Popular culture is familiar with the story of Doctor Frankenstein, who created a monster in human form. He did not want to create a monster. He wanted to create a super human, his helpmate, a genius, someone who might serve his purposes. Yet, as it usually happens, humans cannot fully control reality. Even minute plans tend to go awry. There are too many factors to control. Still, man is always tempted to create reality after his own fashion. Man is always tempted to be able control nature and to be able to control the development of social and political events. And Man oftentimes ends up with the results achieved by Doctor Frankenstein.
Consider the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. It was in large part occasioned by imperial Germany. The First World War was in full swing – the end to the hostilities was nowhere in sight. Germany fought on two fronts. To get rid of one of them would have meant a really big relief. So the German General Staff prompted by one Alexander Parvus decided to create a political factor that might disrupt Russia’s war effort. This factor had long been in existence. It was the Russian social-democrats – with Lenin and company, biding their time in Switzerland. At the beginning of 1917 Russia saw its first revolution – the so called bourgeois revolution as a result of which the tsar was toppled. Yet, the new government did not think about withdrawing Russia from war. Russia remained France’s and England’s firm ally against Germany. Germany still needed to fight on the eastern (Russian) and Western (French) fronts. The Russian social-democrats, however, had been shooting their mouth off about how important peace was for the proletariat and that war was only waged in the interests of the ruling classes, and that once in power, the social-democrats would bring the war to an immediate end. The German General Staff, having been notified of the Russian exiles in Switzerland and their plans to end the war, were beside themselves with joy. A scheme was forged to let Lenin and company through Germany and Scandinavia straight to Saint-Petersburg. This plan was duly executed. The Russian revolutionaries arrived in Russia’s northern capital and got down to the revolutionary work of toppling the bourgeois government. With success. Soon after, just as they had promised, the social-democrats also known as the Bolsheviks, signed a peace treaty with Germany in Brest-Litovsk, thus withdrawing the Russian troops from the participation in the war that at first would be known as the Great War, later – as the First World War. Germany’s plan was successful: Russia stopped being the United Kingdom’s and France’s ally. (That this success did not eventually help Germany to win the war is another story.)
The operation of landing Russian social-democrats inside Russia was successful… or was it? Yes, Russia was taken out of war and significantly weakened in the following years due to the civil war and the war with the interventionist forces. Yet, in less than thirty years the same Russian revolutionaries managed to defeat the German armies and conquer Germany, planting the red flag of communism on the Reichstag. Worse, the Russian social-democrats, known as Bolsheviks and ultimately Communists, extended their influence to central Europe and managed to build a formidable superpower that the West stood in awe of for decades. In other words, in the long run the German general staff created a monster, just like Doctor Frankenstein had once done. The monster helped Germany wage war for the time being (1917-1918), but then threatened its creator and almost took the creator’s life (1945). the monster certainly infected the creator with its own ideology: directly, while part of Germany was turned into a vassal state in the Soviet Union’s sphere of interests, and indirectly in that leftist ideology would spread in Western Germany as well (let alone the rest of the Western world).
Why are we reminding the reader of this story? We are recollecting this story simply because the same scheme has been occurring again and again. Precisely the same scheme has been recently replayed in the case of Hamas. It is no secret that Hamas was created by Israel, by Israeli politicians, by Israeli secret services. Jewish politicians and political scientists make no secret about it. Why was it created by Israel? Because Hamas was to play in Palestine a similar role to that played by the Russian social-democrats (Bolsheviks, Communists) in Russia. Its task was to take over the control exercised by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) over Palestinians. Why Hamas was preferred by the Israeli politicians over the PLO? Because the PLO being a moderate organization has had every chance of winning international support and bringing about the establishment of the Palestinian sovereign state, which did not fit Israeli political plans. Now Hamas was very radical in its views and methods, so radical that Hamas was even unpalatable to the Arab Muslim world. It was so unpalatable that it could easily be labelled a terrorist organization and as such it could not be viewed as a political partner either for Israel or on the international political stage. With the PLO being pushed on the margin of the Palestinian cause, it was Hamas that became to be strongly associated with Palestine and the Palestinian nation. The state of Israel, unwilling to recognize the sovereign state of Palestine, could play for time, claiming that one cannot sit down at the negotiating table with terrorists.
For the time being the Israeli plan seemed to work perfectly well. Hamas became a bogeyman for the world, which let Israel maintain its military control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip and refuse talks on a peaceful settlement and the creation and recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state.
Then came October 7, 2023: Hamas struck inside Israel, killed a number of people and took hostages. That entailed Israeli reaction in the form of a prolonged military intervention in the Gaza Strip, an intervention that has been lasting for over two years. Again, Doctor Frankenstein (Israel) has created a monster (Hamas). The creature that was to serve the interests of the state of Israel turned against its creator. Two years of hostilities between Israel and Palestine or rather the small Gaza Strip have painted a portrait of Israel as a ruthless state that does not respect basic human rights. The Western public opinion has turned for the most part against Tel Aviv. The Palestinian cause is again on the rise internationally. The result?
The result is that the political talks aimed at bringing the conflict to a peaceful settlement are rather humiliating for Tel Aviv. The organizers of the 2025 Gaza Peace Summit that took place on 13 October 2025 in Cairo extended invitations to approximately thirty countries. Apart from the Middle East countries, which is understandable, the list of invitees includes such far-away nations as Armenia, Hungary, Norway, or even Japan, but not Israel! The absence of the State of Israel at the negotiating table in Cairo speaks volumes. Is this alone not Hamas’s big victory over Tel Aviv? Is that not a repeat of the same old story of a creature (Hamas) turning against its creator (Israel)?
