Netanyahu's history of arming Arabs caused October 7th: Why the blazes is he doing it again?!

From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Israel tolerated and indirectly supported the growth of Hamas’s precursor, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, as a counterweight to the secular, nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat.

According to a 2006 United Press International report, former U.S. intelligence officials noted that Israel provided “direct and indirect financial aid” to Hamas to dilute support for the PLO. Avner Cohen, a former Israeli official in Gaza’s religious affairs department, stated, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” highlighting how Israel encouraged the group to undermine the PLO’s dominance.

By the late 1980s, as Hamas emerged as an armed organization during the First Intifada (1987), Israel continued to avoid direct crackdowns on its leaders, such as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, despite his inflammatory rhetoric. A 1988 New York Times article quoted a Western diplomat noting that Israel’s arrests focused on PLO factions while sparing Hamas figures like Yassin.

Netanyahu’s Policies Since the 1990s

Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister, spanning much of the period from 1996 and particularly from 2009 onward, saw this strategy formalized. His governments pursued a policy of maintaining Hamas’s control over Gaza to keep it separate from the PA in the West Bank, thus obstructing a unified Palestinian front for statehood. Key actions included:

Qatari Cash Transfers: Since 2018, Israel allowed Qatar to send millions of dollars monthly to Gaza, often in cash-filled suitcases, to fund Hamas’s government and prevent humanitarian collapse. In 2019, at a Likud party meeting, Netanyahu reportedly said, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas… This is part of our strategy, to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Minimal Military Response: Netanyahu’s governments avoided decisive military action against Hamas’s infrastructure, with policies described as “mowing the grass”, periodic strikes to weaken but not destroy Hamas. No senior Hamas commanders were killed after 2014 until the current war, allowing Hamas to grow stronger.

Weakening the PA: Netanyahu’s policies included reducing foreign aid to the PA, opposing West Bank elections, and rejecting peace initiatives like the 2010 settlement freeze, the 2014 Kerry initiative, and Trump’s “Deal of the Century.” This weakened PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who was seen as a potential partner for negotiations, while Hamas was treated as an “asset” by figures like Bezalel Smotrich, who in 2015 called the PA a “burden” and Hamas an “asset.”

Sadly, and though he knows better (well, we can hope he does), Netanyahu’s current arming of Gazan militias, like the Abu Shabab clan, against Hamas reminds us of his past strategy of propping up Hamas against the PA. Both reflect a consistent tactic of exploiting Palestinian divisions to avoid a two-state solution. Critics, including Avigdor Liberman, argue this mirrors the earlier mistake, with Liberman warning that arming clans linked to Salafi or ISIS ideologies could lead to weapons being turned against Israel, just as Hamas’s empowerment led to the October 7 attack.

As The Nation noted, this divide-and-rule approach is a “decades-old strategy that fuels endless war,” with dire consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis.

After the shocking October 7th atrocities perpetrated against us by Hamas, you would think we would have learned. Yiou would be wrong.