by supporting critical infrastructure, including water and sewage systems to prevent the spread of disease and enable daily life.”
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Are you suggesting that the proper thing to do was to prevent aid from going to Gaza?
All you've quoted is a bunch of opinion pieces on the two facts I already provided.
Yes, Israel did nothing to shut down mosques and schools in the 1970s and 80s. How could they? The Muslim Brotherhood had denounced violence, and Israel can't just storm random mosques and schools without huge international attention. By 1983, however, they were already arresting Yassin. Yes, in hindsight, they should have acted sooner. Do you have any evidence of Israel actually giving Hamas money?
Just an opinion piece 40 years after the fact that makes vague references to tolerance. The only evidence about Israel actually did that I could find:
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Yassin and his fledgling movement found an unexpected ally in Israeli authorities. Gaza’s new rulers loosened previous restrictions on activists promoting political Islam; officially registered Mujama al-Islamiya as a charity and later as an association; allowed its members to spread its message and build goodwill by developing a network of local institutions; and stood back when the group battled its rivals: Palestine’s secularists.
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So they let a Muslim charity, who had denounced violence, be a charity? That's the same as creating Hamas? Israel's constitution guarantees freedom of religion. They have to allow religious groups to register as charities.
Then over 20 years later Hamas takes control of Gaza. Then another 10 years later they allow Qatar to provide funds, which are earmarked for hospitals and other aid. Are you saying aid to Gaza shouldn't happen? The correct course is more restrictions? Israel shouldn't let Qatar fund hospitals? If they do, they are responsible for Hamas?
You're saying the correct approach is to pre-emptively ban Gazans from worshiping or working with charitable groups, even if they denounce violence, as there is a later chance those same groups cold become terrorist groups, and Gazans aren't capable of making those decisions for themselves?