Scott Ritter's write up on substack mentions what he was told by an Israeli in the know, note the last line of first paragraph:

Hamas had committed numerous atrocities against the Israeli people during my time in Israel. I saw them as the enemy of Israel, and now I was being told that Israel had a hand in the creation of Hamas. The intent, my host told me, was to create a political divide within the Palestinian political leadership, and to dilute the power and influence of Yassar Arafat’s Fatah organization. In this, they had apparently succeeded.** But the violent response of Hamas to the Oslo Accords had caused Israel to rethink this relationship, and soon Israel was in open war with its creation.**

I was prepared to write off the Israeli-Hamas nexus as a political experiment gone bad when, in 2006, it looked like Israel had forgiven Hamas its violent past, working to create the conditions that helped Hamas secure a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament. By 2007, however, the poor relations between Hamas and Fatah had broken down further, leading to a civil war between the two factions that led to the split of the Palestinian entity into two halves—one, led by Fatah, was located on the West Bank, while the other, led by Hamas, operated in Gaza.

It later came out that this internecine conflict between Palestinians had been orchestrated by Israel to split the Palestinian political body, weakening it while providing Israel with the opportunity to improve relations with Fatah under the grounds that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Over the course of the next decade and a half, I watched as Israel leveraged its control over Fatah, and its animosity toward Hamas, into a cycle of never-ending violence which always ended up with the Palestinian cause making more compromises which resulted in more lost territory—and more lost lives.

Above quote from https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-i-no-longer-stand-with-israel

My current view is that Israel doesn't have nearly as much control with Hamas in recent years, except to provide opportunities for their extremist actions. And before Oct 7 Israel DID do things to all but knowingly provoke Hamas into an event that would serve in turn as pretext for IDF to "mow the lawn" in Gaza as they call it. But it is most likely they underestimated the extent of damage Hamas was able to accomplish in the window given. I am not convinced the Israeli gov't / intelligence planned for what actually happened in Israel, due to the totally forseeable public reaction against the Israeli gov't and calls for Netanyahu's removal, etc. Its one thing to provoke Hamas, but to provoke the Israeli public into distrust and feelings of betrayal would not be in their playbook.

Scott Ritter's write up on substack mentions what he was told by an Israeli in the know, note the last line of first paragraph:

Hamas had committed numerous atrocities against the Israeli people during my time in Israel. I saw them as the enemy of Israel, and now I was being told that Israel had a hand in the creation of Hamas. The intent, my host told me, was to create a political divide within the Palestinian political leadership, and to dilute the power and influence of Yassar Arafat’s Fatah organization. In this, they had apparently succeeded.** But the violent response of Hamas to the Oslo Accords had caused Israel to rethink this relationship, and soon Israel was in open war with its creation.**

I was prepared to write off the Israeli-Hamas nexus as a political experiment gone bad when, in 2006, it looked like Israel had forgiven Hamas its violent past, working to create the conditions that helped Hamas secure a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament. By 2007, however, the poor relations between Hamas and Fatah had broken down further, leading to a civil war between the two factions that led to the split of the Palestinian entity into two halves—one, led by Fatah, was located on the West Bank, while the other, led by Hamas, operated in Gaza.

It later came out that this internecine conflict between Palestinians had been orchestrated by Israel to split the Palestinian political body, weakening it while providing Israel with the opportunity to improve relations with Fatah under the grounds that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Over the course of the next decade and a half, I watched as Israel leveraged its control over Fatah, and its animosity toward Hamas, into a cycle of never-ending violence which always ended up with the Palestinian cause making more compromises which resulted in more lost territory—and more lost lives.

Above quote from https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-i-no-longer-stand-with-israel

My current view is that Israel doesn't have nearly as much control with Hamas in recent years, except to provide opportunities for their extremist actions. And before Oct 7 Israel DID do things to all but knowingly provoke Hamas into an event that would serve in turn as pretext for IDF to "mow the lawn" in Gaza as they call it. But it is most likely they underestimated the extent of damage Hamas was able to accomplish in the window given. I am not convinced the Israeli gov't / intelligence planned for what actually happened in Israel, due to the totally forseeable public reaction against the Israeli gov't and calls for Netanyahu's removal, etc. Its one thing to provoke Hamas, but to provoke the Israeli public into distrust and feelings of betrayal would not be in their playbook.

