美国宣传机构、新闻和娱乐媒体总能在适当时候推出适时的口号。比如好莱坞当年火爆全球的大片《第一滴血之阿富汗》结尾就在巨屏上打出一行耀眼红字：仅以此片献给伊斯兰主义圣战斗士。

　　本拉登作为伊斯兰主义圣战斗士的精神领袖那会儿不但是西方眼里为自由而战的化身，更享受到被西方滤镜媒体记者拍摄成先知般模样的超豪华待遇。

　　好莱坞前些年与时俱进，偷偷把《第一滴血之阿富汗》片尾献词改了，不再献给伊斯兰主义圣战斗士，一片两用，改献阿富汗人民。

　　美国花钱养仇人的事多了，但以色列扶持仇人成长壮大的事却鲜有提及。周末我看到《华盛顿邮报》几年前的一篇文章，溯源以色列和哈马斯恩怨。

　　虽然西方记者报道以色列时总能很自觉地表现出政治正确，可欲言又止，欲语还休，字里行间仍会有些许真情流露。我大约翻译一下，原文附最后。

　　以色列如何帮助创建哈马斯

　　华盛顿邮报，2014年7月30日

　　所有迹象表明，以色列总理本杰明-内塔尼亚胡正准备为摧毁已被战火搞得破烂不堪的加沙地带的伊斯兰民兵组织哈马斯展开长期战争。

　　持续战乱让当地死伤惨重，2008至2009年以色列对加沙的轰炸和地面攻击，三个星期就至少有1383名巴勒斯坦人被杀。

　　为了让藏身地下的巴勒斯坦民兵组织彻底失去战斗力，内塔尼亚胡从连接加沙让哈马斯渗透进以色列的地道下手。

　　但战斗中顽强成长起来的哈马斯却在破坏内塔尼亚胡的计划。哈马斯发言人在星期二说，“内塔尼亚胡的威胁吓不倒哈马斯和巴勒斯坦人民”。

　　相比于哈马斯武装分子，以色列军事拥有碾压性优势，可目前的冲突却让以色列和巴勒斯坦所面对的挑战充满不确定性。比如在巴勒斯坦独立建国已不可能之刻，如何解决占领区数百万巴勒斯坦人能享有平等权利这类棘手问题。

　　哈马斯的奇特历史充满迷幻。过去几个星期向以色列狂射导弹的伊斯兰组织军事武装哈马斯在某种程度上其实应该为自己的存在而感谢以色列。

　　1988年拒绝承认以色的臭名昭著的巴勒斯坦人民大起义爆发，哈马斯于此时在加沙成立。之后十几年里以色列政府一直允许他存在。

　　当时以色列的主要敌人是已故亚瑟-阿拉法特的法塔赫，其核心即为巴解组织。世俗的法塔赫跟冷战时代在世界各地武装暴动的其他左翼游击队解放运动如出一辙，在周边阿拉伯国家支持下搞暗杀绑架。

　　巴解组织被以色列视为恐怖组织，在占领区承受着以色列的残酷镇压。

　　与此同时，跟在埃及被禁止的穆斯林兄弟会相关联的伊斯兰运动却在加沙被允许公开活动，这明显跟世俗化的埃及总统那萨尔政府管理加沙地带时的政策背道而驰。

　　1967年巴以战争以色列占领约旦河西岸，并从埃及夺取加沙。埃及总统那萨尔已于1966年处决了穆斯林兄弟会智囊领袖之一的萨伊德-库赛布。以色列却认为可以用库赛布在巴勒斯坦占领区的追随者，坐着轮椅的亚辛，制衡阿拉法特的巴解组织。

　　“现在回看那一系列事件，我认为我们犯了错”，在2009年和《华尔街时报》记者安德鲁-海金丝访谈时一位上世纪八十年代在加沙工作的以色列官员表示，“但那个时候没人知道可能有什么后果。”

　　海金丝的文章值得全文阅读。他一一列举了以色列在一开始给予亚辛的各种帮助。当时亚辛，和加沙地区的其他伊斯兰主义分子一样，在巴解组织眼里都是以色列的“合作者”。

　　以色列加沙军管政府对亚辛这位瘫痪的牧师充满好感，帮亚辛在加沙建学校，诊所，幼儿园和图书馆。以色列认定亚辛成立的伊斯兰主义组织，伊斯兰查经会，为慈善机构，在1979年将其视为一个协会。

　　以色列赞同亚辛创立的加沙伊斯兰大学现在已被认为是军事好斗分子的温床，在2008-2009年以色列发动的“铸铅行动”中这所大学是以色列战机首批轰炸的目标。

　　亚辛旗下的一个组织就是哈马斯。有人说哈马斯就是以色列的塔利班。因为哈马斯和塔利班都是伊斯兰主义组织，都发源于西方在对抗左派敌人时对他们的扶持。

　　1984年以色列将藏有武器的亚辛逮捕，并判处12年徒刑。但一年后就将其释放，因为以色列当时还有更让他们担忧的其他敌人。

　　后来风向变了。1993年奥斯陆协议达成，以色列正式承认巴解组织，开启了我们现在所说的和平进程。于是哈马斯就成了以色列的黑色野兽。

　　哈马斯拒绝接受以色列、拒绝放弃暴力，并开始引领以色列占领区巴勒斯坦人民的抵抗运动。哈马斯之所以能获得巴勒斯坦民众的持续支持，远非他们的宗教理念，主要原因是他在引领以色列占领区的巴勒斯坦抵抗运动。

