How Israel Created Hamas

Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.

"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.

online.wsj.com...

In its recent war in Gaza, Israel didn't set the destruction of Hamas as its goal. It limited its stated objectives to halting the Islamists' rocket fire and battering their overall military capacity. At the start of the Israeli operation in December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that the goal was "to deal Hamas a severe blow, a blow that will cause it to stop its hostile actions from Gaza at Israeli citizens and soldiers."

Walking back to his house from the rubble of his neighbor's home, Mr. Cohen, the former religious affairs official in Gaza, curses Hamas and also what he sees as missteps that allowed Islamists to put down deep roots in Gaza.

He recalls a 1970s meeting with a traditional Islamic cleric who wanted Israel to stop cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood followers of Sheikh Yassin: "He told me: 'You are going to have big regrets in 20 or 30 years.' He was right."


This makes me wonder: Just how much of the world around me that looks like happenstance and coincidence is actually 'designed' by 'the powers that be' and all of this is just part of someones gameplan..?

reply to post by Grock


I had never heard the idea that Hamas was actually created by Israel until I heard Ron Paul talking about it. However the more I learn about it the more I think that is true. The big question isn't really whether Israel supported them but how much they supported them and how early on they supported them.

It's just the old classic, whenever you play "My enemies enemy is my friend", you risk a big blowback, just like the mujahadeen with the USA.

en.wikipedia.org...

Once your enemy has been defeated, those hostile forces are bound to turn their newfound rockets and ak-47s onto you.