{"id":29028,"date":"2023-10-12T13:31:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T20:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=29028"},"modified":"2023-10-12T13:31:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T20:31:46","slug":"blowback-how-israel-went-from-helping-create-hamas-to-bombing-it-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/10\/12\/blowback-how-israel-went-from-helping-create-hamas-to-bombing-it-2\/","title":{"rendered":"BLOWBACK: HOW ISRAEL WENT FROM HELPING CREATE HAMAS TO BOMBING IT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Blowback: How Israel Helped Create Hamas\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o7grSsuFSS0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Hamas wants to destroy Israel, right? But as Mehdi Hasan shows in a new video on blowback, Israeli officials admit they helped start the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/mehdihasan\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/mehdi-600-bg111-1529532753-440x440-1530205407-1530634841-120x120.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/dinasayedahmed\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-06-at-4.50.45-PM-1-1510268189-120x120.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/mehdihasan\/\">Mehdi Hasan<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/dinasayedahmed\/\">Dina Sayedahmed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>February 19 2018, 7:00 a.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WHAT DO YOU&nbsp;know about Hamas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That it\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/fas.org\/irp\/world\/para\/docs\/880818a.htm\">sworn<\/a>&nbsp;to destroy Israel? That it\u2019s a terrorist group, proscribed both by the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/j\/ct\/rls\/other\/des\/123085.htm\">United States<\/a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/world\/articles\/2017-07-26\/top-eu-court-keeps-hamas-on-eu-terror-list-refers-case-back\">European Union<\/a>? That it rules Gaza&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/latest\/news\/2015\/05\/gaza-palestinians-tortured-summarily-killed-by-hamas-forces-during-2014-conflict\/\">with an iron fist<\/a>? That it\u2019s killed hundreds of innocent Israelis with&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-32053999\">rocket<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/day-46-hamas-vows-revenge-fires-rockets-kills-collaborators-after-strikes-on-its-terror-chiefs\/\">mortar<\/a>, and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/middle_east\/3256858.stm\">suicide<\/a>&nbsp;attacks?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But did you also know that Hamas \u2014 which is an&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/07\/17\/AR2006071700898.html\">Arabic acronym<\/a>&nbsp;for \u201cIslamic Resistance Movement\u201d \u2014 would probably not exist today were it not for the Jewish state? That the Israelis helped turn a bunch of fringe Palestinian Islamists in the late 1970s into one of the world\u2019s most notorious militant groups? That Hamas is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/01\/22\/blowback-cia-drones-middle-east\/\">blowback<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn\u2019t a conspiracy theory. Listen to former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. Segev later&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=av5eBwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT254&amp;dq=brigadier+segev+mosque+arab+and+jew+shipler&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjnnNy4wanZAhVhT98KHZGZDDsQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&amp;q=brigadier%20segev%20mosque%20arab%20and%20jew%20shipler&amp;f=false\">told<\/a>&nbsp;a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a \u201ccounterweight\u201d to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=hfNdDQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT92&amp;lpg=PT92&amp;dq=arafat+%E2%80%9Ca+creature+of+Israel.%E2%80%9D&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=q45wmSEiFC&amp;sig=Faci5_JmVLOCTrxLe142HX9klvw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwin_Y3wxKnZAhUjmeAKHRy9DSAQ6AEINTAC#v=onepage&amp;q=arafat%20%E2%80%9Ca%20creature%20of%20Israel.%E2%80%9D&amp;f=false\">referred<\/a>&nbsp;to Hamas as \u201ca creature of Israel.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Israeli government gave me a budget,\u201d the retired brigadier general confessed, \u201cand the military government gives to the mosques.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHamas, to my great regret, is Israel\u2019s creation,\u201d Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20090926212507\/http:\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123275572295011847.html\">told<\/a>&nbsp;the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. \u201cI \u2026 suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They didn\u2019t listen to him. And Hamas, as I explain in the fifth installment of my&nbsp;short film series&nbsp;for The Intercept on blowback, was the result. To be clear: First, the Israelis&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20090926212507\/http:\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123275572295011847.html\">helped build up<\/a>&nbsp;a militant strain of Palestinian political Islam, in the form of Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood precursors; then, the Israelis switched tack and tried to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2015\/07\/evidence-israeli-war-crimes-gaza-interactive-15072810-150728133534137.html\">bomb<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/how-israels-10-year-blockade-brought-gaza-to-the-brink-of-collapse\/\">besiege, and blockade<\/a>&nbsp;it out of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past decade alone, Israel has gone to war with Hamas three times \u2014 in 2009, 2012, and 2014 \u2014 killing&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-28439404\">around 2,500 Palestinian civilians<\/a>&nbsp;in Gaza in the process. Meanwhile, Hamas has killed far more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian militant group. This is the human cost of blowback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake,\u201d David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military who was based in Gaza in the 1980s,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20090926212507\/http:\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123275572295011847.html\">later remarked<\/a>. \u201cBut at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They never do, do they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">CONTACT THE AUTHOR:<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/mehdihasan\/\"><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/mehdihasan\/\">Mehdi Hasan<\/a><a href=\"mailto:mehdi.hasan@theintercept.com\">mehdi.hasan@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mehdirhasan\">@mehdirhasan<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/dinasayedahmed\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/dinasayedahmed\/\">Dina Sayedahmed<\/a><a href=\"mailto:dina.sayedahmed@theintercept.com\">dina.sayedahmed@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bintabuahmed_\">@bintabuahmed_<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hamas wants to destroy Israel, right? But as Mehdi Hasan shows in a new video on blowback, Israeli officials admit they helped start the group. Mehdi Hasan,&nbsp;Dina Sayedahmed February 19 2018, 7:00 a.m. (TheIntercept.com) WHAT DO YOU&nbsp;know about Hamas? That it\u2019s&nbsp;sworn&nbsp;to destroy Israel? That it\u2019s a terrorist group, proscribed both&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/10\/12\/blowback-how-israel-went-from-helping-create-hamas-to-bombing-it-2\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[132,828],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29029,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29028\/revisions\/29029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}