　　2004年亚辛死于以色列空袭。2007年，哈马斯通过一场合法的民主选举获胜，伊斯兰主义组织从此掌控加沙，这让西方和法塔赫巴解组织都恼羞成怒。结果就是以色列开始封锁加沙，炼狱般的冲突再次循环往复。

　　但是，就像伍德罗-威尔士中心中东专家艾伦-大卫-米勒观察的那样，以色列和哈马斯之间却又一种奇怪的、能自我维持的关系存在。

　　米勒写道，以色列鹰派政府中对巴勒斯坦独立建国毫无兴趣的那些政客关注哈马斯冷酷的导弹对以色列的安全威胁，而哈马斯的“意识形态和策略也需要对抗和抵抗来维持”。

　　米勒总结说，以色列鹰派政府和哈马斯，“看上去二者无法共存，可很明显他们却又谁也没法离开对方而单独存在。”

　　How Israel Helped Create Hamas

　　All signs indicate that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to wage a protracted battle in the battered Gaza Strip as it seeks to crush the capabilities of the Islamist militant group Hamas. The ongoing conflict has already exacted a bloody toll, with the Palestinian death count approaching the total of Israel's 2008-2009 bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which led to the deaths of at least 1,383 Palestinians over three weeks.

　　Netanyahu wants to wholly demilitarize the Palestinian enclave, beginning with the network of tunnels that allow Hamas's fighters to infiltrate into Israeli territory. But Hamas, a dogged outfit that thrives in wartime, is digging in its heels. On Tuesday, a Hamas spokesman said Netanyahu's "threats did not frighten Hamas or the Palestinian people."

　　The current fighting — a clash between Israel's vastly superior armed forces and Hamas's insurgents — obscures the greater challenges facing Israelis and Palestinians, including the thorny question of how to accord equal rights to millions of Palestinians living under occupation in the event that a separate Palestinian state turns out not to be viable.

　　It also obscures Hamas's curious history. To a certain degree, the Islamist organization whose militant wing has rained rockets on Israel the past few weeks has the Jewish state to thank for its existence. Hamas launched in 1988 in Gaza at the time of the first intifada, or uprising, with a charter now infamous for its anti-Semitism and its refusal to accept the existence of the Israeli state. But for more than a decade prior, Israeli authorities actively enabled its rise.

　　At the time, Israel's main enemy was the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, which formed the heart of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah was secular and cast in the mold of other revolutionary, leftist guerrilla movements waging insurgencies elsewhere in the world during the Cold War. The PLO carried out assassinations and kidnappings and, although recognized by neighboring Arab states, was considered a terrorist organization by Israel; PLO operatives in the occupied territories faced brutal repression at the hands of the Israeli security state.

　　Meanwhile, the activities of Islamists affiliated with Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood were allowed in the open in Gaza — a radical departure from when the Strip was administered by the secular-nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt lost control of Gaza to Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which saw Israel also seize the West Bank. In 1966, Nasser had executed Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood's leading intellectuals. The Israelis saw Qutb's adherents in the Palestinian territories, including the wheelchair-bound Sheik Ahmed Yassin, as a useful counterweight to Arafat's PLO.

　　"When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake," one Israeli official who had worked in Gaza in the 1980s said in a 2009 interview with the Wall Street Journal's Andrew Higgins. "But at the time nobody thought about the possible results."

　　Higgins's article is worth reading in full. He goes on to outline the type of assistance the Israelis initially gave Yassin, whom the PLO at one time deemed a "collaborator," and Gaza's other Islamists:

　　Israel's military-led administration in Gaza looked favorably on the paraplegic cleric, who set up a wide network of schools, clinics, a library and kindergartens. Sheikh Yassin formed the Islamist group Mujama al-Islamiya, which was officially recognized by Israel as a charity and then, in 1979, as an association. Israel also endorsed the establishment of the Islamic University of Gaza, which it now regards as a hotbed of militancy. The university was one of the first targets hit by Israeli warplanes in the [2008-9 Operation Cast Lead].

　　Yassin's Mujama would become Hamas, which, it can be argued, was Israel's Taliban: an Islamist group whose antecedents had been laid down by the West in a battle against a leftist enemy. Israel jailed Yassin in 1984 on a 12-year sentence after the discovery of hidden arms caches, but he was released a year later. The Israelis must have been more worried about other enemies.

　　Eventually, the tables turned. After the 1993 Oslo accords, Israel's formal recognition of the PLO and the start of what we now know as the peace process, Hamas was the Israelis' bete noire. Hamas refused to accept Israel or renounce violence and became perhaps the leading institution of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, which, far beyond religious ideology, is the main reason for its continued popularity among Palestinians.

　　Yassin was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. In 2007, after a legitimate Hamas election victory that rankled both the West and Fatah, the Islamist group took over Gaza — a move that led to strict Israeli blockades and the grinding cycle of conflict that is once more repeating itself.

　　But, as Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center, observes, a strange, self-sustaining relationship remains. Israel's hawkish government — comprising many politicians who have little interest in seeing the creation of a separate Palestinian state — dwells on the security threat that Hamas's crude rockets pose. Hamas depends, Miller writes, on "an ideology and strategy steeped in confrontation and resistance."

　　And so, he concludes, they are "two parties who can't seem to live with one another — or apparently without one another either."