On October 8, 1997 the United States State Department designated the rejectionist group Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Other Palestinian terrorist groups, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the PFLP-General Command were similarly designated. The designation of FTO makes it unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to the designated terrorist organization.
However, a recent lawsuit brought by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli civil rights organization, has brought to light the disturbing prospect that the State Department might be violating its own laws. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 24 Americans against Hillary Clinton and the State Department, alleges that U.S. money is doled out to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations Refugee Worker’s Administration (UNRWA) without proper oversight and that the State Department has failed to adhere to congressional safeguards and reporting requirements. This of course raises the distinct and ominous possibility that monies allocated toward humanitarian efforts have found their way into Hamas’s coffers.
Since the mid-1990s the United States has provided the Palestinian Authority with more than four-billion dollars in aid. Moreover, the United States is the largest single donor nation to the UNRWA, providing that agency with more than four-billion in contributions since its creation in the early 1950s.
The Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993 stipulated that the Palestinians would undertake a commitment to renounce violence and terrorism. However, far from renouncing terrorism, the Oslo Accords ushered in a reign of terror against Israelis not experienced since the founding of the State. Moreover, among the victims of the Palestinian campaign of terror were more than 50 Americans killed and some ninety injured.
Palestinian malfeasance with respect to U.S. aid is well documented and reports highlighting misallocation of U.S. funds have repeatedly surfaced throughout the years. In July 2012, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that PA President Mahmoud Abbas deposited thirteen-million dollars into a secret Jordanian bank account, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
But PA malfeasance is on full display in even more noxious forms. According to Palestinian Media Watch, the Palestinian Authority is spending five-million dollars a month in salaries for 5,500 terrorists imprisoned by Israeli authorities on various terror related offenses. This misappropriation of U.S. aid directly contravenes congressional oversight regulations. The Palestinian Authority routinely glorifies Palestinian terrorists guilty of carrying out the most barbaric of crimes. As recent as November 22, senior PA figure Nabil Shaath showered the now deceased arch Hamas terrorist, Ahmed Al-Ja’abari with adoration and praise referring to the murderer as a hero and a martyr. As the Palestinian Authority moves closer toward full reconciliationwith Hamas and cozies up to those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the lines between the two groups become increasingly blurred.
The State Department’s failure to adhere to minimal congressional oversight requirements has resulted in a kafkaesque like scenario whereby U.S. taxpayer money is being used, directly and indirectly, to finance terrorist operations against U.S. citizens. Congressional efforts to halt aid to the Palestinian Authority in response to provocative, unilateral PA actions have been stymied by the Obama administration.
Continued U.S. aid to the PA and UNRWA without proper safeguards and transparency facilitates terror against U.S. citizens and its allies. Why this absurd situation continues to fester is a matter that will hopefully be addressed through the legal efforts of Shurat HaDin. It is however disheartening to note that the needless deaths of innocent civilians, Americans and Israelis, did nothing to stir the State Department to act and that legal action was required to bring this most pressing matter to fore.
@ yamit82:
Thank you for those links.
– Giulio Meotti’s column about the international lynching mob – Not all Jews want to connect the dots, it seems. The Jewish state of denial from the 1920s and 1930s seems to be repeating again as well.
– Eric Hoffer’s column was written in 1968 – prescient as the issues are still with us. He wrote: “No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.” – Again, Hoffer wrote that in 1968.
@ Canadian Otter:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12593#.UMx96WcY0fs
http://www.science.co.il/arab-israeli-conflict/articles/Hoffer-1968-05-26.asp
@ Canadian Otter:
I Have Great Fears for the Future of the Jewish People
G-d’s covenant promises the survival of His chosen people and Hanukkah is a good time to remember that. But looking at the current world events and atmosphere, the writer cannot help but fear for the future.
