In a secret letter dated 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu urged the Qatari government to maintain financial support to Gaza.
In the letter, Netanyahu explained that the funding would reduce the motivation of terror groups there to carry out attacks, would prevent a humanitarian crisis and was vital for preserving regional stability.
Qatari funding played a pivotal role in Hamas’s evolution from a marginal militant group to a formidable force, marked by extensive military infrastructure, including tunnels and substantial firepower. Initially, between 2007 and 2014, Qatar’s financial aid to Hamas operated independently of international oversight. Subsequently, from 2014 onwards, Qatar coordinated its assistance with the United States and Israel.
The 2014 conflict in Gaza marked a significant shift. Following the war, the U.S., UN, Israel, and Qatar collaborated to establish a structured aid system, with Doha committing $30 million monthly to Gaza. This allocation aimed to cover various essential needs, including fuel procurement, salary disbursements, and direct assistance to families in need.
This period witnessed a strategic recalibration in Israel, where the belief emerged that Hamas might moderate its stance towards Israel with increased governance and economic resources.
Before 2018, Qatari aid to Gaza lacked regularity, requiring approval from Israel and the Palestinian Authority for sporadic disbursements. Dr. Udi Levi, a former Mossad official, noted Israel’s strategic shift in handling Hamas’s financial sustenance. Levi highlighted Israel’s motive to maintain stability by diverting funds away from the Palestinian Authority to Hamas, albeit with reservations about Hamas’s fiduciary responsibility.
The Qatari government, however, harbored reservations about its involvement due to concerns over international repercussions. Levi underscored Qatar’s duplicity in supporting Hamas, juxtaposed with its efforts to evade associations with terrorism to safeguard its international standing.
In November 2018, then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman resigned, citing disagreement over Israel’s approach to Gaza. Liberman criticized the contradictory stance of curbing funds to the Palestinian Authority while enabling financial flows to Gaza. He questioned the efficacy of oversight mechanisms governing the allocation of funds.
Netanyahu recognized Qatar’s dilemma and sought to reassure them through an urgent letter, though Qatari officials sought additional assurances. The involvement of the United States, particularly then-Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, provided the necessary validation to assuage Qatari concerns.
Despite Netanyahu’s engagement with Qatari officials, Levi lamented the lack of consultation with security experts regarding the implications of funding Hamas. He emphasized his objections to the policy, underscoring a departure from previous administrations’ practices.
Ultimately, the letters from Netanyahu and Mnuchin assuaged Qatari apprehensions, leading to the commencement of financial aid to Gaza. The first cash installment was delivered in November 2014.
{Matzav.com Israel}
Why are you suddenly scratching you head and bringing this up now when commenters told you years ago that Hamas is controlled and financed by Mossad as was reported in Haaretz several year ago?
So what is the Shin Daled hiding?
It’s not a head-scratcher at all. Hamas put on an act for several years as though it was moderating, even going so far (reportedly) as to inform the Israeli government of an impending Palestinian Islamic Jihad attack. Unfortunately, their subterfuge was successful to the extent that Israel was totally unprepared for the Oct. 7 invasion and massacre.
Israel made peace with Egypt and Jordan and they hoped to at least come to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas. Tragically, they were fooled by a terrorist group, resulting in horrific consequences.
Balogna! Bibi knew of the impending October 7th attack. It is well known that Israel was in cahoots with Qatar to help fund Hamas for his own political gains.
nu nu, and without the letter they would have never thought of funding hamas…
Where can I can see a copy of this letter? Who delivered it? How did this top secret get out? Since when did Qatar listen to Netanyahu?
Not very nice of you to make such a statement in public.
It’s unfortunately not a head scratcher. Israeli government is involved avd endorsing all atrocities.
globally
Before, B’Ezras Hashem, I write my comment about this item, B’Ezras Hashem, please allow me to relate the following incident. At the time, I was employed at the home office of an insurance company doing computer programming. One day as I was walking in the hall area next to the elevators and the entrance to the computer operations room, a woman was sitting at the receptionist desk there; she was evidently on her lunch or some other break, as she was reading a horror suspense junk book. Seeing that I was obviously a Frum Yid, she called me over and asked me where could she report antisemitism. She related she worked in the computer operations room in their tape* library, and her supervisors were severely rough about her evidently bad work, warning her of termination. She claimed their roughness on her was from Sinas Yisroel and wanted to know what to do.
(I knock myself that I definitely should have told her that if her job was in trouble, instead of reading a junk book, she should have been working at her desk, showing her supervisors that she cared about her work.)
