Hamas Syndicate Grows Rich While Impoverishing Palestinian Arabs

With multi-million-dollar land deals, luxury villas and black market fuel from Egypt, Gaza's rulers made billions while the rest of the population struggled with 38-percent poverty and 40-percent unemployment. Doron Peskin Published: 07.15.14, 16:12 / Israel Business While the fighting is only expected to worsen the distress of the residents of Gaza, the Strip's economic outlook for the Strip was never good. The unemployment rate in Gaza stood at approximately 40% before the latest conflict, with a similar proportion being classed as living under the poverty line. But while most of the Gaza population tries to deal with the difficulties of daily life, it seems that one sector at least has had few worries about their livelihoods - Hamas leaders and their associates. Multi-million-dollar deal Someone who has benefitted financially is the former Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. Before 2006 and Hamas' shocking electoral win and subsequent dominance of the Palestinian government , 51-year-old Haniyeh was not considered a senior figure in Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But according to reports in the past few years, Haniyeh's new-found senior status has allowed him to become a millionaire. This is an unusual feat, given that he was born to a refugee family in the al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. In 2010, Egyptian magazine Rose al-Yusuf reported that Haniyeh paid for $4 million for a 2,500msq parcel of land area in Rimal, a tony beachfront neighborhood of Gaza City. To avoid embarrassment, the land was registered in the name of the husband of Haniyeh's daughter. Since then, there have been reports that Haniyeh has purchased several homes in the Gaza Strip, registered in the names of his children - no hardship, as he has 13 of them. At least with regards to his eldest son, it seems that the apple does not fall far from the tree, given his arrest on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with millions of dollars in cash in possession, which he intended to take into Gaza. Subsidized fuel sold for profit According to sources in Gaza, Haniyeh's wealth, like others high up in Hamas, came primarily from the flourishing tunnel industry. Senior Hamas figures, Haniyeh included, would levy 20 percent taxation on all of the trade passing through the tunnels. Hamas's heyday came after the overthrow of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, as its parent organization the Muslim Brotherhood was growing in popularity in Egypt. In those days, Hamas leaders and their associates were not afraid to show off their ostentatious wealth. Gaza's market for luxury villas costing at least a million dollars was booming, most purchased by people associated with the establishment of Hamas. A Gazan familiar with the real estate market summed it up at the time with a quip about a Hamas crony who had recently acquired a luxury villa: "Two years ago, he couldn’t afford a packet of cigarettes." At the same time, Khairat a-Shater, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who headed his own business empire, made sure to personally transfer tens of millions in cash to senior administration officials in Gaza as well as to commanders from the Hamas military wing. There were senior Hamas members who preferred that the money be kept in a safer place than the Gaza Strip, and invested it in various Egyptian assets, often through business partnerships with Muslim Brotherhood officials. In some cases, the man conducting the deals on behalf of Hamas officials, who ensured that they received their dividends in cash, was Ayman Taha, a Hamas founder once considered one of its key spokesmen. In 2011, Taha himself paid $700,000 for a luxury three-floor villa in the central Gaza Strip; a year ago, he was charged with being an agent for Egypt. The Egyptian street has become inflamed with anger directed against Hamas over the last three years, partly due to what appears to be its financial gains at the expense of the Egyptian people. The tunnels in Rafah, the town straddling the Gaza-Egypt border, for example, saw a flourishing fuel-smuggling industry from Sinai. The fuel subsidized by the Egyptian government was entering Gaza at a low price, but being sold for eight times that. Those who made the greatest profits from the sale of the fuel were Hamas members, even as Egypt often reported shortages for its own people. Hamas, says Professor Ahmed Karima of Al-Azhar University in Egypt, has long become a movement of millionaires. According to Karima, the organization can count no less than 1,200 millionaires among its members. He did not, however, specify the source of this information. Mashal's mall It was not only Hamas members in Gaza who became rich. It appears that political leader Khaled Mashal is another member of the organization who used Hamas funds to his own ends. In 2012, a Jordanian website reported that Mashal had control of a massive $2.6 billion, in large part deposited in Qatari and Egyptian banks. This is likely Hamas' accumulated assets from years through donations, as well as its investments in various projects in the Arab and Muslim world. It is also known that, among other things, Hamas has invested in real estate projects in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Dubai. And, according to reports, Mashal did not always separate Hamas money and his own. Hamas' expulsion from Syria was a severe financial blow for the movement. In 2011, before the start of the Syrian conflict, Hamas's assets in the country had reached a value of $550 million. Apart from its real estate holdings, Hamas invested in various commercial companies, including a cargo company registered to a Syrian businessman close to Moussa Abu Marzook, Mashal's deputy. As with other areas, in its financial dealings Hamas leaders keep their cards close to their chest and maintain a high level of secrecy. Investments are made through front companies, using family and associates. Companies linked to Mashal in Qatar are registered to his wife and daughter. Once he was forced to close his office in Damascus (after falling out with the Assad regime over its oppressive response to the conflict), Mashal declared that his place was in Qatar. There, he claimed that $12 million he had stored in his safe in his Damascus office had been lost. Not many accepted this story, and to this day believe that Mashal kept the money, transferring it to his own personal accounts. Reliable sources claim that a project by the Fadil real estate firm in Qatar is linked to Mashal, his son and his son's wife. The prestigious project in Doha, the Qatari capital, includes the construction of four towers of more than 27,000 square meters, including office and commercial space attached to a mall with an area of ​​10,000 square meters. The company has never disclosed the source of its funding. According to a World Bank report released in November of last year, the Gaza Strip ranks third in the Arab region in terms of poverty, ranking above only Sudan and Yemen. The report stated that the poverty rate in Gaza stands at 38 percent. Furthermore, of the 144 countries included in the report, Gaza was the 44th poorest, with most of the countries with a higher poverty rate being located in Africa.

