Shin Bet’s Palestinian Proxies Are Gaza Gangsters

Israeli security sources tell me that the Shin Bet is arming and funding between 600-1,000 members of a Palestinian gang in Gaza.  The former’s goal is to create a proxy force to counter Hamas and sow chaos among Palestinians.  It is  providing light weapons and salaries to the Palestinians in this effort. It claims the arms supplied are not Israeli, but captured from Hamas on the battlefield.  Given the IDF’s history of bald-faced lying, there’s reason to be quite skeptical of this claim.

Yossi Melman, writing in Haaretz, exposes yet another covert effort by Israel to provide humanitarian aid under its control. One of its many purposes was to bypass the current independent international NGOs.  Media reported that a mysterious organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, would fund and run the operation with assistance from former US special forces security personnel.

Melman reveals for the first time that the Mossad created the dummy foundation in Switzerland. The source of the funding was equally opaque.  It turns out the the ministry of defense was providing the financial support to the tune of $140-million per month.

Reuters reports that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital–the financial vehicle of Ward McNally, a sixth-generation scion of the Rand McNally publishing company–has an ownership stake in GHF. The investment is further shielded via a second firm, Safe Reach Solutions. It appears to be a “cut out” designed to conceal involvement of McNally Capital. SRS was incorporated in Wyoming last November. Under “Our Team,” the website doesn’t list any staff. An Israeli group which conceived of GHF, did so during this period. Despite denials of the Israeli role by US ambassador Mike Huckabee, the NY Times reports otherwise:

…The project is an Israeli brainchild, first proposed by Israeli officials in the earliest weeks of the war, according to Israeli officials, people involved in the initiative, and others familiar with its conception, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely of the initiative.

…The broad contours of the plan were first discussed in late 2023, at private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and business people with close ties to the Israeli government.

The group devised its project during the period when SRS was first registered in November 2024. Clearly, the Israelis recruited the US funders in order to further conceal the Israeli role.

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The Al-Shabab proxy plan devised by the intelligence apparatus was approved by Netanyahu and the defense minister. The prime minister, lying sack o’ shit he is, claimed the “security apparatus” was responsible.

“On the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What’s wrong with this”

If there was nothing wrong with this, then why does he try to shift blame to the Shin Bet, which carried out the plan on his orders?  Despite harsh criticism of a plan that puts Israel in bed with gangsters, he doubled down in this Instagram post claiming “what’s wrong with this?”

Neither the Knesset, security cabinet or army senior command was informed, an unusual occurrence. Indicating the opacity and lack of political oversight of such operations.

The insurgents are loosely linked to a Bedouin clan some of whose members have an affiliation with Fatah security officials.  Its leader is Yasser Abu Shabab, a member of the al-Shabab clan.  The rest of his tribe has renounced him as an Israeli collaborator.

Israeli media have been reporting on the looting on humanitarian aid trucks.  The gangs extort a $4,000 payment in order for safe passage. Those who don’t pay are looted and the stolen goods sold at a steep profit on the black market. The army has facilitated it by standing by during these incidents.  It permits Abu Shabab to operate openly in zones it oversees.

Though the IDF has had a cozy relationship with such gangs, until recently there were no reports that the Shin Bet has gone further and armed them and paid them to engaged in criminal behavior.

Proxies don’t work

Israel has sought out other proxies to weaken Hamas’ hold.  Recently, there have been reports of protests inside Gaza against Hamas rule.  Though there may be dissatisfaction among Palestinians, the phenomenon struck me as manufactured, rather then a genuine spontaneous expression of discontent. I see Israel’s hand in this:

…The belief that such demonstrations pose a threat to continued Hamas control over the Gaza Strip is misplaced and reflects an erroneous reading of reality…Despite…criticism of Hamas, Gazans are fully aware that even if that group leaves the governance scene immediately, there is no viable alternative that can enforce some level of order, manage the critically needed civil defense units and health sector, ensure a relatively secure environment for humanitarian service delivery, allow markets to operate, and prevent the eruption of tremendous chaos and open anarchy and violence.

The Shin Bet believes that it has sufficiently degraded Hamas’ command and control–along with its rule over the civilian population–that proxies could gain a serious foothold there.  The proposition, like many other similar Israeli stratagems, seems far-fetched.

Several years ago, Israel attempted to create another such Gaza proxy: it was an abject failure.  In this case, Hamas reportedly killed a leader of a clan that collaborated with the Israelis.  Given that the IDF now controls most of the territory, it can guarantee security for Abu-Shabab and his fate may not be as ignominious.

Israel’s sordid history with proxies

The strategy of divide and conquer is not new with Israel.  It has repeated it multiple times in the past. It created the South Lebanon army to offset the PLO.  It funded and armed al-Nusra and the Syrian Druze as a buffer against Hezbollah in the Golan.  After the 1967 War, it created the Village Leagues in the West Bank to oppose Fatah.  Like the current plan, it employed local clans to oppose Fatah.  Israeli intelligence agents facilitated the  the founding of both Hamas and Hezbollah as a bulwark against the PLO.

Yossi Melman expands on this in Haaretz:

These are mercenaries similar to those established by colonial regimes. France did so in Algeria and Syria. The British in their colonies in Africa and Asia and the United States through the CIA in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel operated similarly in the 1970s as it created the Village Leagues, the Phalange and South Levanese army and rural shifts in Syria at the Golan Heights. In most cases, these militias of collaborators and mercenaries has failed.

The US supplied massive amounts of weaponry to the Taliban in their fight against the Russian invaders.  After they drove the Russians out of Afghanistan, they turned on the US. They even sheltered and nurtured Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. They became the sworn enemies of the US and killed thousands of its troops there, just as they had the Russians before them.  Be careful what you wish for: today’s proxy may become tomorrow’s arch enemy.

During WWII, the Nazis propped up proxies like the Vichy collaborators in France.  The term “quisling” was named for the Norwegian prime minister, Vidkun Quisling, who collaborated with the Nazis.  In Hungary, the Iron Cross and Admiral Horthy ruled on behalf of the Nazis and sent more than half of the country’s Jews to Auschwitz.  All of them became failed proxies and collapsed as Germany faced military defeat.

In these cases, the useful tool you create turns against you like the Frankenstein monster.  The proxy force you buy with logistics support and weapons doesn’t stay bought.  It develops interests of its own which diverge from yours, and becomes a lethal enemy (Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.). Some Israeli academic experts warn that the Israeli policy could fail spectacularly if multiple militias arise in the vacuum created by the end of Hamas rule.

Though to some that may seem catastrophic, it’s highly likely this is the outcome Netanyahu desires. Israel likes failed states.  It routinely attempts to sow chaos among rivals (Syria, Lebanon, Iran, etc.). The weaker they are, the less capable of damaging or resisting Israel’s pursuit of its own security interests. In other words, disruption and dysfunction are not bugs in the sytem, but a feature.

The security source I mentioned above told me:

“This ‘South Gaza Army’ reminds me of South Lebanon Army, and I hope it doesn’t indicate that IDF will stay in Gaza for 18 years, like it stayed in Lebanon”.

This is a serious concern, since Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have said explicitly that the Israeli occupation of Gaza is indefinite.  The recent Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon and the Syria Golan are similarly indefinite according to Israel.

If that’s the case, then the clans could be seen by Israel as a long-term solution to the issue of governance of the enclave.  It likely views them as suitable “partners” to run Gaza on Israel’s behalf; in much the way the Palestinian Authority has become an errand-boy for Israeli security. The only reason the collaboration with the Gaza gangs may cease, is if Israel eliminates all Palestinians from the enclave–another serious option.