“It’s difficult for educated middle-class westerners, to get into the mind of religious fundamentalists. We tend to think that while they certainly say horrible things, they don’t really want those horrible things. After all, at the end of the day, everyone wants to sit at home and have dinner with the family, watch a good movie, and occasionally go for a vacation. Right?

What we witnessed on Saturday, October 7 is just how wrong that is. Hamas’ founding ‘covenant,’ issued in 1988, explicitly called for the murder of Jews. Not IDF soldiers, not Israeli citizens. Jews. And they meant it.

However, since its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has enjoyed the accommodation of eight successive Israeli governments. Netanyahu headed six of them. He became prime minister in 2009 promising to ‘overthrow the Hamas regime,’ but has taken great care of upholding it, pursuing agreements with it and even transferring funds to it.

Why? In March 2019 Netanyahu explained his strategy: ‘Those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza will prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.’ Israel’s current Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, outdid him and stated that ‘Hamas is an asset.’

In short, in order to prevent progress on a path that ends with the division of the land of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state, it is necessary to make sure that there is no such path, and when the Palestinians are divided into two entities there is no such path.”

Read the full article on Jewish Journal.