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Hamas demonstration (file)
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| By Israel Insider staff June 26, 2008 |
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In an unprecedented admission, the office of Israel's Prime Minister revealed today that it is allowing the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza due to "Israeli diplomatic considerations."
In a response letter sent to Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of human rights organization Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) wrote that the transfer of funds to the Hamas controlled government in the Gaza Strip does indeed regularly take place after "consultations among the relevant bodies." Shurat HaDin had accused the Israeli government of secretly transferring hard currency to the Hamas.
"At this point," states the PMO's letter, dated June 25, 2008, "due to conclusions that there is an Israeli interest that the transfer of funds continue, a decision was made to continue to transfer certain sums of money to the Gaza Strip."
The PMO's letter was dispatched to Shurat HaDin, an organization representing hundreds of terror victims in an ongoing global battle against terror funding, in response to a series of warning letters from the group to the Prime Minister, the Bank of Israel and the Israel Postal Bank, in which Shurat HaDin demanded that all transfers of funds to the Hamas terrorists and Hamas controlled organs in the Gaza Strip be immediately terminated.
In the initial letter of warning sent by Shurat HaDin on behalf of victims of Hamas terror attacks to the PMO, Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner wrote: "The currency of record in the Gaza Strip is the New Israeli Shekel (NIS)." Most of the financial activity in the Gaza Strip runs on a cash basis, using the NIS. Tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists and governmental official get their salary in Israeli currency -- in cash. Thus, the transfer of large sums of cash into the Gaza Strip is, by definition, an act that directly fuels the terrorist activity of Hamas and is therefore a violation of the Terror-Funding Act of 2005 and the domestic and international laws against money laundering."
The warning letters from Shurat HaDin also note that a portion of the cash funneled into Gaza by Israel is used to replace Israeli currency in Hamas' coffers that has physically deteriorated and another portion serves the international money laundering trade, most notably the money "smuggled" by Hamas from Iran via the Egyptian border. Without these criminal acts, Hamas' financial hold on the Strip would collapse and thus these measures are directly responsible for shoring up the Hamas control over Gaza and its continued terrorist activity launched from the region.
The PMO's letter reveals for the first time, that the Israeli government allows and encourages the financial support for the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip - knowingly and willingly. In reaction to the PMO's letter Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner stated that "the government of Israel cannot fight against the Hamas terrorist organization with one hand, and continue to secretly finance it with the other. Hypocritically, the Prime Minister demands governments around the world isolate and and embargo the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and stop transferring funds to them while at the same time he authorizes the transfer of Israeli currency into the hands of the enemy. This government claims to be fighting against the smuggling of tens of millions of dollars and euro into the Gaza Strip via the Egyptian
border, all the while participating in the laundering of this money by exchanging them for New Israeli Shekels."
"There can be no doubt that the Israeli government's policy of transferring shekels is assisting the Hamas terrorists with their missile attacks on the Negev communities. If the Prime Minister does not immediately halt the currency transfers to Gaza, Shurat HaDin will take all legal means available against the government to bring this terror financing to a close."
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