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Originally Posted by GrantDawg
By the way, how was "Hamas who the Israeli government wanted" when they were literally arresting Hamas candidates and trying to prevent Hanas supporters from voting in the last elections? Are you saying they were using reverse psychology of some sort?
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Abbas is seen as the bigger threat toward a Palestinian state becoming a reality. He's more moderate and pragmatic. A guy who could sway public opinion toward a Palestinian state.
So the strategy of Netanyahu and his party has been to prop up Hamas. They let Qatar funnel money in to Gaza and they massively increased work permits in Gaza while ignoring the West Bank. Basically split the Palestinians in two.
Netanyahu has been pretty open about this since taking power. Quoted as saying "those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state". His party has spoken about this a lot too, including in recent days. They wanted a stronger Hamas.
As for elections, that was almost 20 years ago when Israel had a more moderate leader that was open to a Palestinian state.