Scott Ritter's write up on substack mentions what he was told by an Israeli in the know, note the second paragraph.

Hamas had committed numerous atrocities against the Israeli people during my time in Israel. I saw them as the enemy of Israel,

And now I was being told that Israel had a hand in the creation of Hamas. The intent, my host told me, was to create a political divide within the Palestinian political leadership, and to dilute the power and influence of Yassar Arafat’s Fatah organization. In this, they had apparently succeeded.** But the violent response of Hamas to the Oslo Accords had caused Israel to rethink this relationship, and soon Israel was in open war with its creation.**

I was prepared to write off the Israeli-Hamas nexus as a political experiment gone bad when, in 2006, it looked like Israel had forgiven Hamas its violent past, working to create the conditions that helped Hamas secure a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament. By 2007, however, the poor relations between Hamas and Fatah had broken down further, leading to a civil war between the two factions that led to the split of the Palestinian entity into two halves—one, led by Fatah, was located on the West Bank, while the other, led by Hamas, operated in Gaza.

It later came out that this internecine conflict between Palestinians had been orchestrated by Israel to split the Palestinian political body, weakening it while providing Israel with the opportunity to improve relations with Fatah under the grounds that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Over the course of the next decade and a half, I watched as Israel leveraged its control over Fatah, and its animosity toward Hamas, into a cycle of never-ending violence which always ended up with the Palestinian cause making more compromises which resulted in more lost territory—and more lost lives.

Above quote from https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-i-no-longer-stand-with-israel

My current view is that Israel doesn't have nearly as much control with Hamas in recent years, except to provide opportunities for their extremist actions. And before Oct 7 Israel DID do things to all but knowingly provoke Hamas into an event that would serve in turn as pretext for IDF to "mow the lawn" in Gaza as they call it. But it is most likely they underestimated the extent of damage Hamas was able to accomplish in the window given. I am not convinced the Israeli gov't / intelligence planned for what actually happened in Israel, due to the totally forseeable public reaction against the Israeli gov't and calls for Netanyahu's removal, etc. Its one thing to provoke Hamas, but to provoke the Israeli public into distrust and feelings of betrayal would not be in their playbook.

Scott Ritter's write up on substack mentions what he was told by an Israeli in the know, note the second paragraph.

Hamas had committed numerous atrocities against the Israeli people during my time in Israel. I saw them as the enemy of Israel,

And now I was being told that Israel had a hand in the creation of Hamas. The intent, my host told me, was to create a political divide within the Palestinian political leadership, and to dilute the power and influence of Yassar Arafat’s Fatah organization. In this, they had apparently succeeded.** But the violent response of Hamas to the Oslo Accords had caused Israel to rethink this relationship, and soon Israel was in open war with its creation.**

I was prepared to write off the Israeli-Hamas nexus as a political experiment gone bad when, in 2006, it looked like Israel had forgiven Hamas its violent past, working to create the conditions that helped Hamas secure a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Parliament. By 2007, however, the poor relations between Hamas and Fatah had broken down further, leading to a civil war between the two factions that led to the split of the Palestinian entity into two halves—one, led by Fatah, was located on the West Bank, while the other, led by Hamas, operated in Gaza.

It later came out that this internecine conflict between Palestinians had been orchestrated by Israel to split the Palestinian political body, weakening it while providing Israel with the opportunity to improve relations with Fatah under the grounds that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Over the course of the next decade and a half, I watched as Israel leveraged its control over Fatah, and its animosity toward Hamas, into a cycle of never-ending violence which always ended up with the Palestinian cause making more compromises which resulted in more lost territory—and more lost lives.

Above quote from https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-i-no-longer-stand-with-israel

My current view is that Israel doesn't have nearly as much control with Hamas in recent years, except to provide opportunities for their extremist actions. And before Oct 7 Israel DID do things to all but knowingly provoke Hamas into an event that would serve in turn as pretext for IDF to "mow the lawn" in Gaza as they call it. But it is most likely they underestimated the extent of damage Hamas was able to accomplish in the window given. I am not convinced the Israeli gov't / intelligence planned for what actually happened in Israel, due to the totally expected reaction of the public to turn against the Israeli gov't and call for Netanyahu's removal, etc.