{"id":182734,"date":"2015-06-19T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T23:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/06\/19\/the-middle-east-is-fed-up-and-sh-2\/"},"modified":"2015-06-19T18:55:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T23:55:00","slug":"the-middle-east-is-fed-up-and-sh-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/06\/19\/the-middle-east-is-fed-up-and-sh-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Middle East Is F%$#ed up and Sh%$"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>I just learned that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/why-israel-allows-qatar-to-support-hamas-in-gaza-2015-6\">Israel has a policy of allowing Qatar to give millions in aid to Hamas<\/a>:<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">A year after the war that devastated the Gaza Strip, Israel is apparently helping Qatar \u2014 which does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel  \u2014 partner with the Islamist movement and longstanding enemy Hamas to rebuild the the territory. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Life is full of contradictions and strange things,\u201d Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for Israel&#8217;s military intelligence, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/parallels\/2015\/06\/18\/414693807\/why-israel-lets-qatar-give-millions-to-hamas\" rel=\"nofollow\">told NPR<\/a> when commenting on Israel&#8217;s recent move to allow Qatar to channel its reconstruction aid through Hamas, which is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nctc.gov\/site\/groups\/hamas.html\">a US-designated terrorist group<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Israel has always tried to isolate Hamas and has accused Qatar of financing the Islamist movement. Hamas does not recognize Israel&#8217;s right to exist, rejects all agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and calls for Israel&#8217;s violent destruction in its founding charter.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>But there are other reasons why Israel is suddenly more open to cooperation with Qatar. Israel\u2019s deputy minister for regional cooperation, Ayub Carra, mentioned that Qatar, along with other Gulf countries, shares Israel\u2019s concerns about Iran, NPR reported. Kuperwasser also mentioned that Israel has long wanted improved relations with the region&#8217;s Sunni Muslim countries because of the threat the country faces from Shi&#8217;ite Iran and its various militant proxies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we have a chance, now, to make the relationship better,\u201d said Carra.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My head hurts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just learned that Israel has a policy of allowing Qatar to give millions in aid to Hamas: A year after the war that devastated the Gaza Strip, Israel is apparently helping Qatar \u2014 which does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel \u2014 partner with the Islamist movement and longstanding enemy Hamas to rebuild &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[964,1034,1159,986,1076,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-relations","category-iran","category-israel","category-middle-east","category-terrorism","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182734"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}