Israel Matzav: Marzouk, Meshaal and Haniyeh lead Hamas billionaires

I meant to post this when it came out and got too involved in other things. Fortunately, I saw it again today. Hamas' leaders - who are either hiding in Qatar or in a bunker under Gaza City's Shifa Hospital have gotten rich from their activities in Hamas. Far richer than you or I could possibly ever hope to be. 

Col. (res.) Dr. Moshe Elad, a lecturer in the Middle East Department of the Western Galilee Academic College, who served in senior positions in the territories for 30 years, is attempting to answer these questions.

"The vast majority of Hamas founders and leaders were refugees or second generation refugees, and some of them were the product of marriages between Egyptians and Palestinians. They had no money at all. When they and Hamas were just starting out, the organization (not in its own name) was nurtured by the Israeli military government, which fostered the Islamic associations working in the Gaza Strip as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Their phenomenal wealth started accumulating when they decided to disassociate themselves from Israel and search for alternative financing sources."

Elad explains that the money came from two directions: "Legacies from the deceased; money from charity funds; a donation called zaka, one of the six pillars of Islam; and donations from various countries. It started with Syria and Saudi Arabia, with Iran added later and becoming one of Hamas's biggest supporters, and ended with Qatar, which has now taken Iran's place."

Together with the donations from various countries, fundraisers began operating in the US to collect money for Hamas. Here, the Hamas leaders began to get their hands on some really big money. "One of those fundraisers was Dr. Musa Abu Marzook, the number 2 man in Hamas," Elad says. "At the beginning of the 1990s, he began a fundraising campaign in the US among wealthy Muslims, while at the same time founding several banking enterprises. He himself became a conglomerate of 10 financial enterprises giving loans and making financial investments. He's an amazing financier."

The US administration ordered Marzook's arrest in 1995 on charges of supporting terrorism. After he spent two years in a US prison, it was decided to expel him without trial. He kept the money. "When he was expelled from the US in 1997, he was already worth several million dollars," Elad says, adding, "Somehow he evaded the clutches of the US Internal Revenue Service and was not charged with financing terrorism. People in the know say he probably became connected to the administration and cooperated with it. There is no proof, but it's hard to think of any other reason why he escaped punishment for such serious offenses. In 2001, in the investigation of the September 11 events, it turned out that he had extensive financial connections with Al Qaeda, including the transfer of funds to the 21 Al Qaeda operatives accused of the attacks."

Today, Marzook is considered one of Hamas's wealthiest billionaires. "Arab sources estimate his wealth at $2-3 billion," Elad says.

Another Hamas leader-turned-tycoon is Khaled Mashaal. "Estimates around the world are that Mashaal is currently worth $2.6 billion, but the numbers mentioned by the Arab commentators (based on their many sources) are much higher, varying from $2-5 billion invested in Egyptian and Persian Gulf banks, and some in real estate projects in the Persian Gulf countries," Elad adds.

The next tycoon on the list is Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. "He is a scion of a family from the Al-Shati refugee camp, and his capital is estimated at $4 million," Elad says, adding, "He registered most of his assets in the Gaza Strip in the name of his son-in-law, Nabil, and in the name of a dozen of his sons and daughters and a few less well known Hamas leaders. They all have homes in good neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip, where the value of every home is at least $1 million."

Thank you Bill Clinton (it was Clinton who released Marzouk).

Read the whole thing. 

Hamas Officials Get Rich in Gaza Hamas - ruled Gaza may have little economy to speak of - at least for the man on the street.

The Gaza Strip may be renowned as one of the poorest strips of land on earth – the Strip’s per capita GDP of $3100 per annum puts Gaza in 171st place out of 226 countries, and unemployment hangs steadily around 40 percent – but the economic crunch hasn’t hit everybody in the region.

According to a report released Sunday on the Globes website, the Hamas government takes a standard 20 percent “tax” on goods that enter Gaza via the smuggling tunnels. Unfortunately, the government cut of the imports have failed to reach most Gazans, but a certain proportion of Gaza residents have capitalized on the opportunities over the past decade to have become multi-millionaires: The senior Hamas leadership.

According to the Globes,the big winner out of Hamas’ eight-year rule of Gaza is none other than Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a native opt the Sha’athi refugee camp and former right-hand man to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

But in contrast to most refugee families, in 2010 Haniyeh reportedly purchased a 2,500 square meter plot of land in Gaza City for $4 million. Globes reported that in order not to draw attention to the purchase, he registered the land in the name of his daughter, Nabil. Since then, he has continued purchasing real estate, under the names of his 13 children.

