Why Netanyahu Enabled Qatari Cash Transfers to Hamas

THE MYTH OF STARVING HAMAS, AND THE CASH THAT KEPT IT AFLOAT

MYTH VS. MONEY: A QUIET CASH FLOW EXPOSED

Erez Crossing, November 2018 – Dusk falls as a Qatari envoy in a tailored suit waits beside three bulging suitcases. Israeli security officers wave him through the barrier into Gaza, their armored SUVs poised to escort the convoy. Inside the luggage sits $15 million in cash, en route to the Hamas-run enclave with Israel’s blessing. This scene starkly contrasts with the common refrain that Israel has tried to starve Hamas of funds. In truth, for years Benjamin Netanyahu’s governments facilitated regular cash infusions to Hamas-controlled Gaza, undercutting the notion of a financial chokehold.

Publicly, Israeli officials long insisted that Hamas was isolated and under pressure – a terrorist group under blockade, cut off from resources. The dominant narrative had Israel doing everything to throttle Hamas’s finances. Yet images of cash-stuffed suitcases entering Gaza told another story. As one outlet noted, “$15 million worth of cash-filled suitcases were transported into Gaza by the Qataris via Israeli territory” starting in 2018 en.wikipedia.org. Far from starving Hamas, evidence shows Israeli authorities enabled and even orchestrated these monetary lifelines. Netanyahu himself tacitly acknowledged this when he defended allowing Qatar to deliver millions to Gaza, saying it was to prevent a humanitarian crisis and keep the peace arabnews.com. In late 2018, amid rising border unrest, he approved a deal for Qatar to inject $15 million per month into the Hamas-run territory. “I’m doing what I can… to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis,” Netanyahu explained as his security cabinet okayed the cash transfers arabnews.com. The security establishment backed the move, he said, framing it as the least bad option to calm Gaza and avert war arabnews.com.

Such justifications – averting a collapse in Gaza and buying calm – were the public face of the policy. But behind closed doors, critics and even some insiders saw a more cynical strategy. By quietly greasing the wheels of Hamas’s rule with cash, Netanyahu’s government was bolstering Hamas at the expense of its rival, the Palestinian Authority (PA). This “cash-for-quiet” arrangement kept Hamas content and Gaza relatively subdued, while marginalizing PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the West Bank leadership. It was a de facto “divide and rule” tactic, many now argue, rather than a bona fide effort to weaken Hamas. “In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas,” former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert observed, noting that when Gaza was on the brink of collapse financially, “Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza” politico.eupolitico.eu.