Obama's 900 Million Dollar Payout to Hamas

The United States plans to offer more than $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after Israel's invasion and to strengthen the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, U.S. officials said on Monday. The money, which needs U.S. congressional approval, will be distributed through U.N. and other bodies and not via themilitant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said one official.

There are two obvious problems with this scenario. The Palestinian Authority does not rule Gaza. Any rebuilding of Gaza will only strengthen Hamas. Secondly, any foreign organizations operating in Gaza either answer to Hamas or are Hamas run outright.

Take the UNRWA, the refugee arm of the UN which despite multiple refugee crises worldwide, focuses on working for the Palestinian Arabs. While there is a great deal of focus on foreign aid to Israel, the taxpayer money that goes to the UNRWA goes unnoticed. In 2006 alone the US contributed 135 million dollars to the UNRWA, out of an over half a billion dollar budget.


The UNRWA also, in their own words, employs "99 per cent locally-recruited Palestinians". The UNRWA is actually the second biggest employer in the territories, after the Palestinian Authority itself. (Both funded by the US and other foreign donors.) That means the structure of the UNRWA in Gaza is composed of Gazans under Hamas control.


By 2006 the UNRWA had only 25 "internationals" or non-Palestinian Arabs left in Gaza. After Hamas' takeover and the latest war, that number is likely to be smaller. Which means that the UNRWA is effectively under Hamas control, which Hamas demonstrated when they seized UNRWA aid and drove it away in their trucks.

While UNRWA "internationals" such as Karen Koning AbuZayd or Fillippo Grandi issue press releases from their comfortable offices in Amman, the real UNRWA is run on the ground, and despite the denials from Amman, it has routinely employed terrorist affiliated personnel.


All this has been extensively documented;

This past September, Democratic Rep. Steve Rothman, with a bipartisan group of five co-sponsors, submitted a concurrent resolution noting that "UNRWA has employed staffers affiliated with terrorism."

The resolution cited specific examples of UNRWA ambulance and schools having been used to abet terrorism and mentioned a number of figures, including Awad al-Qiq, headmaster of an UNRWA school in Gaza, "who also led Islamic Jihad's engineering unit that built bombs and Qassam rockets."

However humane the intent of UNRWA officials, they have become de facto enablers of Hamas' terrorist fiefdom in Gaza.

over and over again. Time and time again.

Since many UNRWA teachers are alumni of the UNRWA school system, they often perpetuate the vitriolic curriculum they were taught, vilifying Israel and the West. For example, Suheil al-Hindi, an UNRWA teachers' representative, openly applauded suicide bombings at a school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza in 2003. Instead of a condemnation, al-Hindi received a promotion and was subsequently elected to UNRWA's clerks union.

UNRWA teachers who publicly identify with radical groups have created a teachers' bloc that ensures the election of Hamas members and other individuals committed to Islamist ideologies. After using their classrooms as a place to refine their radical messages, these teachers gravitate to politics. As such, UNRWA's education system has become a springboard for Hamas leaders. For example, Said Sayyam, the Hamas minister of interior and civil affairs, was a teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003. He went on to become a member of UNRWA's Arab Employees Union, and headed the teachers sector committee.

Notable graduates of the UNRWA school system include former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, the former Hamas chief who attended UNRWA secondary school in Khan Younis and graduated top of his class.

UNWRA has produced graduates like Ibrahim Maqadama, who "helped create the military structure of Hamas." Gold notes that, "at least 46 terrorist operatives were students in the UNRWA schools."

There have also been widespread reports of terrorism from UNRWA-supervised facilities, including sniper attacks from UNRWA-run schools, bomb and arms factories in UNRWA camps, the transport of terrorists to their target zones in UNRWA ambulances, and even UNRWA employees directly tied to terrorist attacks against civilians.

