> You have better examples for Iran like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list.
> Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar.
Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal.
Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wildly inflated nonsense. Israel and Hamas have been enemies to the death for decades.
Yes it did, big time, there's even a dedicated page on wikipedia [1].
It's quite impressive how most people are unaware of this.
> "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas…"
Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes.
Long story short: in order to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority various Israeli governments have legitimized and propped Hamas in order to have a scapegoat to not have to sit around the negotiating table.
Israeli actively armed and helped financing of Hamas while helping them suppress moderate Palestinian factions.
And that's only what we know. I wouldn't be surprised if one day we'll also get proof that Israeli intelligence knew about October 7th and still allowed it to happen to go on such an extensive military campaign and crush forever any hope for a Palestinian state at the same time.
> Benjamin Netanyahu on record. And there's plenty of such quotes.
If there are "plenty" of quotes like this, can you identify just one that we know he actually said? (Not the "thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state" quote, which is unverified and denied by him [1].)
In any case, actions speak louder than words. If we look past Wikipedians' spin and look the substance of what Israel actually did, they once facilitated Qatari aid to fund some basic civil services, to prevent societal collapse in Gaza. That's it, that's essentially the sole basis for all the misleading claims about Israel "supporting Hamas".
Correcting misinformation is “shilling”? What does my work have to do with anything?
Your claim was that Netanyahu was "on record" with "plenty" of quotes. If that's true, surely it must be very easy to identify two or three specific quotes that he definitely said? Your link doesn't do that. The first answer doesn't quote Netanyahu. The second says "well he didn't deny the unverified quote", which is obviously false/outdated per my link above.
In any case, is there some particular action Netanyahu took to "support Hamas" that you disagree with? Do you think Israel should have blocked the Qatari aid funds, which were ostensibly necessary to keep basic civil services running and prevent societal collapse?
The problem is that the language you're using—"propped up Hamas"—obscures the fact that for the bulk of the time when Israel was directly supporting Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's efforts, "Hamas" technically didn't exist.
Yes, those early contributions obviously facilitated its emergence, but this is probably why people are disagreeing with you.
On the other hand, that doesn't belie the argument that Israel/Netanyahu's tactics since 1989 (e.g. leveraging Qatari aid) have ulterior motives assigned.
Your original point about Hamas being used as a proxy for Iran was solid. It's a pity that it's since descended into an argument about a secondary remark. But the support that Hamas gets from Iran versus the support than Hamas gets from Qatar (with Israeli/American approval) shouldn't be conflated.
Yes but that was mostly covered already by the comment I was responded to. I was just filling a few gaps in the list.
> Albeit Hamas has been largely propped by Israel itself and Qatar.
Qatar has certainly financed and supported Hamas a great deal.
Israel has absolutely not "propped up" Hamas. I'm aware of the allegations to the contrary, but they are wildly inflated nonsense. Israel and Hamas have been enemies to the death for decades.