"An ex-Prime Minister of Israel has charged the current Prime Minister Netanyahu with conducting a long-time policy of support for Hamas. Ehud Olmert has confirmed a report by anonymous sources of a sickening deception – on the one hand condemning Hamas as terrorists, and on the other, promoting the Islamic group.
Ehud Olmert was Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009.
In an interview on October 18 with the UK Daily Telegraph, Olmert said:
‘When he [Netanyahu] took over from me in 2009 he said the first priority was to destroy Hamas and actually what he did was the opposite. He tried to destroy Abu Mazen [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] and the Palestinian Authority because that…would have required political concessions from Israel. And he moved to promote Hamas because they never would be partners for negotiation, so you could kick them.
Previously on October 9, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz had reported a similar story. It alleged Netanyahu said in March 2019 at a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members: ‘Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."
