By Rachel Ehrenfeld, ACD
The news that the Israeli government charged Mohammed el-Halabi, the Gaza director of World Vision, a major international evangelical Christian aid organization, with funneling millions to fortify Hamas government’s terrorist capabilities has reportedly “shocked” the organization. But the reason for this “shock” is not the evidence of his diverting 60% of the charity’s Gaza budget to further Hamas terrorism. The organization was “shocked” because the Israelis, after years of complaining and warning, are bringing him to justice. World Vision did not even pretend to be embarrassed by el-Halabi’s use of $50 million not to help the needy in Gaza, but to pay Hamas members, buy weapons and transfer “building
Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Gaza, was established in December 1987, days into the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) first Intifada against Israel. And as soon as the Internet was made available for public use in the early 1990s, the Palestinians began using it to portray the people they use as human shields throughout the territories and Gaza not as the casualties of its own murderous agenda, but as victims of Israeli retaliations. Like the Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas realized that posting photos of wounded children and crying mothers has a considerable effect in the ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’ battle for gaining support from the international community. Indeed, the strategy of extracting maximum civilian casualties from among their constituents has always yielded larger funding.
In December 2003, for example, as Yasser Arafat’s second Intifada (28 September 2000 – 8 February 2005) against Israel was raging, an international donors’ conference in Rome awarded the Palestinian Authority with $1 billion, ignoring the PA’s funding of terrorist activities.
Swoboda, apparently was among the first to identify Islamic “lone wolf” phenomenon, claiming that Palestinian suicide bombers “have been acting alone,” even while the evidence showed they were selected, trained and their families rewarded by Hamas and the PA.
In addition to World Vision’s funding, which the organization says it has halted pending its investigation of the evidence provided by the Israeli indictment of el-Halabi, the Hamas government receives funding from an array of sources, though lately fewer are doing so publicly.
Directly, it receives contributions from the international Muslim community, international NGOs, such as the BDS groups, and online. A good example of indirect funding is the $50 million announced by the U.S. “to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs. The money will be distributed by the U.S Agency for International Development in partnership with Catholic Relief Services.” At the same time, Sweden also announced additional $8 million to UNRWA “for all Palestinian refugees.”
Support of Palestinian terrorism under the guise of “Humanitarian aid” and “reconstructions” is unlikely to stop anytime soon. The announcement of Palestinian municipal elections in October has already triggered calls from different factions for increasing terrorist attacks. Decades of steady foreign funding assures the Palestinians that no matter what, the spigot of money will not be turned off.
These “charitable organizations” are in fact “accessories after the fact” (I believe that’s the legal term) and should be treated accordingly.
There must be consequences; no “good deed” should go unpunished.