The paper also reported that there is no shortage of million-dollar villas for sale in Gaza, and no shortage of people to buy them, mostly Hamas officials. In the words of one Gaza real estate analyst, “two years ago, he (an individual with close ties to Hamas who forked up the money for a luxury villa) didn’t have enough money for a pack of cigarettes.”

Another popular “arrangement” was partnership between Hamas and Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt. Khiret a-Shater, an Egyptian businessman and senior Brotherhood official, was known to transfer millions of dollars in cash to the Hamas government, and to senior Izzadin el-Qasm officers. But some of the Hamas members preferred safer grounds for their “investments,” and so teamed with a-shater to purchase property in Egypt.

According to Dr Ahmed Karima, a senior lecturer at al-Azhar University in Cairo, Hamas has transformed from a resistance movement to a political party representing no less than 1,200 millionaires.

Other Hamas officials who have become rich since the group staged a violent coup in Gaza in 2006 include Politburo Chief Khaled Mashal, who enjoys a bank stash of $2.6 billion, much of which is stored in Qatari and Egyptian banks.

Suha Arafat: I wish I’d never married himPalestinian leader’s widow denies she has millions in the bank, claims to have turned down dozens of suitors

Nine years after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his widow said she regrets the marriage and given the choice again, would not have wed him.

“The marriage to Arafat was a big mistake and I regret it,” said Suha Arafat in an interview published last week in the Turkish-language Sabah newspaper. “We were married for 22 years and it felt like 50.”

Arafat added that she had repeatedly tried to leave her husband but was denied her freedom.

“I tried to divorce Arafat more than 100 times and he didn’t let me,” she said. “Everyone knows about this story, especially those who were in his inner circle.”

According to the report, the two first met in 1986 when she was a student in Paris and engaged to a local lawyer. At the time, Suha recalled, the Palestinian leader, 33 years her senior, was a much sought after man.

“There were many women who wanted to marry him but he only wanted me, despite the objections of my family,” she said.

Suha said that although her relatives, a well-established Ramallah family, were opposed to the union, the pair married in secret on her birthday four years later. Her mother was furious at the development and flew to Tunis where she angrily berated Arafat for entering into a marriage with her daughter, which she deemed inappropriate.

“Fate chose me and it wasn’t easy right from the start,” she said.

As soon as she became Mrs. Arafat she was locked away behind walls for security reasons, Suha said.

“I had to be careful in my phone conversations because of bugging, and we were always moving from one location to another.”

Suha recalled that after her husband initiated the first intifada in 1987 — it actually began as a spontaneous uprising — the world’s media attention was focused on him, “and it is no secret that it [the media] is controlled by Jews” she noted.

As the wife of man who spent so much time in the international media spotlight, Suha said she felt like the weakest link in the chain.

“My identity was completely destroyed,” she said.

Suha Arafat. (photo credit: Sharon Perry/Flash90)

Since Arafat’s death in a Paris hospital in 2004 — she has claimed that he was poisoned — Suha said she has had dozens of marriage proposals, but rejected all hopeful suitors with the same answer: “Arafat was my hero.”

Suha lives on a stipend she gets from the Palestinian Authority, which she said is barely sufficient to support her and her daughter, and is a far distance fromreports on millions of dollars that went to her through secret bank accounts.

“All the stories about Arafat putting millions in my bank account are nonsense and lies,” she said. The money is with those who were close to Arafat and anyone who is determined can find it.”

She also denied a rumor that the apartment she now shares with her teenager daughter Zawa in Malta was purchased as a gift by the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The apartment, she said, is rented.

“Even if I have regrets I accept the reality. Arafat was a great leader and I was very lonely in my marriage. I was always on the defensive because of the rumors that they spread about me. But life without him is even harder.”

“If I could turn back time I wouldn’t marry Arafat,” she added.

Arafat was a strong supporter of the decision to exhume her husband in November 2012 amid claims he was poisoned.

YNET: Hamas chief flexes muscles – literally Photos of Hamas Politburo chief working out go viral; Palestinian irked by expensive-looking gym. 'What's with all the fancy equipment when Palestinians don’t have enough food?' social media users wonder

The political stalemate in the Palestinian Authority and the again-stalled reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah have not stopped Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal from making time for the important things – like maintaining his 

workout

routine.

Photos of Mashaal working out were posted on social networks Sunday, and almost immediately went viral.

Mashaal playing table tennis 

He is seen warming up, stretching, playing table tennis and more.

Many in the social media have addressed the photos. Some have expressed  support of his efforts – as one person noted "a stronger believer is better than a weak believer"; but others leveled criticism at the luxury displayed.

