As was widely reported in the western media, a sizeable chunk of the Israeli population came onto the streets of their country’s towns and cities to protest against their ultra-Zionist government’s attempt to restrict the power and independence of the judiciary. The government has a vested interest in this restriction since its leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife are charged with corruption. However, the same western media has reported that since the Hamas attack on October 7th most, if not all, of these protesters have rallied to prime minister Netanyahu’s call for unity against the “terrorist” organisation Hamas. Into November it would appear that the Zionist slogan is ten eyes for an eye, with ten Palestinian civilians seemingly being killed for every Israeli killed on October 7th. In fact, notwithstanding the pro-Zionist media’s propaganda, there remains considerable opposition to the occupation of Gaza, and the mass slaughter of its civilian population, amongst the people of Israel.
It is important for Bradfordians to be aware that the Gaza Strip, which was part of Egypt until it was taken over by Israel in 1967. Around the size of the Isle of Wight, Gaza is not economically viable; being more like a prison than a nation state. Since 1967 it has relied on aid convoys to feed, clothe and shelter its population. Israel’s double dealing leaders were well aware that Hamas was an offshoot of the militant Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood which opposed secularism, yet formed a democratically elected government in Egypt. With popular demonstrations against the Brotherhood’s policies, particularly amongst Egyptian women, it was removed from government by a military coup in 2013. Ishaan Tharoor of The Washington Post points out that successive Israeli governments supported Hamas as it established itself in Gaza so as to weaken the influence of the secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation, which wanted Muslims, Jews and Christians to live together.
Amongst the courageous Israelis speaking out against the Gazan killing fields is the journalist Tal Schneider who, in The Times of Israel on October 8th, writes under the headline: For Years, Netanyahu propped Up Hamas, now it’s blown up in our faces. She explains how Netanyahu cynically sought to prevent a single representative voice of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, so as to weaken attempts to create a state in which people of all faiths and none could live in peace. In order to prevent such a unified voice, successive coalition governments led by Netanyahu negotiated with Hamas leaders and turned a blind eye to foreign government funding and arming of this allegedly “terrorist” organisation. Schneider explains further that Netanyahu sought to support the Hamas leadership by allowing Gazan workers to be employed inside Israel. As long as casualties were light, the firing of crude rockets into Israel by Hamas was tolerated and, crucially, used as a reason for Netanyahu not to negotiate with the Palestinians and continue to encourage Israeli settlers to grab more land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Another courageous Israeli is Adam Raz, in the newspaper Haaretz of October 20th, he refers to the Netanyahu-Hamas “alliance”, arguing that the “pogrom of October 7th, 2023, helps Netanyahu, and not for the first time, to preserve his rule, certainly in the short term”. Netanyahu’s policy, argues Raz, has been to bolster Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority, in contrast to “his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who sought to end the conflict through a peace treaty with…Palestinian leader…Mahmoud Abbas”. This “divide-and-conquer policy”, claims Raz, has involved the both the funding of Hamas by Qatar, with Netanyahu’s “assistance”, and thereby turning it “from a terror organization…into a semi-state body”. Public denials of this policy involved the Israeli prime minister “lying through his teeth”. Raz writes of “the poor and oppressed Gazans – who were also victims of Hamas…with its reign of terror…Netanyahu’s nightmare was the collapse of the Hamas regime”. In 2019, a former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, claimed that Netanyahu’s “strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking…in order to weaken the PA (Palestinian Authority) in Ramallah”. In the same year, one Likud Party colleague admitted that “Netanyahu wants Hamas on its feet, and he is ready to pay almost any incomprehensible price for this”. Raz ends his piece with the following: “Netanyanhu and Hamas are political partners, and both sides have fulfilled their side of the bargain…sustaining Hamas is more important to Netanyahu than a few dead kibbutzniks”. All of which begs the question what does Netanyahu actually have in mind when he now speaks of “destroying” Hamas?
The ongoing exchange of Israeli “hostages” for Palestinian “prisoners”, as reported by the BBC et al, begs the question: what is the difference? The Palestinian ‘prisoners’, who number many thousands, are typically serving long sentences under so-called “indefinitely renewable administrative detention”. Mainly women and teenage boys, held in miserable Israeli prisons, in breach of international law, they have, for the most part, either been found guilty of minor offences or, in many cases, never been charged with any offence at all. This would suggest that many of these ‘prisoners’ are in fact hostages and may well be rearrested if they were released under the recent exchange. The BBC et al have reported in depth on the crimes committed by Hamas supporters on Israeli hostages, but have given little or no coverages to crimes committed by the Israeli authorities on their Palestinian ‘prisoners’, including the women and children, as alleged by various UN agencies.
