Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
speaking
of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas recently described it as
"the
deadliest terrorist group that we have ever had to face."
Active in Gaza and the West Bank Hamas wants to liberate all of
Palestine
and establish a radical Islamic state in place of Israel. It has
gained
notoriety with its assassinations, car bombs and other acts of
terrorism.
But Sharon had left something out.
Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but,
according
to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning
in the
late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas
over a
period of years.
Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a
counterbalance to the PLO," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst
for the
Center for Strategic Studies.
Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and
dilute
support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious
alternative," said a former senior CIA official.
According to documents obtained from the Israel-based Institute for
Counter Terrorism (ICT) by UPI, Hamas evolved from cells of the
Muslim
Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel
and
Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War
in which
Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies.
After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim
Brotherhood
was due to their activities among the refugees of the Gaza Strip.
The
cornerstone of the Islamic movements success was an impressive
social,
religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah,
that
worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian
refugees,
confined to camps, and many of whom were living on the edge.
"Social influence grew into political influence," first in the Gaza
Strip,
then on the West Bank, said an administration official who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
According to ICT papers, Hamas was legally registered in Israel in
1978 by
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movements spiritual leader, as an Islamic
Association by the name Al-Mujamma Al Islami, which widened its base
of
supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social work.
Funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and
directly and
indirectly from Israel, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
The PLO
was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism. Hamas
wanted
set up a transnational state under the rule of Islam, much like
Khomeini's
Iran.
What took Israeli leaders by surprise was the way the Islamic
movements
began to surge after the Iranian revolution, after armed resistance
to
Israel sprang up in southern Lebanon organized by an Iran-backed
movement
called Hezbollah that bore similitaries to Hamas, these sources
said.
"Nothing stirs up the energy for imitation as much as success,"
commented
one administration expert.
A further factor of Hamas' growth was the fact the PLO moved its
base of
operations to Beirut in the 1980s, leaving the Islamic movements to
strengthen their influence in the Occupied Territories "as the court
of last
resort," he said.
When the intifada began, the Israeli leadership was further
surprised when
Islamic groups began to surge in membership and strength. Hamas
immediately
grew in numbers and violence. The group had always embraced the
doctrine of
armed struggle, but the doctrine had not been practiced and Islamic
groups
had not been subjected to suppression the way groups like Fatah had
been,
according to U.S. government officials.
But with the triumph of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, with the
birth of
Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorism in Lebanon, Hamas began to gain
strength
in Gaza and then in the West Bank, relying on terror to resist the
Israeli
occupation.
Israel was certainly funding the group at that time. One US
intelligence
source who asked not to be named, said that not only was Hamas being
funded
as a "counterweight" to the PLO, Israeli aid had a more devious
purpose: "to
help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who
were
dangerous terrorists."
In addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could listen
to
debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were dangerous
hardliners," the official said.
In the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive
counterintelligence
system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot.
Violent
acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas, unlike the
PLO, was
unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel, refusing to
acknowledge its
very existence.
Even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to
continue to give Hamas support: "The thinking on the part of some of
the
right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the other
groups, if
they gained control, would refuse to have anything to do with the
pace
process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S.
government official.
"Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the
United
States to deal with," he said.
All of which is viewed with disapproval by some former U.S.
intelligence
officials.
"The thing wrong with so many Israeli operations is that they try
to be
too sexy," said former CIA official Vincent Cannestraro. Former
State
Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson told UPI: "The
Israelis
are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism.
They are
like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by
hitting
it with a hammer.They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than
curb it."
Aid to Hamas may have looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to
help
smooth the waters," he said. "It gives weight to President George W
Bush's
remark about there being a crisis in education."
Cordesman said that a similar attempt by Egyptian intelligence to
fund
Egypt's fundamentalists had also come to grief because of
overcomplication.
An Israeli Embassy defense official, asked if Israel had given aid
to
Hamas replied: "I am not able to answer that question. I was in
Lebanon
commanding a unit at the time, besides it is not my field of
interest."
Asked to confirm a report by U.S. officials that Brigadier General
Yithaq
Segev, the military governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials that
he had
helped fund "Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and
communists," the Israeli official said he could confirm only that he
believed that Segev had served back in 1986.