Peddling nowehre

"What's with all the air-conditioners and fancy 

fitness

 equipment, when the Palestinian people don’t have enough food?" someone commented on the pictures.

Another social media user wondered where the equipment was coming from, asking "Did he take all those devices from Syria or is it funded by Qatar?"

Where did all the 'Palestinian' money go? In case you are wondering where all the 'Palestinian' money went....

How Palestinians Keep Shooting Themselves in the Foot

Instead of using the billions of dollars that were given to them by Americans and Europeans to create new jobs, the PLO leadership stole most of the funds and later blamed Israel for damaging the Palestinian economy.

As the Arab countries continue to impose strict employment restrictions on Palestinians, Israel is opening its doors to Palestinian workers from the West Bank. Palestinians say, in fact, that Israel is becoming one of the largest employers of Palestinians in the Middle East.

Figures released this week by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in Ramallah showed that at least 80,000 Palestinians were now working in Israel and even in Jewish settlements.

In the first quarter of 2012, according to the bureau, there were only 77,000 Palestinians working in Israel and the settlements. In the second quarter of the ear, the number grew to 80,000; and earlier this week, the Israeli government issued work permits to another 10,000 Palestinians from the West Bank.

The move has been received with a sigh of relief among Palestinians, especially as it comes on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan.

The figures also showed that Palestinians employed by Israelis earn more than those who work for their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A Palestinian construction laborer often earns more than a senior ministry official in the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank or the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip.

What is interesting about the bureau's report is that the number of Palestinians working in Jewish settlements has increased despite calls from the Palestinian Authority to boycott the settlements.

Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad's attempts to prevent the workers from going to the settlements has failed largely because they were not able to provide them with alternative employment. Despite the billions of dollars that were showered on the Palestinian Authority in recent years by the international community, Abbas and Fayyad still have not been able to solve the problem of unemployment in the Palestinian territories.

The Arab world, which once used to absorb hundreds of thousands of Palestinian employees, is beginning to close its doors in the face of Palestinians. Many of the Arab countries accuse the Palestinians of being ungrateful. Others do not want to see Palestinians at all: they consider Palestinians troublemakers and a source of instability.

Some Arab countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan even impose apartheid-like regulations and laws that prevent Palestinians from earning a decent living.

The Palestinians could have built one of the best economies in the region after the beginning of the peace process in 1993. But instead of using the billions of dollars that were given to them by Americans and Europeans to create new jobs, the PLO leadership stole most of the funds and later blamed Israel for damaging the Palestinian economy.

Suicide bombings and financial and administrative corruption are the main reason why the Palestinian economy remains as weak as ever. The Palestinians are experts in shooting themselves in the foot and then blaming Israel.

Whose Fault Is Palestinian Poverty? - John Podhoretz

While in Israel, Mitt Romney said something every sane person knows to be true: There is great cultural and political meaning in the fact that Israel has prospered while the Palestinians have festered.

“Culture,” Romney said, “makes all the difference . . . you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality.”

He didn’t specify what he meant by “culture,” but you can take your pick.

You want a political culture that works to create conditions under which an economy can thrive? Since signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, Israel has spent two decades working to unshackle its economy from its socialist roots, with remarkable results.

The Palestinians? They’ve created what the House Foreign Affairs Committee has called a “chronic kleptocracy,” with foreign aid and investment shamelessly stolen and diverted to the bank accounts of the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and its gangsterish local strongmen.

According to Jim Zanotti of the Congressional Research Service, Uncle Sam has given the Palestinians $5 billion since 1994. We might as well have lit a match to most of it. It hasn’t gotten to the people who might’ve used it best; it’s simply served as personal financial lubricant for the folks in power.

You want a healthy social culture? The Middle East Media Research Institute has spent decades detailing the diseased messages emanating from Palestinian TV and textbooks, instructing children in the glories of suicide terrorism against innocent Israelis.

You want a culture where citizens are free to express themselves and so live in the openness necessary to the functioning of a successful economy? Israel has a free press, much of it openly hostile to the parties in power. The Palestinian Authority has arrested and tortured critical journalists, as well as conducted denial-of-service attacks against Web sites reporting on corruption.

And this doesn’t even take into account Hamas, the radical terror group in charge of Gaza. It, too, has lived parasitically, sucking the life out of the Palestinian economy.

In 1993, pre-Oslo, the GDP in the territories was $2.9 billion, according to the World Bank. In 2011, it was something like $10.5 billion — a small increase when you consider population growth.

In Israel, the GDP has risen from $66 billion in 1993 to a stunning $243 billion in 2011 — per capita, from $12,500 to $31,000.

