U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer said that the growth of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories in recent decades?"with the tacit support of Israel"?was "not totally unrelated" to the emergence of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their terrorist attacks against Israel. Kurtzer explained that during the 1980s, when the Islamic movement began to flourish in the West Bank and Gaza, "Israel perceived it to be better to have people turning toward religion rather than toward a nationalistic cause [the Palestinian Liberation Organization?ed.]." It therefore did little to stop the flow of money to mosques and other religious institutions, rather than to schools.
The ambassador`s comments are an acknowledgment of what any serious Middle East observers knows: Hamas has always been seen as a tool by which Israel could undermine the nationalist movement led by Palestinian Authority. |
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