Paying Gaza's Bills, Not Arming Its Fighters: The Case for Netanyahu's Qatar Policy

The narrative that Benjamin Netanyahu "funded Hamas" is one of the most repeated charges in Israeli politics today. But a closer look at the documented record tells a more complicated and more defensible story.

A Policy Rooted in Pragmatism
When Qatar began transferring funds to Gaza in 2018, the arrangement was not a secret conspiracy. Israel approved the deal in a security cabinet meeting in August 2018, when Netanyahu was serving as prime minister. The money had a clear and specific civilian purpose. Qatar transferred funds to Gaza primarily to pay civil servants and the first disbursement of $15 million arrived in November 2018 in three suitcases.

Netanyahu was unambiguous about his reasoning at the time. He said he was acting "in coordination with the security elements, to return quiet to the southern communities, but also to prevent a humanitarian crisis," and that every minister in his security cabinet had approved the move. Far from acting unilaterally or recklessly, Netanyahu stressed that "serious discussions" had taken place and that the Israeli security establishment had backed the decision unanimously.

This Was Not Netanyahu's Invention
One of the most important and most overlooked facts in this debate is that the policy of allowing funds into Gaza did not originate with Netanyahu. In 2008, under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel approved the transfer of Palestinian Authority funds into Gaza, intended to pay salaries and maintain basic civilian services. When Netanyahu returned to office in 2009, he inherited this framework.

The policy rested on a broad and consistent consensus across Israel's entire security establishment including the IDF, Military Intelligence, Shin Bet, Mossad, and the National Security Council and it persisted across multiple governments. To single out Netanyahu as uniquely responsible is to ignore the institutional depth of the policy he was implementing.

The Alternative Was Worse
The logic behind the funding was grounded in a clear strategic calculus. After Israel's 2014 war in Gaza, the US, UN, Israel, and Qatar established a system delivering $30 million monthly to the Strip roughly $10 million for fuel, $10 million for government employee salaries, and $10 million in family stipends based on the assessment that Hamas would moderate its behavior as long as it had governing and economic assets to protect.

When the Palestinian Authority stopped paying the salaries of its employees in Gaza in 2017, the situation became acute. Those employees included teachers, doctors, and nurses tens of thousands of people whose wages had nothing to do with Hamas's military operations. Cutting off that lifeline entirely risked a humanitarian implosion that Israeli security officials themselves warned would trigger escalation.

Netanyahu said at the time that the arrangement was intended "to return calm to Israeli villages of the south" and "prevent a humanitarian disaster" in Gaza. (FDD) In the near term, it worked border violence subsided noticeably after payments began.

The "Funded Terrorism" Charge Doesn't Hold Up to Scrutiny
Critics claim Netanyahu knowingly financed Hamas's military buildup. The evidence does not support this framing. Netanyahu has denied that the money transferred was used for terrorist purposes, arguing that Hamas's military buildup was made possible mainly through weapons smuggling from Sinai.

His office has also consistently maintained that Netanyahu was never presented with an intelligence document stating that funding transferred to Gaza by Qatar was directed to terrorism.

As one detailed analysis in the Times of Israel put it, Netanyahu did not directly finance Hamas he gave Israeli approval for Qatari money to enter Gaza while Hamas governed it, money that inevitably ended up under Hamas's control. That is a meaningful distinction. Governing a territory requires paying civil servants. Allowing that to happen is not the same as writing checks to a military wing.

A Judgment Call Under Impossible Conditions
Netanyahu's defenders make a compelling point: governing requires choosing between bad options and worse ones. "Without exception, every step has a price," Netanyahu said. "When you take steps of leadership, if you cannot bear the price, you cannot lead. And I know how to bear the price."

No Israeli leader faced with a blockaded, impoverished Gaza with rockets on one side and a humanitarian catastrophe on the other had a clean solution available. The Qatari mechanism was an attempt, endorsed by the United States and United Nations, to thread an impossible needle: keep Gazan civilians from desperation while maintaining pressure on Hamas.

That it ultimately failed, in the most devastating way imaginable on October 7, 2023, is a tragedy. But failure in hindsight does not equal wrongdoing in the moment especially when the policy was supported by every major branch of Israel's security apparatus, sanctioned by international partners, and aimed explicitly at protecting Israeli civilians in the south.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.
International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP
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