One reason Palestinian economic growth has been so disastrously slow is the terror war that Yasser Arafat launched against Israel in 2000 — the “second Intifada.”

It shattered Israeli hopes for peaceful concert with a new neighboring country, and led to an economic estrangement that proved horribly costly to Palestinians. Israelis stopped employing Palestinian workers and stopped buying Palestinian goods. Transit and trade between the two became difficult and painful.

And whose fault was it? Israel, which agreed in principle to a deal at Camp David in 2000 granting Palestinians a state with sovereign dominion over nearly 94 percent of the West Bank? No, it was exclusively the doing of Arafat, who served as a reverse George Washington — rejecting nationhood for the violence he understood better.

So Romney said Israel has done better than the areas under Palestinian control because Israeli culture is healthier. That’s not only true, it’s a necessary thing to say — because the refusal to say it and accept it contributes to the continuing immiseration and unfreedom of the Palestinians themselves.

Of course, for saying this, Romney was called a “racist” by Saeb Erakat, the longtime slavering lackey of every Palestinian murderer and thief. Erakat blames “occupation” for Palestinian poverty. But the PA has dominion over almost all of the West Bank and Hamas has control over all of Gaza, so the word “occupation” is all but meaningless — except as shorthand for “Israel still holds Jerusalem.”

Erakat’s nonsense was to be expected. But what of how that repugnant lackey’s words were then shamefully echoed by slavering US media lackeys — of the Obama re-election effort?

Dan Amira in New York magazine spoke for much of the press corps with an item titled “Mitt Romney Insults Whole New International Populace.” He wrote: “After he enraged the British by suggesting that their Olympics might not be as awesome as his Olympics, Romney moved on to Israel, where he appeared to blame Palestinian poverty in part on . . . the territory’s inferior culture.”

It does have an inferior political culture. Romney spoke the truth. And it wasn’t a gaffe — because anyone who publicizes his remark is helping Romney win the election. Even those who foolishly think they’re hurting him.

jpodhoretz@gmail.com

Abu Mazen's millions of reasons to smile

'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen has many reasons to smile. In fact, he has millions of them.

The Palestinian president is alleged by a former official to have stashed away $39 million in a secret bank account in Jordan, according to reports in the Arab press and elsewhere. Only Abbas and two of his closest confidants have access to the account, which is said to contain $13 million in U.S. funds.

Opposition websites in the West Bank have further alleged that Abbas earned $160 million from the sale of Palestine Liberation Organization-owned property in Lebanon, and that he owns “lavish properties worth more than $20 million in Gaza, Jordan, Qatar, Ramallah, Tunisia and the [United Arab Emirates],” according to Schanzer’s research.

Abbas’ sons have also sought to profit from their father’s political position, Schanzer said.

Yasser Abbas “served in an official capacity for the P.A., including as a special envoy to Canada in 2007,” and “regularly accompanies his father on official travel,” Schanzer said.

Yasser manages a construction company that routinely “does public works projects … on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.” He also reportedly owns a corporation that received $1.89 million from USAID “to build a sewage system in the West Bank town of Hebron,” Schanzer’s report states.

Additionally, the P.A. “granted diplomatic passports in 2009 to two business partners of the Abbas brothers,” Schanzer revealed, based on conversations with current and former intelligence officials in the U.S. and elsewhere.

“The passports, according to these officials, ‘entitle [the business associates] to travel internationally with immunity’ normally afforded to Palestinian diplomats,” Schanzer said.

Yasser Abbas has also attempted to engage in oil-related business in Sudan via the Caratube International Oil Company, a transaction that was facilitated by “Palestinian Authority ambassador to Sudan” Sayed al-Masri, the report states.

Since Schanzer and various news outlets first revealed some of these business ties, some of the websites and online sources affiliated with the Abbas brothers have been removed in an apparent attempt to hide their involvement.

“Washington’s foreign policy elites are largely unaware of the problem, or have chosen to ignore it,” Schanzer told the committee. “If the problem goes unsolved and Palestinian frustration [with the corruption] festers, it could threaten regional stability.”

...

Abrams urged the government and U.S. aid organizations such as the Middle East Partnership Initiative and USAID to pay closer attention to issues of corruption in the P.A.

“We have not one program dedicated to fighting corruption and to assisting those Palestinians who are doing so,” Abrams said. “Why do we not make it a stated and central goal of our aid?”

Are you kidding? And make Abu Mazen conform to a standard of behavior? There's no way we'd do that.

Read the whole thing.

'Palestinians' out of money again

The 'Palestinians' are said to be 'out of money' again (Hat Tip: IMRA).

