According to the Jerusalem Post, 4 out of 5 Jewish Israelis believe Netanyahu is to blame for the mass infiltration of Hamas terrorists. For years, Netanyahu deliberately empowered the group by taking approaches that kept money flowing into Gaza as a broader strategy to sabotage the two-state solution and buy short-term calm with money. To this day, Netanyahu denies any of these claims: but in 2019, at a Likud Party conference, Netanyahu himself claimed that “anyone who wants to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas," confirming that this was his strategy all along.
How did we get here?
In August 2005, Israel unilaterally left Gaza’s Strip, which it had occupied since 1967. Elections were brought forward the following year: Hamas won in Gaza, while Fatah - the opposition party - won in the West Bank. After an internal conflict in Gaza’s Strip, Hamas took control of it, while Fatah settled down in the West Bank, outlining the political fracture still present to this day.
Since then, Israel and Egypt have imposed an embargo against Gaza’s Strip. The two are controlling the only two existing borders, Karni and Rafah, respectively. Israel also controls the entrance of fuel, water, or any primary goods. Finally, in 2009, Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel.
Funds
It’s well known that the Qatari government had been sending funds to Hamas for years: Netanyahu’s government not only knew about it but also condoned it. According to The Times of Israel, between 2012 and 2018, Netanyahu gave Qatar approval to transfer one billion dollars, half of which went to Hamas, including its military wing. Since 2018, Qatar has provided millions of dollars in cash to Hamas to pay for fuel and to provide aid to poor families. Israel also gave permits, which allowed Gazan laborers to have access to higher salaries. Since the new 2023 election, the number of work permits under Netanyahu’s government has increased drastically, up to 20,000 permits. The Prime Minister argued that he only allowed money to flow to the Gaza Strip in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and that it was better for Israel to serve as the pipeline to ensure the funds don’t go to terrorism. Still, it’s undeniable that the money that entered Gaza was crucial to propping up Hamas.
No state solution
In December 2012, Netanyahu said that it was “important to keep Hamas strong as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank." In fact, the political agenda behind Netanyahu’s actions is to trace back to his will to oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state by maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, as we mentioned earlier. As the ex Prime Minister Ehud Barak said, the logic behind this strategy lies in the fact that "it's easier with Hamas to explain to Israelis that there is no one to sit with and no one to talk to."
The ultimate goal is the deadlock of any political process: by hindering the peace process, Israel prevents the Palestinian state from being established, and Netanyahu can claim that he can't negotiate with the Palestinian Authority since it does not represent all Palestinians.
That being said, the strategic withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 is not to be interpreted as a generous concession made by Israel but rather as part of this strategy; in fact, after that, Israel gained full control over Gaza as an occupying force, according to the principles of international law. That is again confirmed with the 2014 war: as soon as Fatah and Hamas came together to establish a government of unity, Israel attacked Gaza and vanished any hope of political union.
Criticism
Although the criticism comes from political opponents, some of the main opponents were actually inside Netanyahu’s government all along. The defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was the first to bring up in 2020 the Netanyahu government's ties with Qatar’s payments by denouncing how Netanyahu dispatched both the chief of Israeli intelligence and the IDF’s officer in charge of Gaza to Doha in order to keep Qataris sending money to Hamas. As a sign of protest over Netanyahu’s policies, both Liberman and Naftali Bennett - the education minister - resigned.
Conclusions
If we take a step back, we can notice how both Israel and Hamas ultimately have the same goal: in both cases, the gain of one represents the loss and the annihilation of the other. This means that the two-state solution cannot be practically brought to the table since it is against the aims of each of the two. Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu share that vision: and Netanyahu recently showed a map representing what he claims to be “the New Middle East'' with no trace of the Palestinian territory. This says a lot about the future of the war and the fate of the Palestinian people. What is clear is that once the war comes to an end, Netanyahu’s government is done: the clock is ticking for Bibi Netanyahu.
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