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Saleh al-Arouri: never forget, for many people, money trumps ideology every time.
A Hamas official who lives in Turkey has claimed that members of its militant wing kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in June. The killing of the three was initially used by Israel to being its two-week-long bombardment of Gaza, killing 2,000 Palestinians.

Speaking at a conference in Turkey, Saleh Al-Arouri said the al-Qassam Brigades were responsible. The claim has been met with skepticism by many. Al-Arouri is the only member of Hamas to make this claim and it stands in contrast to the statements of both the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is in exile in Qatar, and the Israeli police, both of whom stated that Hamas was not responsible.

Questions must be asked about Al-Arouri's motivation for making this claim and whether or not he is in a position to make any authoritative statements about Hamas, or the operations of any other Palestinian groups or individuals in the West Bank or elsewhere in the occupied territories. First of all, the Turkish government is no friend of the Palestinian people, so why is Al-Arouri living there?

Writing last year in the pro-Zionist US rag mag 'Foreign Policy', Johnathan Schanzer said this about Al-Arouri's presence in Turkey:
Given the strategic importance of Turkey to the United States, particularly in light of Turkey's role in helping to support the Syrian opposition, officials in Washington have demurred on confronting Ankara. Obama, who has maintained cordial ties with Erdogan, has given no indication that Turkey's relationship with Hamas is a problem for Washington.
Indeed, since Turkey is a NATO country and fully on board with US and Gulf Monarchies' bloodbath in Syria, with Syria being perhaps the only true ally that the Palestinians had (along with Hizb'allah in Lebanon) why would a Hamas 'big wig' and alleged "money man" be ensconced in Turkey?

A July article from the 'Washington Institute' tells us:
Drawing on his past operational experience, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel, Arouri "has urged West Bank operatives incessantly to set up terror cells and perpetrate kidnappings." He "financially sponsored these cells, which were trained and directed to abduct Israelis," often sending funds via charities serving as front organizations. Odds are, though, that Israeli authorities won't soon release evidence to back up any off-the-record charges that Arouri was tied to the three teens' kidnapping and murder. In the words of former Israeli National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, "Anyone who knows something about Arouri will not tell you, because it's intelligence that should not be published and is needed for the future." Arouri's role overseeing Hamas West Bank operations overall, however -- whatever role he did or did not play in this particular plot -- is not in dispute.
Arouri's 'revelation' however appears to have been pre-empted, or set up for him, by Israeli officials who, in a June edition of the Times of Israel, were quoted as saying that Arouri was behind the kidnapping and killing of the teens.

A few days ago, the Times of Israel, in its role as mouth-piece for the Israeli government, claimed that Israeli intelligence had uncovered a plot by Hamas to launch widespread attacks on Israeli targets and also stage a coup against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The discovery of the alleged plot was supposedly the result of the arrest by Israeli police of hundreds of supposed Hamas members in the West Bank in the aftermath of the kidnapping of the Israeli teens. Palestinian National Authority (PNA) chairman, Abbas said the revelation was "a grave threat to the unity of the Palestinian people and its future,"

Note the chronology here and the way in which the political landscape has been entirely reversed in the space of a few months. Earlier this year, the PNA had brokered a deal with Hamas to form a unity government to effectively unite Gaza and West Bank. This was a first real step towards a Palestinian state and, most importantly, the new unity government would have NO Hamas members in it. This was a strategic move to make it more difficult for the Israelis to dismiss the new entity as 'terrorist'.

Historically, when the state of Israel has been threatened with the emergence of a peaceful, political Palestinian resistance, Israeli policymakers resort to a tried and tested countermove: false-flag terrorism to 'remind' the world that the Palestinians are not credible 'partners for peace'. In this most recent case, the patsies were three Israeli teens, abducted and killed by agents of the state of Israel, their deaths used to ramp up the racism that underpins Israeli society and justify a massive bombardment of Gaza.

For the Western public, Hamas were recast as terrorists and the embryonic unity government destroyed. And now, a few weeks later, the Israelis seal the deal with a simultaneous 'admission' from a "Hamas official" in Turkey that the group was behind the murder of the teens, and a 'revelation' as a result of the Israeli action against Hamas members immediately after the kidnapping of the teens, that Hamas was plotting a 'wave of terror attacks' on Israel AND a coup against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The point being, not only are Hamas "terrorists", not only are they "not credible partners for peace" with Israel, but they're not even credible partners for peace with their own people. How's that for a propaganda slam dunk?

Israel and Palestine coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Hugh Lovatt, said that while al-Arouri was a significant Hamas figure, the former militant could have an ulterior motive for making his claim.
"Given the timing I would be very suspicious about his claim. I still don't believe Hamas as an organisation and its upper echelons sanctioned the kidnappings - something that Israeli intelligence also believes"
The long-standing 'elephant in the Palestinian 'resistance' room' is alleged leaders in exile of the Palestinian people ordering (or taking the blame for) attacks against Israelis that offer Israel the perfect opportunity to bomb the hell out of Palestinians in Palestine, while people like Arouri are safely settled in foreign countries. Does anyone see a problem here? Sott.net has repeatedly pointed to the extreme likelihood that Hamas as a genuine resistance movement of the Palestinian people has long since been comprised by Israel in the form of informants and 'double agents'.

Firing rockets into Israel is one thing, but when Israeli civilians are kidnapped, and especially killed, by "the Palestinian resistance", in particular at the very worst time for Palestinians and the best time for Israeli warmongers, we really should consider 'who benefits' and why. In this case, when all other interested parties have denied that Hamas, and by implication the Palestinian people, were involved in the teens' murder, why would a lone Hamas member living comfortably and unhindered in exile in NATO member and close ally of Israel, Turkey, suddenly claim that Hamas, and therefore the Palestinian people, were responsible for the killings, and in that way, lend at least a little moral justification to the psychopathic state of Israel for its genocidal attacks on Gaza?

A few days ago three senior Hamas officials were targeted and killed in Israeli airstrikes. In what is likely to be a response to the deaths, Hamas did not strike back at Israel with rockets, but has allegedly executed 18 Israeli collaborators whom, we suppose, were held responsible for giving the locations of the three Hamas officials to Israel (in return for 'rewards' of some kind). This brings my point here into focus. Gaza and Palestinian areas of the West Bank are riven with Israeli collaborators. Israel can 'take out' actual real Palestinian resistance leaders easily. Yet some supposed 'head honcho' living in Turkey and, according to the Israelis, financing and organising all sorts of attacks against Israel including the killing of three Israeli teens, is somehow untouchable.