naraburns nihil supernum
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Long article, but the meat of it is that Israel allowed Islamist groups in Gaza, which had been repressed under the Egyptian government, to grow in influence after the six-day war, opting to focus on secular groups like the PLO. The precursor to Hamas, Mujama al-Islamiya, was officially recognized by Israel. The Israelis stood by and watched while the Islamists fought the secularists for power in the early 80s, but they didn't actively support them. HAMAS officially formed in 1987 during the first intifada, started carrying out attacks, and the Israelis finally realized that they were dealing with a serious threat, while the PLO moved towards diplomacy.
In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers. Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel. Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide.
Brig. General Yosef Kastel, Gaza's Israeli governor at the time, is too ill to comment, says his wife. But Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who took over as governor in Gaza in late 1979, says he had no illusions about Sheikh Yassin's long-term intentions or the perils of political Islam. As Israel's former military attache in Iran, he'd watched Islamic fervor topple the Shah. However, in Gaza, says Mr. Segev, "our main enemy was Fatah," and the cleric "was still 100% peaceful" towards Israel. Former officials say Israel was also at the time wary of being viewed as an enemy of Islam.
As the fighting between rival student factions at Birzeit grew more violent, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, then a military intelligence officer in Gaza, says he received a call from Israeli soldiers manning a checkpoint on the road out of Gaza. They had stopped a bus carrying Islamic activists who wanted to join the battle against Fatah at Birzeit. "I said: 'If they want to burn each other let them go,'" recalls Mr. Harari.
A leader of Birzeit's Islamist faction at the time was Mahmoud Musleh, now a pro-Hamas member of a Palestinian legislature elected in 2006. He recalls how usually aggressive Israeli security forces stood back and let conflagration develop. He denies any collusion between his own camp and the Israelis, but says "they hoped we would become an alternative to the PLO."
"I believe that by continuing to turn away our eyes, our lenient approach to Mujama will in the future harm us. I therefore suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," Mr. Cohen wrote.
Mr. Harari, the military intelligence officer, says this and other warnings were ignored. But, he says, the reason for this was neglect, not a desire to fortify the Islamists: "Israel never financed Hamas. Israel never armed Hamas."
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Notes -
https://archive.ph/6mQ4Z
Long article, but the meat of it is that Israel allowed Islamist groups in Gaza, which had been repressed under the Egyptian government, to grow in influence after the six-day war, opting to focus on secular groups like the PLO. The precursor to Hamas, Mujama al-Islamiya, was officially recognized by Israel. The Israelis stood by and watched while the Islamists fought the secularists for power in the early 80s, but they didn't actively support them. HAMAS officially formed in 1987 during the first intifada, started carrying out attacks, and the Israelis finally realized that they were dealing with a serious threat, while the PLO moved towards diplomacy.
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