Isreal has funded Hamas directly too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...

Yes, it's real.

Is that claim in the part behind the paywall?

The furthest the freely accessible part goes is to say Israel "encouraged" Qatari payments to Hamas.

non paywall version: https://archive.fo/lgtyM

from what I can see it never mentioned Israel directly giving money to Hamas. But encouraging payments seems close enough.

Israeli enabled money to go in to pay government salaries to prevent Gaza from descending in chaos. That said I think it's a matter of fact that maintaining Hamas as a counter to the PA was part of strategy of the Netanyahu government.

I think pretty much any money going into Gaza should be considered funding Hamas. It either went directly to Hamas or it was taxed or it allowed Hamas not to spent that money. This means Europe and the US also funded Hamas.

That's quite a take.

The reason for funding was to create chaos, not to remove it. Why else do you fund a group that destabilises the area. Basically Israel wanted Gaza to be more chaotic as they felt it gave them more control.

The decision to pursue power and chaos as opposed to seeking resolution and a path to peace has had obvious consequences.

The consequence, a violent one, has been incremental land capture

It’s so interesting that you’ve taken away all agency from the Palestinians, or you believe as an absolute rule that giving someone money automatically makes them do chaotic evil things. And that the encourager of the monetary transaction (not the giver or recipient) is solely responsible for any harm or chaos that ensues.

This whole thread is so strange, people keep claiming Palestinians cannot be trusted to rule themselves, while at the same time accusing Israel of genocide for not giving them the ability to rule themselves.

It's interesting that you don't acknowledge what is commonly acknowledged. It's almost like you were pushing an agenda.

Thank you for checking.

> But encouraging payments seems close enough.

Hmmm. I don't think I agree with that. It's such a polarized and emotional debate. It could really benefit from being precise with words.

Making everything sound just slightly worse than it is will help rile up the side that feels slighted and it will let the other side just pass the speaker off as a liar. The result is fewer shared facts, more polarization and a more emotional debate.

The truth of war is bad enough. It doesn't need to be stretched.