When the enemy of my enemy is my enemy
The dangerous history of Israel's attempts to outflank the PLO.
Welcome! I’m Tom Griffin and this is my intelligence history newsletter. Feel free to share this article with the button below.
My interest in intelligence began with the Irish peace process of the 1990s, so it’s perhaps not surprising that this newsletter has something of a running theme around secret co-operation between declared enemies. That can mean backchannel diplomacy of the kind that helped prepare the ground for the Good Friday Agreement or the Oslo Accords. It can also mean tacit collusion between opposite extremes to undermine such agreements.
There were suspicions of such collusion around multiple incidents in Ireland, including the murder of Denis Donaldson discussed in my last post, but ultimately it proved no more than an irritant to the peace process.
In the Middle East, by contrast, the notion of collusion between the extremes has gone from being a conspiracy theory to a truism. In the wake of the October 7 attacks, the New York Times accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of propping up Hamas ‘in order to keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state.’1
Among the critics of this approach was the former chief of Mossad’s economic warfare division Udi Levi, who told the Times, ‘Everyone is talking about failures of intelligence on Oct. 7, but no one is talking about the failure to stop the money.’2
I first came across Levi’s name in 2013, in a Wikileaks cable in which the head of a supposedly independent legal NGO told US diplomats that she had taken direction from the Israeli Government.3 The lawyer in question, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, later wrote a history of Operation Harpoon, the financial counter-terrorism operation which Levi headed.4
Levi began his task during the tenures of hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and of Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who presided over a major expansion of targeted killings abroad.5 As several Wikileaks cables underline, Levi worked closely with the US at the height of the War on Terror.6
That makes his criticism of Israeli policy all the more striking. In a 2020 article for Israel Hayom he wrote:
In the 1980s, Israel secretly supported the Muslim Brotherhood and the campaign it waged against the PLO, based on the Machiavellian maxim that "my enemy's enemy is my friend. The result was the rise of Hamas. Israel arrived at a similar sad outcome in Lebanon, by showing quiet preference of the Shiites, in the form of Amal, over the Sunnis represented by the PLO; and this too led to a disastrous result – the emergence of Hezbollah.7
Levi went on to argue that Israel was making a similar mistake by accepting cash for Gaza from Qatar, which he accused of funding international terrorism. The Qataris insist that their funding was for human aid, administered in close cooperation with the Israelis.8 Nevertheless, its hard to see the Hamas attack of October 7 2023 as anything other than a vindication of Levi’s warning.
Incredibly, it seems that the ‘enemy of my enemy’ strategy is still in place. Opposition politician Avigdor Liberman charged last week that ‘the Israeli government is transferring weapons to a group of criminals and offenders who identify with ISIS on the orders of the prime minister.’9 In response, Netanyahu posted a tweet acknowledging that Israel was arming groups in Gaza opposed to Hamas, and criticizing Liberman for publicizing the fact.10
The key group in question is reported to be headed by Yasser Abu Shabab, who was widely blamed for a surge in theft of humanitarian aid last year.11
Abu Shabab is not the only alternative to Hamas. Much of the international community backs the Arab plan which would see Gaza rebuilt under the renewed control of the Palestinian Authority (PA).12 The PA’s weakened legitimacy and capacity represent profound challenges to the proposal. Yet perhaps the biggest difficulty remains the Israeli Prime Minister’s unwillingness to do anything which might advance a Palestinian state. It seems that Netanyahu still prefers the zero-sum option, even after the existential risk of that course have become clear.
Mark Mazzetti and Ronen Bergman, ‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas, New York Times, 10 December 2023.
Jo Becker and Justin Scheck, Israel Found the Hamas Money Machine Years Ago. Nobody Turned It Off, New York Times, 16 December 2023.
‘ISRAELI NGO SUES TERRORISTS, TIES UP PA MONEY’, US Embassy Tel Aviv, 30 August 2007. Archived at Wikileaks.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel M. Katz, Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters, Hachette Books, 2017.
Eyal Levi, 'Economic warfare is the ultimate weapon', Israel Hayom, 9 March 2022.
See for example: ‘TERRORISM FINANCE: GOI SAYS NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT AGAINST THE CENTRAL BANK OF IRAN AND INCREASES ITS FINANCIAL ISOLATION OF GAZA’, US Embassy Tel Aviv, 8 August 2008.
Udi Levi, Qatari cash for Hamas will backfire on Israel, Israel Hayom, 8 March 2020.
Statement from the International Media Office in response to false allegations from the Israeli Shin Bet, International Media Office, State of Qatar, 5 March 2025.
Amichai Stein, Netanyahu confirms Israel is arming clans in Gaza to fight Hamas after Liberman's allegations, Jerusalem Post, 5 June 2025.
Yasser Abu Shabab, Mapping Palestinian Politics, European Council on Foreign Relations, accessed 8 June 2025.
Jonathan Lis and Nir Hasson, Netanyahu Says Israel Fighting Hamas 'In Various Ways' Amid Claims It Armed ISIS-affiliated Gaza Militia, Haaretz, 5 June 2025.
Oliver Holmes and Agencies, Arab leaders endorse $53bn plan to rebuild Gaza as alternative to Trump idea, The Guardian, 5 March 2025.