Topple Hamas in Gaza, give it to PA

Israel should topple Hamas and then hand Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority, former intelligence minister Eli Cohen told The Jerusalem Post Monday.

“We will need to topple Hamas, which opposes Israel’s existence, so that Gaza will serve its two million Palestinians who have been taken captive,” he said. Cohen was intelligence minister in the last government.

In place of Hamas, Israel should hand over Gaza to the PA, which “would be good for Israel,” he said. “But even beyond what is good for Israel, it would be good for the people of Gaza.”

“Someone needs to worry about their [Gazans’] concerns and not what Iran wants, as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been doing,” Cohen said.

That had not been the Likud’s policy throughout the last 12 years Benjamin Netanyahu had been prime minister. Rather, Netanyahu had strenuously rebuffed calls from Avigdor Liberman and some others to reconquer Gaza if necessary to topple Hamas. Netanyahu characterized such ideas as irresponsible since they could leave Israel stuck occupying Gaza or lead to a worse group, such as

ISIS, running the coastal enclave.

When asked whether the situation had changed, Cohen said: “Everything has its time. Since we handed Gaza over, it only deteriorated, and there has been no progress. If there were rational actors in charge, they could transform the area into another Singapore.”

He said he was strongly opposed to the policy of recent years of having the Mossad help facilitate Qatar’s funding of Hamas.

The premise of that policy was that as long as the terrorist group had a minimum of funding, it would not start a war. Outside help from Qatar was needed since the PA cut off any funding to Hamas a few years ago to try to pressure it into returning control of the Gaza Strip to the Ramallah-based government.

In a recent interview with Channel 12, just-retired Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, who had taken the lead on coordinating the Qatari funding until the May 10-21 Gaza conflict, acknowledged that the policy had failed.

Eli Cohen said: “We need to guarantee that funds for humanitarian assistance go only to that, and that none of the funds are taken by terrorist organizations,” suggesting Qatar could not be trusted to ensure this.

He also accused Qatar of “playing both sides” of the Israel-versus-Hamas divide since its influence did nothing to prevent the conflict.