“For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces.”
So read an op-ed headline in The Times of Israel by Israeli journalist and political correspondent Tal Schneider on October 8, one day after Hamas’s deadly incursion.
“The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from,” she said.
Schneider was far from the only one to draw attention to this sordid history as the Israel government rushed to declare war on Hamas and begin their slaughter in Gaza.
“Since he took office as prime minister a second time,” wrote Dmitry Shumsky for Israel’s Haaretz on October 11, “Netanyahu developed and advanced a destructive, warped political doctrine that held that strengthening Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority would be good for Israel.”
While statements like these – and the fact that they’re made so matter-of-factly in top Israeli newspapers – may come as a major surprise to many American news consumers who hadn’t followed the Israel-Palestine conflict closely prior to October 7, Israel’s role in propping up Hamas has been reported for years by the likes of UPI (“Israel gave major to aid to Hamas“), The Wall Street Journal (“How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas“), and others.
The policy has also been repeatedly elucidated by Israel officials, including finance minister Bezelal Spotrich and, reportedly, Netanyahu himself, as documented in depth by writers Scott Horton and Connor Freeman.
In light of this, journalist Liam Cosgrove ventured to Capitol Hill recently with a couple queries for pro-Israel Congressmen: First and foremost, are they even aware of this basic historical fact? And second, shouldn’t it have a bearing on their decision to send billions of dollars to the very government that helped strengthen Hamas in the first place?
These should have been pretty straightforward questions (to which one would hope the answers would be “yes” and “yes”).
However, as seen in the video above, they were treated as anything but by staunchly “pro-Israel” congressmen Dan Crenshaw, Byron Donalds, August Pfluger, and Juan Ciscomani.
This article continues on the Decensored News website: https://decensored.news/congressmen-israel-netanyahu-propping-up-hamas/
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