Government borrowing from the Palestinian banking system has reached the maximum tolerable risk limit as per the sound banking principles, governor of the Palestine Monetary Authority Jihad Al-Wazir said Monday.

He noted that banks operating in Palestine have increased their lending to the government in the last two months by over $300 million, which makes banks unable to increase their lending in the coming period unless actual repayments from donor countries are made.

Wazir said in a statement that the Palestine Monetary Authority, sort of central bank, has taken in the last few years several supervisory measures aimed at enhancing and strengthening the efficiency of the banking sector and its ability to absorb shocks in anticipation of regional and international political and economic developments.

He added that “the Palestine Monetary Authority strives consistently to maintain the strength of banks' financial positions, especially in view of the regional and the European financial crisis development.”

What they should do is take money from Abu Mazen and his sons, and from Arafat's Swiss bank accounts (maybe they can cut back Suha's 'budget'?). But we all know that it is far more likely that the broke Europeans will be stupid enough to pony up some more cash for their favorite charity.

What could go wrong?

On Palestinians, Pledges, And Budgets

A fair measure of the dedication to the Palestinian cause on the part of Arab governments is whether they put their money where their mouth is. In that context, a news story today conveys an answer: “The Palestinian Authority will pay its employees only half their monthly salaries in July, the prime minister told reporters here on Sunday, because of what he said was ‘the failure of donors, including our Arab brothers, to fulfill their pledges.’”

Donors had pledged $971 million to the Palestinian Authority this year, but the year is half over and only $330 million has been delivered. It turns out that only the UAE, Algeria, and Oman have met the pledges they made years ago via the Arab League. The rest, including the vastly wealthy Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, are delinquent. Despite the roughly $100 billion in extra domestic spending this year of the Arab Spring to buy off its populace, Saudi Arabia will record abudget surplus of about $25 billion. So the failure to assist the Palestinians is the product of hostility, neglect, or uninterest. By comparison, the EU significantly increased its aid to the PA this year, from 100 million to 185 million Euros, or about $275 million–and this does not count the assistance coming from individual member states of the EU. Total aid to the Palestinians from the United States runs about $600 million per year.

It is probably an exaggeration to say the Palestinians would be better off if instead of all those Arab pledges they got five dollars for every speech, TV or radio program, and newspaper article in Arabic that denounces Israel and swears eternal loyalty to the Palestinian cause. Or perhaps not.

Yasser Arafat: Why Many Palestinians Don't Miss Him

Six years have passed since the death of Yasser Arafat and it does not seem that many Palestinians really miss the man.

The number of Palestinians who show up at public rallies to commemorate Arafat has actually been declining year after year.

Arafat, as far as disillusioned Palestinian are concerned, should be remembered as a leader who led his people from one disaster to another.

He died in November 2004, leaving behind scorched earth and tremendous suffering and pain.

Even some of his former confidants admit that he was a ruthless man who did not hesitate to kill anyone who dared to challenge him or draw a cartoon making fun of him.

In Jordan, Arafat brought disaster on his people when he tried to create a state-within-a-state, forcing the Jordanians to massacre thousands of Palestinians in what is known as Black September.

Arafat and his supporters then went to Lebanon, where this time he did succeed in creating a state-within-a-state and played a major role in the Lebanese civil war, which resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians.

Most Arab countries refused to receive Arafat and the PLO after they were forced by Israel to leave Lebanon in 1982. Tunis was the only country that agreed to temporarily host the PLO leadership.

Another disaster that befell the Palestinians during Arafat's era was the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gulf countries in the early 1990s -- an expulsion for which Arafat was directly and personally responsible. His public support for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait had turned most of the Arab countries against the "ungrateful" Palestinians.

After the signing of the Oslo Accords, Arafat established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip a corrupt regime that repressed Palestinians and deprived them of international aid.

Arafat also brought with him to the West Bank and Gaza Strip anarchy and lawlessness. Under his authority, dozens of armed militias and gangs emerged, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which flourished under him.

Arafat's bad governance and financial corruption radicalized Palestinians and drove them into the open arms of Hamas. His incitement against Israel also drove Palestinians toward radicalism.

The second intifada, which erupted in September 2000 with Arafat's blessing -- and in which thousands of Israelis and Palestinians were killed and wounded -- is now being described by many Palestinians as a "strategic mistake."

Since the death of Arafat, Palestinians have been working hard to pick up the pieces and start a new and better life. With the help of the international community, the Palestinians, in the West Bank at least, are once again busy building government institutions and strengthening their economy.

In light of all this, it is sad to see that the Palestinian leadership has invested millions of dollars in building a mausoleum for Arafat in Ramallah. The money could have been used to establish a center that promotes tolerance and coexistence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.