Nidal Abd al-Fattah Abdallah Nazzal, an ambulance driver for UNRWA from Kalqiliya in the West Bank, was arrested by Israeli security services in August 2002. Nidal admitted that he was a Hamas activist and that he had transported weapons and explosives to terrorists in his ambulance, taking advantage of the freedom of movement afforded to UNRWA vehicles by the Israelis.

Nahd Rashid Ahmad Atallah, a senior official of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, was also arrested by Israeli security in August 2002. In his capacity as an UNRWA official, he provided support to families of wanted Fatah and PFLP terrorists. He used his UNRWA car to transport armed members of the "Popular Resistance Committees," a militant faction of the Fatah movement, to carry out attacks against Israeli troops at the Karni Crossing.

UNRWA also appears to be in the business of cultivating new terrorists. The New York Times exposed in 2000 that UNRWA allowed terrorist groups to use their schools as "summer camps" so that 25,000 Palestinian children could receive paramilitary training, including instructions on how to prepare Molotov cocktails and roadside bombs.

The UNRWA is less of an aid agency that a blank check to the tune of half a billion dollars a year that's poured into the domain of whoever is already in control on the ground. In Gaza that's Hamas, and the situation isn't much different for many of the other agencies that will be the recipient of the nearly billion dollar payout from Hamas.

The UNRWA has already taken the lead in promoting contact between Hamas and Obama. The proposed 900 billion package will rebuild Gaza's infrastructure for Hamas' benefit, and open the door to a Hamas overthrow of the PA in the West Bank, followed by US recognition of Hamas.

The policy will be camouflaged by claims that the UN will prevent the aid from going to Hamas, which as demonstrated above is an absurd claim, because there is no wall of separation between the UN and Hamas whatsoever.


Piggybacking a pro-Hamas policy on NGO's comes naturally to the core Obama team. Unlike the more mainstream Clinton dems running the above ground foreign policy, their more radical politics and international agendas link them to the NGO's, allowing them to undermine Hillary Clinton and her envoys. While the State Department may hold press conferences, the real decisions will be made in the White House and the NSC, current power base for Samantha Power.

At a time when the US economy is in bad shape and the US national debt is rising to an all time high, sending nearly a billion dollars to Hamas is nothing short of sheer madness or treason. Yet it's the opening stages of a policy that will empower and reward Islamists across the Middle East.
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Air Force strikes Hamas targets in Gaza

Israeli aircraft struck Hamas outposts in south Gaza during the early hours of Monday morning in retaliation for Sunday's rocket fire on Israel. There were no reports of injuries.

Palestinian sources in the Strip said the Air Force attacked a Hamas outpost and a structure belonging to its security forces in Khan

Younis. According to reports, the structures were damaged and a fire broke at the scene. Reports of another IAF attack in Gaza were received a short while later, but there were no reports of injury in that strike either.

The IDF conformed that fighter jets attacked two Hamas outposts, one in north Gaza and another in the southern part of the coastal enclave. A hit was identified in both attacks, the army spokesperson's office said, adding that the strikes came in retaliation to two rockets that were fired toward Israel on Sunday.

The first rocket landed in a parking lot located in a western Negev kibbutz. No injuries were reported, but some vehicles caught fire. The second rocket hit south of Ashkelon, but caused no injury or damage.

The attacks emanating from Gaza have continued despite reports of progress in the negotiations on a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas and advanced talks regarding a prisoner exchange deal that will see kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit returned to Israel.

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A New US Foreign Policy? The Biden Speech in Munich Yesterday

The media chat this morning will be about Vice President Joe Biden’s speech to the Munich Security Conference yesterday. Our own reading is that the easy part was Biden’s signals of difference from the Bush Administration. The US would act “preventively, not pre-emptively” (no more Iraq 2003, at least over the pretext of weapons of mass destruction) and multilaterally. The emphasis will not be on magic capabilities like Missile Defense, but on a wider range of diplomatic, economic, and military instruments.

