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Comment by deaux | Hacker News Reader

> Considering how Israel had to raze entire cities to beat 'Hamas'

They didn't, they just had to stop funding them, as Hamas has been funded by Israel.

No, Hamas was never funded by Israel. In this instance, Hamas was funded by Qatar, and the Israelis were complicit by allowing it. But it's also important to remember that Hamas is the elected sovereign in Gaza, and this money was used in part to run Gaza's infrastructure. In the same way Taliban runs Afghanistan, Hamas runs Gaza.

The assumption in Israel was that it was beneficial to have Hamas retain something to lose, and not starve them dry outright. Of course that didn't pan out well, given what Hamas did in October 7th.

But saying Hamas was funded by Israel is an outright lie, and the irony it comes from the same people who blame Israel for not letting supplies into Gaza during war. So no matter if Israel does or does not, it's always to blame simply by being.

> the irony it comes from the same people who blame Israel for not letting supplies into Gaza during war.

Israel did in fact do that. In fact there were several months of Israel not allowing any food or supplies whatsoever into Gaza. That was about a year ago. (It's possible Israel may have been supplying rival groups unfriendly to Hamas with food/supplies/weapons in secret, but all regular humanitarian aid was shut off.)

Israel stopped finding hamas decades ago

Lies.

> In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas." He continued saying "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."

That looks like Israel made every effort to promote the welfare of Gazan citizens. From your own link "Gaza was on the brink of collapse" and Israel saved them.

Nonsense. They wanted to stabilize Hamas rule so that the Palestinian Authority would not be able to govern there. A unified Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza is what they were opposed to. They feared diplomatic success on the part of the Palestinian Authority more so than any violence from Hamas. A major oops, but ideologically consistent with the Zionist goal of keeping a foot on the neck of Palestinians. There's not much else to Israel aside from that.

That's like saying the EU fundeh Hamas because they gave aid money to Gaza. If you squint at it the right way then maybe, but fundamentally it's disingenuous to call something like that funding.

But "the Jews .. uhm, I mean Israel .. had it coming and they did it to themselves" is always a favorite, isn't it?

If that was true, it would be like that. But it isn't, so it's not. EU is wide, and does not always speak with one voice, but it has a clear history of doing their best to avoid funding the proto-democratic forces in the region. Any support of religious extremists is considered a failure and acted upon.

Are you kidding me? Hamas controlled the aid distribution until the US and Israel recently implemented their own distribution channels.

BTW, here's 120 Million funneled through te UN, which has dependent organizations (UNRWA) with ties to Hamas https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/news-...

https://unwatch.org/new-un-watch-report-exposes-hamas-takeov...

But hey, that's okay, because Israel is the problem, right?

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