Posted on 06/20/2002 7:25:37 PM PDT by inquest
In the wake of a suicide bomb attack Tuesday on a crowded Jerusalem city bus that killed 19 people and wounded at least 70 more, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, took credit for the blast.
Israeli officials called it the deadliest attack in Jerusalem in six years.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon immediately vowed to fight "Palestinian terror" and summoned his cabinet to decide on a military response to the organization that Sharon had once described 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 is has gained notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of terrorism.
But Sharon 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 (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," 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 United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, 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 who 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 movement's 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.
According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel. The PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas wanted to 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 vis-à-vis the Hezbollah, backed by Iran, these sources said.
"Nothing provides 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 '80s, leaving the Islamic organization to grow in influence in the Occupied Territories "as the court of last resort," he said.
When the intifada began, Israeli leadership was 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 in 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 U.S. 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 another purpose: "To help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who were dangerous terrorists."
In addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could only listen to debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were dangerous hard-liners," 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 acquiesce in its very existence.
But 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 others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named.
"Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said.
All of which disgusts 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.
According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism."
"The Israelis 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," he said.
Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to help smooth the waters," he said. "An operation like that gives weight to President George 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 "misreading of the complexities."
An Israeli defense official was asked if Israel had given aid to Hamas said, "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 Brig. Gen. Yithaq Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials he had helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists," the official said he could confirm only that he believed Segev had served back in 1986.
The Israeli Embassy press office referred UPI to its Web site when asked to comment.
.....he had helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists,"....
Many forget that the present situation was facilitated and exacerbated by the USSR as early as 1948. Stalin was eager to expand into the middle east and control the oil, just as Hitler had been, and there was a struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. for the hearts and minds of the people in that area. We had supported the U.N. resolution to create Israel and Israel was the only democracy in the region so they were a natural for us to support. During the 1967 six day war Israel was equipped by the U.S. and all the Arab countries had Soviet weapons. Israel soundly trounced all its enemies and could have controlled all of the middle east had we not stopped them.
After that we supported the Shah's rise to power in Iran and the Saudis and the Egyptians in our ideological war with Stalin in that area. Along the way we have supported quite a few unsavory characters just as Israel may have backed Hamas.
Making Richard Sale:
a. A plagiarist
b. An amnesiac
c. A journalist with an agenda
Nothing much to stir up, nothing secret and it's been known for years.
Article could just as easily read Analysis: Al Quaida history tied to US.
Well, that's OK, actually, because I wasn't in the mood this morning to face 25 messages in my mailbox. Four was enough. Cheers, -i.
You’ll find plenty of evidence in the normal media that in the early 80’s Osama’s organization MAK was funded by the CIA through Pakistani intelligence agencies. He split with MAK in the mid-late 80s, and founded Al Quaida (88?) as he took on an anti-American, anti-West tone. No, the CIA doesn’t come out and say it, but unless you believe the CIA didn’t aid the Afghan rebels, it happened. MAK was a pretty “mainstream” group. Beyond the late 80’s you may well enter the realm of ranting and raving.
Personally, I think it’s a mistake to view our relationship with MAK or Israel’s with Hamas as some sort of fatal flaw. Enemy of my enemy relationships are common, and groups like Hamas or individuals like bin Laden change objectives over the years.
Over that? You're kidding.
Both us and the Israelis proved to be short sighted, and ignorant of the hate of Islamists. The Americans have an excuse, they are too far removed from this stupid desert mentality, however, the Israelis live among these savages! My only explanation is the Israeli decision makers may be all become Eurocentric. The Sephardic Jews know very well the hate in the heart of the Islamists. I bet if they participated in the policymaking at that time they would have advised against it. Smart people do not play with rattle snakes!
I don't know exactly how this compares to the situation in Israel, but I think making too quick a comparison can overlook some important facts.
I think the real problem is that, once the Russians left, we didn’t attempt to exert much political influence in the region. We never targeted Al Quaida.
Hamas was funded as, at the time, a non violent alternative to the PLO, who Israel ended up fighting, along with Syria, in Lebanon. Stupid, I don’t know. I’d love to hear of the truly nonviolent Islamic groups operating in the West Bank at the time which could have been alternatives, I don’t know any. If there was a mistake, it was allowing Hamas to turn away from their humanitarian work (which still goes on) and embracing violence. And I don’t know that that was in Israel’s control.
While I sympathize with philosofy123’s comments on an emotional level, we should also recognize that Israel and America will soon face a replay of these two scenarios.
Like it or not, Sharon and Bush have embraced the eventual creation of a “Palestinian State”, and unless that changes soon, it will become a fact in the next 6 to 12 months.
As in the Hamas and MAK examples, the US and Israel will have to choose a “peaceful” Palestinian leader and or group to work with. I don’t see any, but one will be chosen nonetheless. In ten or twenty years we could well be having the same discussion about Sharon and Bush’s error.
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