After that, I called the office of Agudas Yisroel, specifically the office of COPE, their employment assistance section and spoke with the counselor who, after I had taken their computer course, had helped me get the programming job. I told her the incident, and she replied that, unfortunately, there is a common problem that a Jewish person who works for a non-Jew will flub up his work, the non-Jew will fire him, and then the Jew will cry that it was antisemitism.
Of course, this is a terrible Chillul Hashem and causes the non-Jew to have tremendous justified resentment, for this had nothing to do with any Sinas Yisroel — the Jewish employee messed up his work! If he would have done that exact same thing with a Jewish boss — including if the boss was a Ben Torah Yeshiva man — the Jewish boss would have expelled him right away!
* NOTE: Tape Library: Until very recently, the brown colored thin plastic like material magnetic tape was one of the key devices used for all kinds of recordings, including computer data. Please see the Wikipedia articles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_recorder and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-tape_data_storage which give detailed histories. Therefore, famous pictures of early computers, like at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1401/tape.html, showed large box shaped machines with tape drives near the top.
During this current war with the severely wicked Hamas in Gaza, especially as it has continued for many months, more and more areas of the outside world have strongly declared that, while it is understandable and justified for Israel to forcefully retaliate after the Simchas Torah – October 7 Massacre, the continuing on and on and on hyper-hyper-massive bombardment they are doing in Gaza killing endless scores of scores of non-Hamas-non-enemy-women-&-children-&-elderly-civilians is not justified and is really attempted genocide of the non-enemy-Palestinian people.
As we well know though, we strongly retort that this is simply not true!! The Palestinian casualty figures that they claim of over 35,000 killed are from Hamas controlled news sources and are obvious gigantic exaggerations. On the contrary, the IDF employs numerous tactics to try to greatly minimize & avoid hitting the civilians. These are tactics that no other military employs when fighting THEIR enemies; the military of our United States in several instances of its several wars killed many hundreds of thousands of non-combatant civilians. For, in each case, they were fighting a war that, for their self defense, they had to win, and they thus did whatever they had to do to win.
Israel too is fighting a war that, for its self defense, they have to win, and thus is justified to do whatever it has to do to win. But even here, IT IS trying hard to minimize & avoid the civilian deaths.
However, now, these several revelations have come out that several years ago, the government of ISRAEL ITSELF, with its Mossad, founded and established and gave big $$$$$$$ to Hamas. Several strategic considerations were given for these moves, like that Hamas would be a “counter-weight” to the Palestinian Authority and that Hamas would be a “moderator” with regards to other Arab states — reasons that sound pretty convoluted!! Especially now when we glaringly see what kind of “friends” the Hamas people are to us!!
And with these facts now on the table that WE OURSELVES had created Hamas, HOW CAN WE NOW WITH A STRAIGHT FACE declare Hamas a sworn enemy that we must fight and wipe out!!
Furthermore, similarly, we are constantly declaring to the world: “Please, understand, as we are killing enemy Hamas guys and even some not-outright-enemy-Palestinian-civilian-guys,” please, understand, that — just like ANY country would do upon being attacked — WE HAVE TO DEFEND OURSELVES!! And, just a few days ago, at a Holocaust memorial program, Mr. Netanyahu extremely forcefully declared how we must defend ourselves with emphasizing that if necessary “WE WILL DO IT ALONE!!”
Ah!! Ah!! Ah!! That is all very, very nice!! There is one “little” question though, that we must ask Mr. Netanyahu: “WHERE WAS YOUR GOVERNMENT ON OCTOBER 7???????”
Yes, where was your government on October 7, when it fully allowed numerous severely wicked Hamas & other Palestinian thugs to freely break into Israel territory and savagely slash up & murder & rape & abduct several hundreds of Jewish civilian peoples and many non-Jewish peoples too. Yes, where was your government then????? Where was it THEN, with (what you now so piously declare is) its duty to “defend us”?????
B’Ezras Hashem, please allow me to state this question the same way as I stated the previous one:
As, the government of OUR STATE OF ISRAEL FRIEND fully & purposely allowed the horrific Simchas Torah – October 7 massacre & abduction to occur, and for six and seven hours — in some places it was even TWENTY HOURS when — its IDF DID NOT EVEN LIFT A FINGER to try to stop it:
HOW CAN WE NOW, and certainly, HOW CAN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL NOW, WITH A STRAIGHT FACE, CONTINUALLY SCREAM TO THE WHOLE WORLD: “WE HAVE TO DEFEND OURSELVES”???????