Posted on 06/30/2002 12:46:35 PM PDT by Austin Willard Wright
United Press International 24 February 2001
Israel gave major to aid to Hamas
By Richard Sale, Terrorism Correspondent
New York -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas recently described it as "the deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to face."
Active in Gaza and the West Bank Hamas wants to liberate all of Palestine and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of terrorism.
But Sharon had left something out.
Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.
Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.
According to documents obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) by UPI, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies.
After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees of the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movements success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many of whom were living on the edge.
"Social influence grew into political influence," first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movements spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association by the name Al-Mujamma Al Islami, which widened its base of supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work.
Funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran.
What took Israeli leaders by surprise was the way the Islamic movements began to surge after the Iranian revolution, after armed resistance to Israel sprang up in southern Lebanon organized by an Iran-backed movement called Hezbollah that bore similitaries to Hamas, these sources said.
"Nothing stirs up the energy for imitation as much as success," commented one administration expert.
A further factor of Hamas' growth was the fact the PLO moved its base of operations to Beirut in the 1980s, leaving the Islamic movements to strengthen their influence in the Occupied Territories "as the court of last resort," he said.
When the intifada began, the Israeli leadership was further surprised when Islamic groups began to surge in membership and strength. Hamas immediately grew in numbers and violence. The group had always embraced the doctrine of armed struggle, but the doctrine had not been practiced and Islamic groups had not been subjected to suppression the way groups like Fatah had been, according to U.S. government officials.
But with the triumph of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, with the birth of Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorism in Lebanon, Hamas began to gain strength in Gaza and then in the West Bank, relying on terror to resist the Israeli occupation.
Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One US intelligence source who asked not to be named, said that not only was Hamas being funded as a "counterweight" to the PLO, Israeli aid had a more devious purpose: "to help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who were dangerous terrorists."
In addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could listen to debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were dangerous hardliners," the official said.
In the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive counterintelligence system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot. Violent acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas, unlike the PLO, was unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel, refusing to acknowledge its very existence.
Even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to continue to give Hamas support: "The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other groups, if they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the pace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official.
"Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said. All of which is viewed with disapproval by some former U.S. intelligence officials.
"The thing wrong with so many Israeli operations is that they try to be too sexy," said former CIA official Vincent Cannestraro. Former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson told UPI: "The Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. They are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer.They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it."
Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to help smooth the waters," he said. "It gives weight to President George W Bush's remark about there being a crisis in education."
Cordesman said that a similar attempt by Egyptian intelligence to fund Egypt's fundamentalists had also come to grief because of overcomplication.
An Israeli Embassy defense official, asked if Israel had given aid to Hamas replied: "I am not able to answer that question. I was in Lebanon commanding a unit at the time, besides it is not my field of interest."
Asked to confirm a report by U.S. officials that Brigadier General Yithaq Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials that he had helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists," the Israeli official said he could confirm only that he believed that Segev had served back in 1986.
The Israeli Embassy press office referred UPI to its Web site.
-- Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
You know Larry, you seem to have a problem with the Jooooz that is up close and personal. Is your ex-wife Jewish? Do you hate your mother-in-law? Normal people aren't this preoccupied unless there is a "special someone" who is the focus of all this anger.
So, spill it.
Or better still, just drop the personal stuff. I don't engage in it not because I'm a naturally polite guy even though I am but because it doesn't convince anyone of anything. If fact, those who do it lose.
Since you claim to have invented the term "holocaustism", I'm sure you have never heard of these sites. They seem to have heard of your accomplishment, though :)).
|
Advanced Search Preferences Language Tools Search Tips | ||||||
|
|
|
|
|
Letters to the editor (Volume 3 number 3)
... their countries. Besides these tangible, concrete reasons, holocaustism
and its ceaseless propagation also have religious roots. War ...
www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p229_letters.html - 33k - Cached - Similar pages
Jewish Holocaust - Pro-Death 6,000,000 Dead Jews Supporters
Delenda est Judaica! Top: Jewish Holocaust: Holocaustism--Pro-Death
6,000,000 Dead Jews Supporters. ...
