On the eve of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Britain’s iconic wartime leader apparently told an aide he was ready to make common cause with longtime Bolshevik foe Joseph Stalin. “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons,” he supposedly quipped. Similarly, there’s certainly no love lost between Hamas — the militant paramilitary group responsible for the savage Oct. 7 attacks on Israel — and the gunmen of Rafah-native Yasser Abu Shabab.
However, this approach can have its drawbacks and lead to devastating consequences, as we’ve seen in recent history: The U.S. pairing with the likes of Osama bin Laden didn’t work out so well in the end — although it was useful in humbling the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The shortcomings of this tactic — frequently adopted by Egypt in Gaza before 1967 and by Israel ever since — has also been evident in the tactical short-term embraces of secular Palestinian nationalists, the Muslim Brotherhood, Fedayeen insurgents, and an assortment of other factions, only for everything to eventually unravel.
After Oct. 7, when Hamas murderously rampaged across southern Israel, killing 1,195 and abducting 240 hostages, Netanyahu came under justified ire from politicians and citizens alike. Prior to the barbaric attacks, he had been a leading advocate of boosting the Islamist militant group in Gaza in a risky game of “divide-and-rule” — one that played the militants of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar off against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
To this end, from the late 2010s to the early 2020s, he encouraged Qatar to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas, even telling a conference of Likud lawmakers in 2019 that “anyone who wants to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas.”
In fairness, the Israeli leader wasn’t alone in thinking Hamas could be exploited as a useful strategic asset, and that over time, the group would moderate and become more focused on governing their mini-state than on insurgency. Then, with Palestinians hopelessly divided between Hamas and the PLO, Israel could throw its hands up and insist it had no real negotiating partner, all while expanding settlements in the West Bank and avoiding any progress on a two-state solution.
