[TheOtherHobbes]

Hamas is a terror organisation funded, and quite possibly created, by far-right nationalist elements in the Israeli government to weaken the Palestinian authority and create a pretext for the occupation of Gaza.

Netanyahu is on the record funnelling money through Qatar. He said it was for "humanitarian aid" - which would be more credible if it wasn't such an extraordinary and unusual outbreak of concern for Palestinian wellbeing.

The occupation is straight out genocide, labelled as such by many Israeli scholars, as well as most of Rest of World.

This level of barbarism and entitlement has no place on a civilised planet.

[tartoran]

We should stop using this term terror/terrorist, it's lost any meaning. If Hamas are terrorists because they're terrorizing Israeli population then so are Israelis' IDF or whatever force kills other country's population. And the list extends beyond that. To paint a resisting force/army as terrorists is just charged language to emotionally manipulate and pollute discourse. It would be more useful to put in balance what each side is fighting for.

[km3r]

Terrorism has a simple definition: using force against civilian life to further ones goals.

Target a music festival with no military value: terrorism.

Blow up a building because hamas has a tunnel under there: not terrorism. If the military value gained is disproportionate to the civilian cost, it is a war crime. But still not terrorism.

[rexpop]

Netanyahu is very clearly on the record supporting and defending a policy of allowing Qatari money into Hamas‑run Gaza, including publicly defending those payments to his own party as a way to keep Hamas and the PA separated.

There is real evidence that Israeli authorities helped the Islamist network that later became Hamas to grow and organize, but not good evidence that Israel secretly “founded” Hamas in the sense of designing or controlling the group. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Israel allowed and at times supported Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s Islamist charity Mujama al‑Islamiya in Gaza (the Muslim Brotherhood–linked precursor to Hamas), seeing it as a useful counterweight to the secular PLO. eg From 1967 to 1987, the number of mosques in Gaza reportedly tripled, with Mujama heavily involved and benefiting from Israeli recognition and Gulf funding; Israeli officials hoped Islamist forces would weaken leftist, PLO‑aligned groups.

Scholars and former officials describe this as “blowback”: Israel strengthened the Brotherhood‑type infrastructure, which then reorganized itself into Hamas and turned violently against Israel.

There is no credible evidence that Israeli intelligence drew up Hamas’s founding charter, appointed its leaders, or covertly directed its formation in 1987; the group was an initiative of Palestinian Islamists tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.

To reiterate: Israel did not secretly found Hamas, but it surreptitiously facilitated the growth of its Islamist precursor networks and tolerated them for strategic reasons, and several former Israeli officials now openly say that this policy helped “create” Hamas in hindsight.