Red Herring

Quote:

It is an irony of fate (or a triumph of folly) that Hamas was created, in fact, with the help of Israel itself. Much as the Americans created the al-Qaeda of Osama bin-Laden in order to fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, Israel supported the Islamic movement in the occupied territories as a counterweight to the PLO. The assumption was that pious Muslims would spend their time praying in the mosques and would not support the secular PLO, which was then considered the arch-enemy. But when the first intifada broke out at the end of 1987, the Islamists organized as Hamas (the Arabic initials of "Islamic Resistance Movement") and quickly became the most efficient underground fighting organization. However, the Security Service started to act against them only after a whole year of the intifada had passed. Now the existence of Hamas is an accomplished fact. It has deep roots in the community, also because of its widespread social services which were initially financed by the Saudis and others.

There´s nothing that is extraordinary here - but much that is ironic, as the US is now having show trials of Palestinian Americans that have funded Hamas or Jihad, and so done the same thing that Israel itself did - as the Apartheid-era government of South Africa supported Inkatha to weaken the ANC and Turkey supported it´s own Hezbollah movement to weaken the PKK etc etc.