Netanyahu "It takes more than one to Tango"

Fareed:
You’re a student of history. You know that a lot of people look at you and say this man could be the guy, like Richard Nixon, who made the opening to China, because he has the political cover that allows him to do that. Bibi Netanyahu is not going to be accused of being soft. Do you think there is that road for you?

You should come to Israel.

But do you think that there is that role for you?

I hope so. But in order to make it work, you need in the Middle East…I was going to say two to tango. In the Middle East, you probably need at least three.

But I think the United States is indispensable in brokering any type of a final peace deal. But I’m adding a different, a new component, because what I see is so startling and so different, you can see that in Gaza. You know, there were more demonstrations against Israel vis-a-vis Gaza in Paris than there were in the Arab world. That’s going to be telling you something.

And I think because many people in the Arab world, it’s not that they, you know, we care about every single civilian casualty and we were forced to strike at the rocketeers that embedded themselves – these Hamas people, in hospitals, schools, mosques, firing rockets and using Palestinian children as human shields. And it was horrible. And we regret every single civilian that happened there.
But it’s instructive, nonetheless, that many in the Arab world understood that Hamas is fighting a war that threatens them, as well. They didn’t fall for it. They didn’t fall for it. And I think that changed. We have to see how we can explore that to get a cooperation with the leading Arab states not only to advance security, but also to advance peace.

So, you know, this is not merely Nixon going to China. There are a lot of Chinas out there.

Judge Judy on Islamic Terrorism

The Fox News Channel’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine” anchor Judge Jeanine Pirro declared Islamist terrorism was “not just a threat, it is a reality,” and argued the US must do more to fight it on Saturday.

“What this country faces is not just a threat, it is a reality. No longer free and easy or live and let live, and now you must adapt to this frightening new reality. To them we’re the Great Satan. To them we’re the infidel, and them includes now-radicalized Americans, arrested here as lone wolves. One charged with the killing of four Americans. Last week in Australia, a plot to horrify and shock the public with planned beheadings, and this week an Oklahoma man beheads a woman, completely decapitates her, and then he’s in the midst of attacking yet another woman with a knife when he is stopped. That man, 30-year-old Alton Nolen, a recent convert to Islam. Now Nolen visited a mosque whose former leader reportedly had ties with al Qaeda mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki” she stated.

