|
Trending Topics
|
Why Israel Lets Qatar Give Millions to Hamas
(NPR) Emily Harris - Israel's long-standing policy has been to isolate Hamas, and Israel has long accused Qatar of financing Hamas, including providing money used for rockets fired into Israel during last summer's war. Yet Israel permitted Qatari official Mohammad al-Emadi to visit Gaza and spend tens of millions of dollars on reconstruction projects, including 1,000 new homes. Emadi had just left a meeting with the Israeli general in charge of permitting goods and people in and out of Gaza when a rocket fired from Gaza landed in southern Israel. Emadi says he immediately called his contacts in Gaza. "I told them, 'You are crazy.' They said, 'No, no, it's not us.' And they control the situation. They catch the guy." Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for Israel's military intelligence, says: "Nobody else is ready to help but Qatar....We believe that better conditions in Gaza would lessen the incentive of Hamas and the population to go again to a war. So in a way, it is helping the deterrence. But the purpose is to improve the conditions of the people of Gaza and enable them to live a respectable life."