"Blowback" book by Vanden Baviere

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Nov 3 07:13:50 PST 2001


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



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