Pirro argued that the US must take aggressive action against Islamic extremism, saying “until we put the Fear of God in them, they’re going to keep coming. We can’t negotiate with them, we can’t trade with them. We can’t let them out of Guantanamo. In fact, even Guantanamo is too good for them, and I don’t personally care what the rest of the world thinks of us. Until we get this country back on track with our military superiority, the hallmark of a strong and a free nation, then our enemies will continue to attack us as lone wolves or as legion.”

She further expressed that one of the key steps to combatting radical Islamic terrorism is to acknowledge that Islamic extremism exists “we can start by calling things what they are. when a Ft. Hood shooter guns down his fellow soldiers yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ with a business card that says ‘soldier of Allah,’ and who communicated with that same al-Awlaki, it’s not workplace violence, it’s terrorism, and he’s a terrorist. And I don’t want to hear the acting head of the CIA tell me that he took the word ‘Islamic’ out from in front of the word ‘extremist’ because he didn’t want to inflame passions. And I don’t want the word ‘jihad’ scrubbed from the FBI training manuals. And I don’t want to hear that ISIS is not an Islamic State any more than the USA is not the United States of America, or that we’re not states, or that we’re not united. And I’m tired of taking outside ads to apologize to other religions while our government drags and sues the Little Sisters of the Poor to the United States Supreme Court for simply expressing their religious beliefs. I’m tired of the charades.”

Other recommendations given by Pirro to fight Islamic terrorism were closing the borders, stripping citizenship, implementing anti-terrorism technology that measures things such body temperature and blood pressure used by the Israelis.

Fatah to Operate in Gaza

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Factions resumed negotiations in Cairo on Wednesday.
Hamas and Fatah said on Thursday that they have reached agreement to allow the Palestinian Authority government to operate in the Gaza Strip.

Representatives of the two rival parties have been holding “reconciliation” talks in Cairo over the past two days in a bid to end their differences.

Hamas and Fatah leaders said that the agreement reached on Thursday calls for the PA government, headed by Rami Hamdallah, to “immediately” assume its responsibilities in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources said that the agreement allows the PA to take control over the border crossings in the Gaza Strip, including the Rafah terminal.

Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, announced that the Palestinian Authority government would soon manage all the border crossings in the Gaza Strip.

Abu Marzouk, who was speaking in Cairo after Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement to end their differences, said that the two sides agreed to facilitate the work of the PA government in the Gaza Strip.

In addition to the agreement on the border crossings, Abu Marzouk said that former PA civil servants would return to their jobs.

The PA has nearly 70,000 civil servants who have not been working since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

It was not clear whether the two parties had reached agreement over the fate of some 40,000 Hamas employees who have not received salaries for the past few months.

Hamas has been demanding that the PA government, headed by Rami Hamdallah, place its workers on its payroll. However, Hamdallah and other PA officials said they do not recognize the Hamas employees since they were appointed by an "illegitimate government."

Abu Marzouk said the two sides also agreed to form a joint committee to follow up the implementation of previous reconciliation agreements between Hamas and Fatah.

Fatah representative Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters that the two sides agreed to remove all hindrances obstructing the work of the PA government in the Gaza Strip.
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Fatah and Hamas delegates resumed reconciliation talks in Cairo on Wednesday, in another bid to end their dispute.

According to Palestinian negotiators, the main issue that hindered the implementation of previous reconciliation agreements between the two sides was the need to determine who is responsible for making crucial decisions pertaining to peace and war.

Fatah has long said it considers the decision over war and peace a national issue and not a factional matter.

As for indirect cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas -- negotiations have been delayed until the last week of October, a Hamas official said earlier this week.