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"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation."
These are the words of Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for decades.
As you watch the death and destruction that is currently unfolding in Israel and Palestine, it's important for you to know that the Israeli government is responsible for the rise of Hamas.
If it wasn't for Israel's government, Hamas might not even exist at all.
Starting in the late 1970s, the Israeli government decided that they wanted a radical Islamist "counterweight" to the PLO, which was run by Yasser Arafat's secularist and left-wing Fatah party.
Their thinking was that, if the Palestinians were busy fighting each other, they wouldn't be able to fight Israel. Divide and conquer.
Starting in the late 1970s, they began giving direct funding to a fringe group of radicals, their organizations, and their mosques.
One of them was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, who had also formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya. They were recognized as a charity by the Israeli government in 1979, and started receiving funding soon after.
Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza at the time, said that he was given a budget to fund these mosques and organizations, and was told to give them preferential treatment over the PLO.
Cohen wrote an official report to his superiors in the 1980s, where he warned them against continuing this strategy. “I suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote at the time.
They didn't listen.
In 1987, those groups formed Hamas, and the rest is history.
Thousands of innocent Israelis and Palestinians killed.
And as we see today, that death count continues to rise.
It's important to note that the US government gives billions of dollars to the Israeli government, and hundreds of millions to the Palestinian authority.
American taxpayers are being forced to bankroll the carnage you're currently witnessing.
It's long past time for that to end.
Foreign military aid is the act of taking money from working Americans, and giving it to rich, powerful foreigners, to fund wars, genocides, terrorism and other horrors.
It is long past time for it to end.
These are the words of Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for decades.
As you watch the death and destruction that is currently unfolding in Israel and Palestine, it's important for you to know that the Israeli government is responsible for the rise of Hamas.
If it wasn't for Israel's government, Hamas might not even exist at all.
Starting in the late 1970s, the Israeli government decided that they wanted a radical Islamist "counterweight" to the PLO, which was run by Yasser Arafat's secularist and left-wing Fatah party.
Their thinking was that, if the Palestinians were busy fighting each other, they wouldn't be able to fight Israel. Divide and conquer.
Starting in the late 1970s, they began giving direct funding to a fringe group of radicals, their organizations, and their mosques.
One of them was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, who had also formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya. They were recognized as a charity by the Israeli government in 1979, and started receiving funding soon after.
Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza at the time, said that he was given a budget to fund these mosques and organizations, and was told to give them preferential treatment over the PLO.
Cohen wrote an official report to his superiors in the 1980s, where he warned them against continuing this strategy. “I suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote at the time.
They didn't listen.
In 1987, those groups formed Hamas, and the rest is history.
Thousands of innocent Israelis and Palestinians killed.
And as we see today, that death count continues to rise.
It's important to note that the US government gives billions of dollars to the Israeli government, and hundreds of millions to the Palestinian authority.
American taxpayers are being forced to bankroll the carnage you're currently witnessing.
It's long past time for that to end.
Foreign military aid is the act of taking money from working Americans, and giving it to rich, powerful foreigners, to fund wars, genocides, terrorism and other horrors.
It is long past time for it to end.
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