“America will not torture. We will uphold the rights of those we bring to justice,” Biden asserted, and he also said that the US would be constructive in finding solutions to climate change.


At the same time, Biden was careful to play the “America will be tough” card, saying the US would “vigorously protect [its] security and values, and he had a not-so-veiled challenge, if not warning, to international partners. The US would uphold alliances if they were “credible and effective” (think back to George W. Bush’s 2002 lecture to the UN that it would not be “relevant” if it did not back military action over Iraq), and “America will ask for more from its partners”.



Which brings us to the hard part. The Obama Administration may be far more “realist” in its approach to foreign affairs than its predecessor, but the up-front choices are daunting. Biden tried to match the Russians in the competitive co-operation, saying the US would not tolerate a Russian “sphere of influence” but continuing, “The United States and Russia can disagree and still work together where our interests coincide, and they coincide in many places.”

On Iran, Biden stuck to the current script of possible diplomacy first but waved the stick: “Continue down the current course and there will be pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear program and your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.”

OK, so the hope of “engagement” continues to flicker. What the media missed is that, on two other cases, Biden’s signal is that the Obama White House may be charging ahead against perceived enemies, even if that rips up possible settlements and co-operation.

Consider this on the Middle East, which no one seemed to pick up yesterday or this morning: “We must consolidate the cease-fire in Gaza by working with Egypt and others to stop smuggling, and developing an international relief and reconstruction effort that strengthens the Palestinian Authority, and not Hamas.” So, despite all the evidence that beating up on Gaza — be it through Israeli military action or economic strangleholds — is not dislodging the Gazan leadership and actually weakening Mahmoud Abbas, the US (at least in its public signals) is going to keep playing at the game that it doesn’t have to accept the political realities. It will do so even if that means more deprivation and destruction in Gaza.

It is on Afghanisan/Pakistan, however, that this Administration could meet its downfall, and here Biden’s “realism” led him to say, if we go down, we all go down together: “”We look forward to sharing that commitment with the government and people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and with all of our allies and partners, because a deteriorating situation in the region poses a security threat not just to the United States, but I would suggest, somewhat presumptively, to every one of you assembled in this room.”

The glimmer of light is that Biden also said the US “strategic review” on the two countries is not completed — code for the battle between President Obama and the military on the way forward — so Washington may pull back from its full-speed, military-first surge in Afghanistan.

If not, you can go back to Biden’s speech and see where all the talk of a new, multilateral relationship actually had the makings of an almighty bust-up between the US and its European partners.
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Hamas, Gaza and Bush’s Legacy

One would have to have a heart of stone not to be appalled by the mass suffering visited upon the Gaza Strip by Israel’s punishing assault. If blame is to be assessed, however, it does not belong to Israel alone.

The Gaza war between Israel and Hamas is but another legacy of George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency. After Israel withdrew its soldiers and its 8,000 settlers from Gaza in the summer of 2005, the Bush administration decided to bring “democracy” to the Palestinians. It insisted on running a parliamentary election and allowing Hamas to compete.

Hamas was not legally qualified to run without meeting the minimum requirements of the Oslo agreements still in effect from the 1990s: primarily to renounce violence and accept Israel’s existence. Qualifying for elections in this way might have been a lever to get Hamas to change its spots, but the Bush State Department insisted on allowing Hamas to run as it was, cynically assuming that it would not win. Hamas won a plurality of votes with 44 percent to Fatah’s 42 percent and took power early in 2006.



Soon after its election, Hamas declared a truce, but it was still allowing other factions to fire at Israel. Hamas even lauded as “resistance” two successful suicide bombings—one in Tel Aviv and another in Ashdod. A coalition of groups, including Hamas, captured one IDF soldier, while killing two others, in a cross-border raid in June of 2006; this one soldier, Gilad Shalit, is still their prisoner. Tragically, in response, Israeli forces rampaged through Gaza that summer, killing several hundred Palestinians to no avail (a veritable second front to the larger Lebanon war raging to the north).

