There is also an old article in the NYT about how Israel helped with the founding of HAMAS.. Its as if the Israelis created an enemy. http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=16447 Israel funding Hamas, Olmert admits Thursday, June 26, 2008 | Israel Today Staff The office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted on Wednesday that it is allowing the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels to the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip every month. Most of the funds enter Gaza in currency exchanges for the dollars and euros Hamas smuggles into the territory following fund-raising trips to Iran and other supportive Middle East regimes. In a letter to the Prime Minister's Office earlier in the week, the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center warned that the government was actively aiding the perpetuation of Hamas rule in Gaza, despite its own stated policies. Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner explained that without the influx of Israeli shekels, the currency of record in Gaza, Hamas would be financially unable to rule. By allowing the entry of shekels into Gaza, Darshan-Leitner noted that Israel is breaching an economic embargo of Gaza by Western powers that Israel itself insisted upon, and is helping a terrorist organization to launder money, a direct violation of the Terror-Funding Act of 2005. Worse, said Darshan-Leitner, is the fact that " the Israeli government's policy of transferring shekels is assisting the Hamas terrorists with their missile attacks on the Negev communities." In response, Olmert's office wrote that "due to conclusions that there is an Israeli interest that the transfer of funds continue, a decision was made to continue to transfer certain sums of money to the Gaza Strip." Shurat Hadin has threatened to sue the government both in local and international courts if the transfer of funds does not cease.
Here it is : How Israel Spawned Hamas. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847 Sorry.. its from the Wall Street Journal and here's a brief excerpt. "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. Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric. continued at the link.
Oh come on Margot. this old crap again? Firstly, currency exchange on dollars and euros to schekels is in Israel's best interests (both financially and security wise), and does not aid Hamas since they can't spend the shekels anywhere but in gaza, but they can spend dollars and euros ANYWHERE. Secondly, OF COURSE Israel turned a blind eye to the Islamists while that scumbag Arafat and his gang of thugs was in control. They'd do just about anything to make it harder for Ol' Yasser to rob his people blind. But they didn't create Hamas, they didn't support Hamas and in fact they killed Yassin some 2 years before the election that brought Hamas to power in Gaza. BiBi raves about his nation's enemies and I don't think there is a shred of doubt that both hamas and Iran are exactly that. The fact that he is a fear mongerer and warhawk doesn't negate this fact.
Looks like Hamas wants to help the US and Israel. Gaza’s new Coca Cola plant to start operating in months
Well, it always seems to me that HAMAS comes thru just in the nick of time to derail any peace initiative.
Because Hamas DOES NOT WANT PEACE, just like BiBi doesn't. They are committed to the liberation of all of historic Palestine, and you know what that means in reality.
My favorite rock group. The Rolling Stones. They got criticized for playing in Israel. That's one of the things I like about them. And who criticized them for it ? Pink Floyd. I hate them.
It always seems that as soon as deals are going to be made.. that Israel announces it's going to ethnic cleanse some more Arabs and that gets a reaction. While there is nothing wrong with the use of violence against a racist regime and it's supporters,... according to the "terrorist" Nelson Mandela.
Yep.. and back in the day when HAMAS was founded Sabeel which included Christian and Muslim Palestinians tried to stop it, but they were unsuccessful.. HAMAS was recruiting in the meanest most poverty stricken of Palestinian refugee camps.
There wouldn't be any refugee camps for Hamas to recruit in, If the Jews didn't ethnic cleanse them. And it still is Israel that makes it so that Gaza is the most poverty stricken refugee camp with their collective racist punishment policy.
