Gaza debacle linked to letting Qatar fund Hamas

Former deputy IDF chief: US and Iran will decide fate of northern border

Former Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen on Tuesday slammed consecutive Israeli governments – run by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – for facilitating Qatari funding of Hamas, which he said served as a deep strategic source of the failure to stop Hamas’s invasion on October 7.

Speaking at Reichman University, Cohen agreed that the IDF and Shin Bet failed their operational missions to anticipate and thwart the invasion but said that the larger problems were strategic and came from the government.

According to Cohen, the governments propped up Qatar and Hamas as alternatives to the Palestinian Authority when both were being boycotted by most of the Arab world.

The former Shin Bet chief said that anyone today would say that helping a third country fund Hezbollah because of the economic crisis in Lebanon would be a colossal error and that the same was true of allowing Qatar to fund Hamas, even if the strategy was well-intentioned to avoid the economic crisis, a strong factor in the 2014 Gaza conflict.

Cohen said that the Netanyahu-led governments also failed to take any initiative to eliminate top Hamas leaders, only attacking in response to Hamas moves.

Regarding the ‘day after’ the IDF withdraws from Gaza, Cohen said it should be run by a mix of local Palestinian officials, Arab state-allied countries, Western countries, but also the PA.

This comment was rather surprising, as Cohen is a major critic of the PA and has said in the past that it cannot be granted security powers over its territory.

He insisted, though, that it could be necessary to have the PA involved, something that Netanyahu has consistently rejected.

Later, at the conference, former IDF deputy chief and Meretz MK Yair Golan said that when Netanyahu tells the public it is possible to kill all of Hamas’s leaders and save all the hostages at the same time, he is lying.

Golan said that the government must first return the hostages and only later hope to reach Hamas, keeping the goal of preventing Hamas from regaining control of Gaza.

The former deputy IDF chief also accused Netanyahu of upholding a policy of weakening the PA and stabilizing Hamas in 2009, a policy he said was one of the key factors that led to the intelligence and security failures of Oct. 7.

Golan said that, especially in 2009, the PA was operating well on its own and was working better with Israel on security, whereas Hamas was at a low after Operation Cast Lead.

He added that Netanyahu worked to alter the balance of power, since a weaker PA would allow more settlements.

The IDF could not directly hand Gaza over to Gazans, Golan continued, saying he doesn’t think “we have a partner in Gaza. We will start with very strong international cooperation” and only later find Gazans who can run their own lives.

Golan said that the PA must run Gaza’s border crossings at the very least, but it could have a larger role as well.

Regarding the North, he called on the government to allow the return of most of the residents without a diplomatic deal with Hezbollah and without a larger war to clear the terror group’s forces up to the Litani River.

“A true leader would tell the northern residents to start to go back,” he said.

Acknowledging that some towns very close to the border would need to wait longer, he said that cities like Rosh Hanikra are out of range from anti-tank missiles and the residents should return, as they are no more threatened than Nahariya, which was not evacuated.

He said that there will not be a big war because the US and Iran do not want one and Washington will deter Jerusalem while Tehran will deter Beirut.

Former IDF chief and current war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot said that the IDF has drawn down 70% of its forces from Gaza since its peak level.

He added that Hezbollah was a threat seven to ten times worse than Hamas.

Moreover, he said that the IDF must keep a close eye on the West Bank, since Hamas holds 60-70% support there even as the PA has overall security control.