Chris Van Hollen: “I want to quote from Mr. Levy, who is quoted in that article. He was the Mossad chief in charge of economic policy. He…”

“I want to quote from Mr. Levy, who is quoted in that article. He was the Mossad chief in charge of economic policy. He says: ``I can tell you for sure that I talked to him''--referring to Prime Minister Netanyahu--``about this. But he didn't care that much about it.'' The article goes on to point out that Mr. Netanyahu's Mossad chief shut down Mr. Levy's team, the task force called Harpoon that focused on disrupting the money flowing to groups including Hamas. So let's go back to why Prime Minister Netanyahu and his extreme rightwing allies, like Smotrich and Ben Gvir, wanted to keep Hamas in place in Gaza. It is because, as they have said, their primary goal was to avoid the establishment of a Palestinian State. And so long as they could keep the Palestinians divided, they could avoid a united national movement for such a state. And so long as Hamas was in control of Gaza, it proved a useful foil against recognizing a Palestinian State that included the West Bank and Gaza, until the horror of October 7. The corollary of not threatening Hamas's control of Gaza has been to systematically weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.…”