In June of 2008, Egypt mediated a six-month cease-fire agreement, which expired on December 19. It was mostly observed by both sides until Israel destroyed a tunnel on the Gaza side of the border, apparently being prepared for another raid to capture Israelis. A few armed Palestinians were killed in this incident and Hamas resumed fire on Israeli towns near the border—up to 60 rockets and mortar shells daily.

A very real Israeli security concern is that the Hamas rockets are improving in range. Towns of increasing distance from Gaza have been hit; the fear is that they may soon be able to target Tel Aviv.

There is an elaborate network of tunnels used to smuggle in arms, drugs, medicines and consumer goods from Egypt. Longer-range rockets from Iran have come in via this route. It is this network of tunnels that was a legitimate target for Israel and must be a prime focus of international diplomacy. If this threat is stopped, the international economic blockade imposed since Hamas first took power in 2006 should be lifted. Regardless, its severity should be curtailed to allow for more effective humanitarian relief.

It is believed that Hamas declared an end to the cease-fire and escalated rocket attacks as a “negotiating” tactic to get the economic blockade lifted—without agreeing to peaceful coexistence. Hamas has supposedly suggested a ten-year truce, but only in return for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

If allowing for the possibility of an exchange of territories and a full peace, this would be appropriate as an end point of negotiations, but not as an ultimatum that doesn’t even commit to peace. This offer is uncomfortably reminiscent of an episode in the Koran when the Prophet Mohammed enacted a fixed-term truce until his forces were strong enough to conquer their foe.

Moreover, this comes from a reactionary theocratic movement that still holds to its 1988 founding charter, which characterizes Jews as “sons of apes and pigs” and as conspiring to enslave the world as depicted in the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” When coupled with acts of violence that have cost Israel hundreds of civilian lives in each of the last two decades, persuading most Israelis of the possibility of a peaceful accommodation with such a movement is a hard sell.

Still, it is hardly likely that Israel intentionally killed masses of civilians. If it had been gunning for civilians, Palestinian casualties would probably have been much higher; the dead would almost certainly be counted in the thousands, rather than hundreds.

It is also true that, by comparative historical and regional standards, the level of carnage—although terrible and heartbreaking—was not very high. For example, it is estimated that the Muslim Brotherhood rebels in Hama, Syria in 1982 were crushed by the Baathist regime (still in power today in Damascus) at the cost of between 7,000 and 25,000 lives. This example is especially apt since Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Intra-Arab violence in such places as Iraq and Lebanon, as well as conflicts between fellow Muslims in Iran and Iraq in the ’80s, Algeria in the ’90s, and in Darfur today, have been far bloodier than any of the Arab-Israeli conflagrations.

But I raise these facts only to provide perspective, not to excuse Israel. Despite its finger-pointing at Hamas for using innocents as “human shields,” Israel, in having chosen to take the fight against Hamas into population centers, has knowingly decided to pull the trigger anyway.

It is doubtful that an attack of this magnitude—in one of the world’s most overcrowded places, causing many civilian casualties––will ultimately be an effective way to bring Israel security. The human toll in Gaza, the cost to Israel’s image and rising hatred aimed at Israel and even at random Jews around the world, all suggest that this operation was ill-advised.

My final point pertains to Israel’s national elections to be held on February 10. The initial bump up for Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labor party, and the loosely-defined “left” or moderate bloc (six or seven of the 15 parties currently represented in the Knesset), appears to have been lost as voters grow embittered by a perception of meager positive results from the Gaza campaign.

The opposition Likud party is expected to be propelled back into power with the claim that the current centrist ruling coalition stopped short of victory, before Hamas fighters emerged from the rubble in surrender. Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu would return as prime minister after a ten-year hiatus. I don’t envy Sen. George Mitchell in his new task as US special envoy.
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