No, it’s not just aid money that they steal. The Palestinian waBenzi have a finger in every pie.
Hamas leaders control the tunnels from Gaza to Egypt (and to a lesser extent, from Gaza to Israel), and treat them as their private property, charging exorbitantly for their use.
“Elad [he Israeli scholar who has studied the Hamas millionaires] describes how the system [of controlling tunnels] worked and to how much money (huge amounts) Hamas leaders were exposed: “Senior Hamas leaders charged a 25% ‘tax’ and $2,000 on every disassembled vehicle coming through the tunnels. There are hundreds of smuggling tunnels from Egypt to Gaza, and these are the types of tunnel Israel has been less busy in destroying, because Egypt has destroyed many of them. From June 2007 until 2010, $800 million in cash was transferred in tunnel deals (according to information from Hamas money traders). Hamas also taxes Gaza merchants on everything traded, from boxes of vegetables to luxury cars, and the leaders scoop the money into their pockets.”
“Another source of wealth for Hamas leaders was taking over land. “They took over land mainly near the sea in good areas, such as the former Gush Katif, then sold it. In effect, they are the cat guarding the cream – the land – so they were able to take over land and loot it for themselves,” Elad explains.
“In addition, there is a system in the Gaza Strip of fictitious recruitment of workers for Hamas for the purpose of obtaining pay slips from people overseas paying for it. “They get the payments from overseas according to the workers’ names. It has recently been discovered that there are hundreds of fictitious names of soldiers and officials supposedly in Hamas. Actually, the leaders and officials put the money in their own pockets,” Elad asserts.
“”According to various sources, some of Mashaal’s money came from the “Syrian fund.” Elad explains: “According to these accusations, following an investigation by the US federal authorities, Mashaal was accused of embezzling the entire Syrian fund. There was a separate fund in Syria for Hamas; Mashaal controlled all the movements in the fund when he lived there. As soon as he left Damascus, he took the Syrian fund, which was worth several billion dollars, and distributed it to himself and others. It is believed that Hamas had $1.5-2.5 billion in assets in Syria, which Mashaal took.”
“In summary, Elad says, “This is corruption at the highest level… What has united the Palestinian leaders all throughout the years is the saying, ‘We have to get rich quick.’ This is how the regime sees it. Their leaders have no shame. Shortly after they got power, they took control of fuel, communications, and any other profitable sectors in the country. There are get-rich-quick schemes and corruption in Western society, too, but there it’s done sophisticatedly with envelopes of money and complex structures of bribery and the like. Among the Palestinians, they tell you straight out, ‘I want to get rich.'”
These are the waBenzi of Palestine. There was Arafat, who died having helped himself to three billion dollars of PLO funds, most of which were never recovered. The Israelis believe that at his death he was down to his last billion, but don’t know where the other two billion ended up. There was Arafat’s financial adviser Mohammad Rashid, who has admitted to taking several hundred million dollars from Palestinian funds; there was Arafat’s widow Suha, who lives in Paris and whom the Palestinian leadership prevented from making off with more than few tens of millions, far less than she had been expecting to grab at Arafat’s death. After the Age of Arafat, the reigning crook was Mahmoud Abbas, who with his sons Tarek and Yasser amassed a $400 million fortune. No doubt they are now busy adding to it from the $100 million monthly that Arab states pledged this April to supply to the Palestine Authority, and even more from the $480 pledged to the PA by Qatar in early May. Mahmoud Abbas will take his cut, as will is cronies at the Mikata in Ramalla. It will be fascinating to see just how much of that $1.68 billion in new aid for the next year actually is received by its intended recipients, and how much Abbas, his sons, and a dozen of his closest collaborators manage to take as their cut from this latest Arab grants.
Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, has also done well for himself, with a personal fortune of $250 million dollars. Iran has had to cut its payments to Hezbollah, because of the effectiveness of the American sanctions regime, and the administration has now decided to go after financial supporters of Hezbollah outside of Lebanon, chiefly Hezbollah operatives involved in the cocaine trade in South America and Europe. So far Nasrallah has not been affected; the drug money has not yet been interrupted, much less ended; he’s holding on tight to that quarter-of-a-million dollars he appropriated from Iranian aid and from drug-trade donations to Hezbollah.
And finally, the two Hamas leaders, Mousa Abu Marzook and Khaled Meshaal each of whom has a fortune of at least two billion dollars, with Arab sources suggestig that Meshaal alone may have taken up to $5 billion.
Neither of them wishes to live in wretched Gaza, of course. Marzook lives in New Cairo, Egypt and Meshaal lives in Doha, Qatar. They want to live well, which means far from the prying eyes of Gazans, who might become resentful, possibly even violent, at the sight of so much wealth in the hands of their former leaders.
The Palestinian waBenzi need to have their private worth constantly investigated, with amounts updated, and their wealth endlessly discussed in the Western media, ideally to be picked up by the Arab press The donor nations, especially in Europe, deserve to know where so much of their aid money to the Palestinians has gone, from the days of Arafat until today. More than $10 billion given as aid ended up in the private coffers of fewer than ten Palestinians: Arafat, Mohamad Rashid(who is in fact a Kurd), Mahmoud, Tarek, and Yasser Abbas, Hassan Nasrallah, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Khaled Meshaal. And let’s not forget the lesser crooks, mere millionaires, such as the current Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who appears to have about ten million dollars, or the 600 “Hamas millionaires” living in Gaza, whose money comes from the aid given by donor nations, and from the amounts they charge for use of their smuggling tunnels from Egypt into Gaza.
Perhaps this information will make European donors less enthusiastic about supplying aid to the “Palestinians,” whether in Gaza or the West Bank. And certainly, if the “Palestinians “themselves were to grasp the full extent of what has been stolen from them, their resentment might turn them against those leaders, who listen only to the inner voice that tells them, as so many waBenzi before them have been told, Enrichissez-vous!,
katherine says
Logically, nothing wrong going on : that money, like your taxes, come mostly from infidels so the Muslim leaders are personally justified in confiscating the funds – prophet’s modus operandi .
Fault lies with the contributors, and the EU are such suckers.
mortimer says
Yes, Mohammed took 20% of the booty for himself, but they take 90% of the booty.
mortimer says
Mousa Abu Marzook is the No.2 man in Hamas and he stole $2 billion dollars from Hamas funds. He runs a terrorist organization and he is on TWITTER and FACEBOOK.
Twitter and Facebook are run by EGREGIOUS HYPOCRITES.
gravenimage says
The waBenzi of the West Bank and Gaza (Part 2)
………………
More Islamic kleptocrats.
Eric Jones says
These guys are guilty of text book embezzlement. I decry the ripping off on any poor people. If the Palestinian people knew what was going on perhaps they would be more open to a workable peace with Israel. The Palestinian leaders are too busy embezzling to pursue peace. They find conflict too profitable.
Eric
Rotem N. says
~~~ JUDEA & SAMARIA ~~~
– That’s a ridge of mountains not a bank!!
You may find the Jordan river’s bank further east and way down below sea level!