Meanwhile, despite boasting about the effectiveness of the Israeli secret service, Mossad, Netanyahu still fails to inform the world why, despite warnings from an Egyptian government minister and others, he did not order the military to stop the October 7th attack. Seemingly prepared to sacrifice the lives of Israeli citizens, will Netanyahu stop at nothing to stay in power and out of jail?
Simeon Scott
Dedication
To Sajad Hussain a friend, walking partner and colleague. For most of his short life, Sajad was a tireless supporter of the Palestinian cause, including membership of a peace convoy.
Comment
I heard an account of this aspect of the current conflict on LBC.. cannot recall if it was James O’Brien or Tom Swarbrick but, an Israeli guy made the same key point you did.. Bibi was supporting Hamas in the past for his own unscrupulous and nefarious reasons..
This type of behaviour is not uncommon. There are enough past examples in the Middle East region.. Abdulaziz & Roosevelt (See Bittlerlake – Adam Curtis) Gadaffi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq, Karzai in Afghanistan and so on.. could it be that Netanyahu allowed the Oct 7Th attack in an attempt to save his own skin..? emergency powers reign supreme, crippling democracy, judicial process and countless other matters of state..
A nicely written piece.. 👍 there’s so much history behind this conflict and many stories to tell..
Mike Scott
Comment
A couple of factual points, worth including in this article: Gaza, though occupied by Israel, saw them completely vacate the Strip in 2005. Obviously, in 2023 the IDF is in Gaza trying to fight Hamas, but that is conflict rather than occupation. And it behoves you, in talking about 1967, to make it clear that Israel was again under threat from Nasser’s Egypt and Syria, and it gained territory which is quite reasonably viewed as a buffer/insurance against future attacks. The text makes it sound like some unprovoked land-grab. Moreover, the Israelis eventually returned Sinai to Egypt. An element of “land for peace” at least.
The key information was about those brave Israeli journalists, of whom I knew nothing, offering trenchant comment on the Netanyahu-Hamas relationship. Given Netanyahu’s character, this doesn’t strike me as implausible, though at the end, the article lurches towards the hypothesis that he has used the 7/10 pogrom to stay in power and out of jail, and that is quite implausible, to put it mildly. But to halt at what the journalists maintain, and view the 7/10 attacks as a huge surprise he hadn’t bargained for? Cock-up rather than conspiracy, surely.
It is possible that Netanyahu sought to divide and rule, but Hamas became the rulers in Gaza through a democratic vote. Should one in fact expect the Palestinians to speak with one voice, any more than the Israelis? (You know the saying: two Jews, three opinions!) The Palestinian Authority (PA) is willing to find a modus vivendi with Israel, but I wonder about the population at large, given not only this war, but the anti-Semitic elements in the education system. It is significant – though of course long in the past- that PA leader M. Abbas gained a PhD in Moscow on The Connection between the Nazis and Leaders of the Zionist Movement. Connections there may have been, but M. Abbas claims the Zionists engineered the Holocaust to give the Jews the pretext for establishing the Jewish state! Other racist themes in his thesis: Zionists lead a campaign of incitement against Jews in order to arouse Nazi hatred; Israel abducted, tried and executed Eichmann to prevent him revealing the Zionist role in the genocide. (see J. W. Simons’ Israelophobia, page 170f) M. Abbas has has doubtless changed, but fables like this are still current some quarters where the Holocaust is minimised or denied, or somehow explained as a deep Jewish plot.
This in no way undermines the line of argument adopted by Schneider and Raz, nor does it let Israel off the hook for the large civilian casualties in Gaza, but it shows up darker elements of the Palestinians’ narrative, and certain omissions and views that it is legitimate to challenge, as one does challenge Israel’s own narrative.
On the Holocaust, I can grasp the reasons why Muslims in particular react the ways they do. If Israel is seen as an alien entity, effectively forced on the world in the wake of the Holocaust, then if they believe or persuade themselves that there was no such thing, or that the numbers were inflated, Israel loses its legitimacy. Alternatively, if the Holocaust did happen as reported, it can be seen as just punishment from God for the sins of the Jews, who don’t deserve to have a state. Your own wider experience may have brought you into contact with Muslims who acknowledge the crime of the Holocaust by Hitler and his European helpers, and who can see a measure of justification for the founding of Israel. They are free not to like Israel very much, but not to wish it away.
On Holocaust education in schools, I have read that in the UK, when these lessons are scheduled, some Muslim parents (some!) quietly withdraw their children at those times. While in France, Muslim pupils make fun of or insult Jewish classmates when this subject is taught (again, some, but it is a phenomenon there). Across the Middle East, no such subject is on the curriculum, except, recently and remarkably, the UAE.
A Jewish native of Bradford
Wake Up Bradford! 
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