How Netanyahu kept Hamas in power.
For years, Israel's government helped keep the money flowing to Hamas-run Gaza — and Netanyahu told his own party why: a strong Hamas, split from the West Bank, is the surest way to stop a Palestinian state.
This is the documented policy history behind October 7. We grade what's on the record, carry the humanitarian defense, and refuse the overstatement that's easy to reach for.
What this page is about
Hamas didn't rise in a vacuum, and it didn't stay in power in one either. Two threads run through the story. The first is old: in the late 1970s and 1980s, Israel tolerated — and at times quietly encouraged — the Islamist charity network of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as a counterweight to the secular PLO, letting its schools, clinics, and mosques grow. That network became the seedbed of Hamas.
The second is recent and deliberate. From 2018, Netanyahu's government allowed millions of dollars in Qatari cash to flow into Gaza, and in February 2020 it sent the chief of the Mossad to Doha to urge Qatar to keep paying. Netanyahu explained the logic to his own party: propping up Hamas and keeping it split from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was, he argued, the way to prevent a Palestinian state. This page grades that record — and is careful about the line between “kept in power” and “created.”
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How Netanyahu kept Hamas in power.
For years Israel's government helped keep the money flowing to Hamas-run Gaza — and Netanyahu told his own party why: a strong Hamas, split from the West Bank, is the surest way to stop a Palestinian state.
The counterweight, the cash, and the rationale
Israel once tolerated the Islamists as a counterweight to the PLO — but it did not 'create Hamas.'
FACTIn the late 1970s and 1980s, Israeli authorities tolerated and at times tacitly encouraged Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's Islamist movement, Mujama al-Islamiya — recognizing it as a charity and permitting its schools, clinics, and mosques — as a rival to the secular, nationalist PLO. That network became the base from which Hamas emerged in 1987. The honest framing is 'tolerated and permitted as a counterweight,' not 'created': Hamas was built and led by Palestinians.
From 2018, Netanyahu's government allowed millions in Qatari cash to flow into Gaza.
FACTBeginning in 2018, Netanyahu's government supported letting suitcases and transfers of Qatari money — reported in the tens of millions of dollars — into Hamas-run Gaza to pay for fuel, public salaries, and aid to poor families, with the stated goal of keeping the southern border quiet. The policy is documented by the New York Times and others.
In February 2020, Israel sent the Mossad chief to Qatar to urge it to keep the money flowing.
FACTHaaretz reported that Netanyahu dispatched Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to Doha in February 2020 to urge Qatar to continue its financial transfers to Gaza after Qatar signaled it might halt them. Opposition leader Avigdor Liberman said publicly that Netanyahu had sent Cohen (with a top general) to 'beg' Qatar to keep paying Hamas — his characterization; the mission to sustain the transfers is the documented core.
Netanyahu framed propping up Hamas as a way to block a Palestinian state.
PROBABLY TRUENetanyahu is widely reported to have told Likud colleagues in March 2019 that anyone who opposes a Palestinian state should support the money going to Hamas — because keeping Hamas in Gaza strong and split from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank prevents a unified Palestinian partner and a two-state outcome. The payoff of that division was diplomatic: a split Palestinian leadership let Israel argue it had 'no partner for peace,' blunting international pressure to negotiate. And the two halves were treated in opposite directions — the government squeezed the PA in the West Bank financially and politically while facilitating the Qatari cash to Hamas. It was reported contemporaneously by the Israeli press; the exact wording has been disputed in places, so we grade it PROBABLY TRUE — well-reported and consistent with his stated strategy, not a verbatim certainty.
Whether the money strengthened the force that attacked on Oct 7 is under scrutiny — not settled.
SOME SMOKENetanyahu was reportedly warned more than once that Qatari cash was reaching Hamas's military wing, and after October 7 intelligence reviews and critics scrutinized whether the years of prop-up policy helped build the capabilities Hamas used in the attack. That's a serious, live question — but the causal claim that the money enabled October 7 is contested and not established. We grade it SOME SMOKE: documented warnings and real scrutiny, not a proven line from a transfer to the attack.
What's proven, and the line we hold
- ‘Kept in power’ is the claim; ‘created’ is the overreach. The documented record is that Israel tolerated the Islamist network early and later helped sustain Hamas's government with Qatari money. That is not the same as inventing Hamas, and we don't say it is.
- Netanyahu's defense, carried. He casts the Qatari cash as a humanitarian measure to stave off Gaza's collapse and keep the border calm, and his officials described a broader “containment” doctrine — buy quiet with money while keeping Hamas weak through the blockade and periodic airstrikes, the strategy Israelis bluntly nicknamed “mowing the lawn.” That is a real argument, and it's stated here alongside the divide-and-rule rationale he also gave — which is the part that turns “humanitarian” into strategy.
- Even his own side later called it a miscalculation. After October 7, many critics — including former Israeli security officials — concluded that keeping Hamas functional to avoid a diplomatic process had been a fatal strategic error. That is a judgment about strategy, not a confession of intent, and we treat it as such.
- Negligence and strategy, not a plot. The graded story is a deliberate policy of keeping Hamas viable for political ends, plus warnings about where the money went. It is not a claim that Netanyahu wanted the massacre — a line the evidence doesn't cross, and neither do we.
The enemy you keep
The uncomfortable truth under October 7 is that Hamas's grip on Gaza was not only tolerated by the Israeli government — for years it was, by Netanyahu's own logic, useful to it. A divided Palestinian movement, with a militant Hamas walled off in Gaza and a weakened Authority in the West Bank, is a Palestinian movement that can't credibly demand a state. That is the strategy the Qatari money served. It's an Israeli Influence story about how power actually calculates — who it's willing to keep alive, and why.
It's also the prequel to the failure we document in The Warning He Didn't Pass On: the same prime minister who spent years keeping Hamas funded and separate is the one now accused of brushing off a specific warning days before the attack. Read together, they are one story — a policy of managing Hamas rather than defeating it, right up until the morning it stopped being manageable. The war that followed is documented in our coverage of Gaza itself.
Questions worth taking seriously
So did Israel create Hamas?
No — and we're careful about this. Israel tolerated and permitted an Islamist charity network in the 1970s and 80s as a rival to the secular PLO, and that network became the base for Hamas. But Palestinians founded and built Hamas. “Israel created Hamas” is an overstatement; “Israel helped the Islamist alternative grow, then later helped keep Hamas in power” is what the record supports.
Wasn't the Qatari money just humanitarian aid?
That is Netanyahu's defense, and part of the money did pay for fuel, salaries, and aid. But it went to a Hamas-run government, Netanyahu was reportedly warned some reached the military wing, and he himself framed keeping Hamas propped up as a way to block a Palestinian state. “Humanitarian” and “strategic” aren't mutually exclusive — the record shows both, and we grade both.
If you are named on this page
If you are named on this page, or are a party materially affected by the claims made here, and you wish to respond, correct the record, or add context, use the Contact page. Responses are published verbatim alongside the original claim, with the sender identified and the date of receipt. The channel stays open for the life of the page.
This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The record
- The New York Times — how Qatari money, with Israel's support, propped up Hamas
- Haaretz — Netanyahu sent Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to Doha to continue the Gaza transfers (Feb 2020)
- The Times of Israel — Liberman: Mossad chief and top general ‘begged’ Qatar to pay Hamas
- The Times of Israel — Netanyahu reportedly warned twice that Qatari cash funded Hamas's military wing
- Middle East Institute — Hamas backgrounder (origins in Mujama; the counterweight dynamic)
- Mujama al-Islamiya — Israeli recognition and the counterweight-to-the-PLO history