www.wcotc.com/jews/ jew-holocaust-holocaustprodeath.html - 3k - Cached - Similar pages
Jewish Holocaust
Delenda est Judaica! Top: Jewish Holocaust Debates. ... (A big RAHOWA!
to Jewwatch.com for compiling a lot of the information.).
www.wcotc.com/jews/jew-holocaust-folder.html - 2k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.wcotc.com ]
Holocaust belief and denial, and the Protocols
... science itself. --- -. Date: Nov 24, 2000
Name: Mat E-mail: Subject: Holocaustism. Holocaustism. You ...
matmcveagh.50g.com/tbp/conspiracy/forces/ religion/holocaust-protocols.htm - 23k - Cached - Similar pages
Letters to David Irving's Website
... You have been screwed, my friend, although your struggle against
Holocaustism was something like Don Quixote and the windmills. ...
www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/trial/Ternan170400.html - 6k - Cached - Similar pages
Holocaust belief and denial
... itself. --- -. Date: Nov 24, 2000 Name: Mat
E-mail: Subject: Holocaustism Website: Holocaustism. You ...
bigpicture.50megs.com/forumposts/holocaust.htm - 32k - Cached - Similar pages
Jew Watch - Jewish Holocaust - Pro-Death 6,000,000 Dead Jews ...
Jew Watch. Keeping a Close Watch on Jewish Communities & Organizations Worldwide.
Top: Jewish Holocaust: Holocaustism--Pro-Death 6,000,000 Dead Jews Supporters. ...
www.jewwatch.com/jew-holocaust-holocaustprodeath.html - 3k - Cached - Similar pages
Jew Watch - Jewish Holocaust
Jew Watch. Keeping a Close Watch on Jewish Communities & Organizations Worldwide.
Top: Jewish Holocaust Debates. ... c. 1998 by Jew Watch at jewwatch.com. ...
www.jewwatch.com/jew-holocaust-folder.html - 2k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.jewwatch.com ]
Online Store
... people, though, as are the other Jewish "isms" treated in the books offered here--including
the greatest fraud of the 20th century, the dogma of "Holocaustism ...
www.natvan.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/ st_main.html?catid=10&sid=4YRKcz0WC2zn4xD - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
The Jews And Their Talmud -- Martin Lindstedt -- Dec. 4, 2000
... thought to be in the pay of international Jew central- bankers and tycoons, the
Jews are causing the entire world to view this new religion of Holocaustism ...
users.mo-net.com/mlindste/ml120400.html - 33k - Cached - Similar pages
Search within results |
Dissatisfied with your results? Help us improve.
Google Home - Advertise with Us - Search Solutions - News and Resources - Language Tools - Jobs, Press, Cool Stuff... |
Next think you'll try to say the Las Vegas Skinheads, Racial Nationalists Library, and the IHR aren't legit sites either.
WOW! UPI is a nazi/kook outlet?
That is a sensational charge, sir. Are you sure about that?
BTW, since UPI is owned by the moonies, who also own the Washington Times, I suppose that means that the Washington Times is also a "nazi/kook outlet" too, right?
I am waiting for your proof that this is not so...
So what?
You got a problem with Israel?
Those names were in the speech given by the POTUS tonight and you still have no response. You have nothing Willard but two year old articles full of conjecture about waht the Israeli's may have or may not have done thirty years ago.
Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Hamas....Iraq. Remember them Willard, its waht this is all about, terrorists killing Americans with impunity and certain Americans willingness to do absolutely nothing about it.
In my view, wars waged by U.S. should be for defense only (hence the Afghanistan war was just and proper) not for the naive Wilsonian purpose of stamping out evil. Wilsonian wars, to establish democracy, build nations, kill bad people, police, etc., only waste resources and detract the American military from its essential role as the defender of the U.S.
As I said before, you will get your Wilsonian war. It will be fun for a while and I suspect that the initial occupation will be fairly easy. A year or two from you now, however, your fairy tale dream of creating a stable and democratic Iraq will be in tatters. It will be replaced by a bottomless foreign aid rathole and yet another dangerous and futile "police" occupation by U.S. troops....by then, of course, the Demopublicans will probably be planning an intervention somewhere else to repeat the cycle all over again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.