At the Herzliya Conference, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said June 22 that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to drag Hamas into a military conflict with Israel. According to Liberman, Abbas believes that another military conflict between Hamas and Israel could lead to the downfall of Hamas and the return of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the Gaza Strip.
Liberman is known for his acrimonious feelings toward the Palestinian president and has called him an obstacle to peace on countless occasions. In Liberman's view, only a route "circumventing Abbas" will lead to progress on the diplomatic front. This time, however, his comments were apparently not made out of the same sense of animosity. They were based on assessments by top Israeli security officials who claim that the PA's financial disengagement from Gaza — the electricity crisis, the slashing of salaries and even the reduction of the supply of medicines and medical equipment to Gaza's hospitals — could drag Hamas into another military conflict with Israel.
According to some assessments, these moves were planned by Abbas with a clear purpose. They were not simply intended to advance greater financial efficiency in the PA or to appeal to the Trump administration, but to bring down the Hamas regime in Gaza too.
The belief that a serious economic crisis will bring down the Hamas regime was the basis of Israel's policy, but also of the PA's policy after the June 2007 Hamas coup in the Gaza Strip. At one time, one of the main advocates of this approach of "hanging Hamas out to dry" was none other than Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas' adviser on security matters at the time and now his bitter rival.
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