"Blowback" book by Vanden Baviere

[Michael Pollak]

On Sat, 3 Nov 2001, James Heartfield wrote:

> > Hamas initially nevertheless received Israel's support
>
> I remember hearing this before, but never found any published evidence.
> Does anyone have any more supporting references?

Here's a couple.  My impression though is that it's a pretty uncontested
assertion among Israeli, just like the assertion that the CIA supported
Osama is in the US.  Except to be fair to Israel, when they supported
Hamas, they were still a non-violent service organization and had been for
years.  Their conversion to violent means was extremely abrupt.

The following article is at

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0999/9909108.html

Footnotes follow.

<excerpt>

Washington Report On Middle East Affairs

   Middle East History: It Happened in September
   Muslim Fundamentalists of Hamas Challenge PLO for Palestinian Support

                              By Donald Neff

   SEPTEMBER 1999, pages 108-109

   It was 11 years ago, on Sept. 9, 1988, when fistfights broke out among
   a crowd of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. While
   there were no fatalities, the melee was memorable because it marked a
   serious challenge to the Palestine Liberation Organization by a
   relatively new Islamic militant organization, the Islamic Resistance
   MovementHamas, meaning Zeal.1 In the following years, acts of
   terrorism against Israel by Hamas would make the PLOs efforts to find
   peace more difficult and ultimately directly contribute to the
   election of hard-liner Binyamin Netanyahu as the prime minister of
   Israel on his promise to provide security.

   Hamas emerged out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Arab nationalist
   group. A branch of the Brotherhood was founded in Israeli-occupied
   Gaza in the 1970s by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a fiery, wheelchair-bound
   quadriplegic and Gaza clergyman. At the time, the Gaza Brotherhood
   devoted itself to grassroots work in mosques, clinics and social work.
   It abstained from all forms of the anti-occupation struggle. By 1986
   it controlled 40 percent of all the mosques and the 7,000-student
   Islamic University in Gaza.

   Israeli authorities saw the Brotherhood as a useful counterbalance to
   the largely secular PLO. Israel began secretly to contribute to the
   Brotherhoods cause through favors and donations to mosques and
   schools.2 Israeli donations to the Brotherhood were reported in the
   millions of dollars, considerably strengthening Yassins organization.3

   Israels brutal suppression of the Palestinian uprising, the intifada,
   which began Dec. 9, 1987, traumatized Yassin, who was 51 at the time.
   Within three months, he created Hamas as a militant organization
   devoted to violent opposition to Israels occupation of Palestinian
   lands. Hamas first official communiqué came in February 1988 stating
   that the Islamic Resistance Movement is a branch of the Muslim
   Brotherhood chapter in Palestine. The Brotherhood is an international
   organization...[that] professes a comprehensive understanding...of the
   Islamic precepts in all aspects of life.4

</excerpt>

Footnotes:

    1Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, 9/18/88. Also see John Kifner, New
   York Times, 9/17/88; Daoud Kuttab, The Brothers Join the Fray, Middle
   East International, 9/9/88.

    2Graham Usher, The Rise of Political Islam in the Occupied
   Territories, Middle East International, 6/25/93. Also see Andrew
   Whitley, London Financial Times, 9/8/88; John Kifner, New York Times,
   9/17/88.

    3Haim Baram, The Expulsion of the Palestinians: Rabin Shows His True
   Colors, Middle East International, 1/8/93; Rowland Evans and Robert
   Novak, Washington Post, 12/21/92. Also see Alan Cowell, New York
   Times, 10/20/94.

    4Graham Usher, The Rise of Political Islam in the Occupied
   Territories, Middle East International, 6/25/93.


__________________________________________________________________________
Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com