…that foreign aid to Gaza helps Hamas, just listen to one of Hamas’s senior leaders:

Khalil al-Hayya, one of three survivors of the five best known Hamas leaders, told supporters the group had achieved victory in the war and was now engaged in a political battle.

“We promised to come out to you either as martyrs or as victors,” Hayya told supporters. “Today I come out to you and you are victors.” …

Hayya tried to reassure Palestinians whose houses had been destroyed by Israel. “The reconstruction is coming, do not be worried about that,” he said, adding the Hamas government intended to pay the salaries of its employees.

“I tell the resistance fighters, I tell the Qassam fighters, do not drop your weapons, do not put your weapons aside and do not abandon your trenches,” Hayya said.

Hamas understands the purpose of foreign aid much better than do those who are handing out the money. Foreign aid allows Hamas to mollify public anger over the wars it starts, making the consequences of its militancy less acute. Europe and America are supporting both sides of a war while professing their hope that only one side wins. It’s head-spinning to realize that my tax money is helping to pay both for the Israeli bombs that destroy buildings in Gaza, and the reconstruction that follows. It’s one thing to fund both sides of a war between your enemies, say, between Iran and Iraq, hoping they both lose (to paraphrase Kissinger). But when one side is your ally and the other is your enemy, and you are funding both, you are engaged in a demented exercise.