When the new version of the kapò like Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, refuses to label as “genocidal” Iranian calls to obliterate Israel, predicting Israel’s destruction, dehumanizing the Israeli Jews, advocating the expulsion of Israeli Jews from the Middle East and denying the Holocaust to facilitate the next one, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the ignobile list of these Jewish defamers of their martyred people is getting every day longer, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the same company which formed out of the assets of IG Farben, which produced the pesticide Zyklon B for the gas chambers, is now based in Teheran, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When on the Holocaust Day, the European nations which stood by indifferently while a defenceless people in their midst was methodically put to death, call Israel to honor the memory of six million people by signing the death sentence of another six million, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the Israeli professors who would like to send the Jews to “the peace trains”, as Hillel Weiss called it, commemorate the Arab Nakba, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the US most influential Jewish intellectuals abandon and demonize a modern Jewish hero like Jonathan Pollard, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the European diplomacy works as the money laundering mechanism of Arab hatred and it adopts the official policy that democracies can sacrifice the tiny Israel in order to placate Islamism, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When in the Western trade unions the Jew is again considered the instigator of every type of social disorder, like during the time of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital”, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the mere sight of body lotion tubes called “Ahava” have radical chic leftists going crazy, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the International Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières and the UN’s World Health Organization charge Israel of being a torturer and it’s fashionable to wear a white coat and accuse the Jewish State of “crimes against humanity”, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the Associated Press, Time, BBC, New York Times, Guardian and the CNN plot to destroy the reputation of the Israeli army and the major Swedish newspapers write that Israeli soldiers kill young Palestinians to harvest their organs, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When the Jews are charged of kidnapping Christian and Muslim children before Passover in order to murder them and use their blood for matza, of distributing drug-laced chewing gum and candy, of poisoning Arab water supplies but the “civilized world” doesn’t take seriously this avalanche of fables, lies and plots, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When Thomas Friedman, who has the most influence on the way Americans understand Israel, from his mansion in the Maryland’s woods, calls the Jews living in Judea and Samaria a “cancer for the Jewish people”, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people.
When in Europe Israeli books are banned from public libraries, cutting off the Israeli cultural transmission from generation to generation, like Pope Gregory IX did in 1239 when he consigned the Talmud to the flames, I have great fears for the future of the Jewish people. read more
@ Bernard Ross:
It’s quite obviously a form letter, Bernard
— which didn’t even bother to type-in the corresponding party’s name atop the text, but instead wrote it in longhand at the time it was signed.
I get the same kind of letters regularly from my congressman at election time.
Kudos to Shurat HaDin! Besides outright killing these terrorists like Hamas (my first choice), getting them in the wallet is the most effective weapon we have.
@ Canadian Otter:I just visited your link and read the recent British letter of reply. It is pathetic, it makes not one legal comment, it is a pure exercise in stating their policy which relates to nothing. It is abundantly clear that there are no legal arguments against jewish settlements west of Jordan River. The dogs must be shown to be the liars, cheats, swindlers that they are, to the jewish people. They cannot cease swindling the Jews and colluding with jew killers.
Canadian Otter Said:
I’ve read some of Grif’s work. Perhaps the Israeli govt asked him not to proceed.
@ Bernard Ross:
Agree. Adelson wasted zillions on a presidential candidate who would have been only slightly different from the president. Just imagine what a fraction of that money would do to expose the truth about Israel’s legal right to the land, and the true nature of Islam and the PA-Gaza Arabs. It’s not too late, though. Maybe someone reading this will give Mr Adelson a ring. And your idea of suing is fine.
PS – Mark Kaplan’s organization, Office for Israeli Constitutional Law (that was or is still headed by Howard Grief) tried to sue the US govt about four years ago. He sent official letters to the Justice Department. Everything looked great, but then he decided not to proceed further. I don’t know why. http://www.justicenow4israel.com/ – Maybe you could exchange ideas with him.
Canadian Otter Said:
@ Canadian Otter:
As my favourite columnist George Jonas said, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has successfully converted an ambition – not to be offended – into a “human right”. And it appears the entire Western world is in a hurry to follow this policy. Scary!
@ Max:
They are refining their skills at censoring anything they regard as negative or offensive or racist. That’s why activists such as Pamela Geller need to use Muslims’ own words and acts on her poster campaigns. Imagine a poster quoting directly from the koran. That book sanctions the most revolting acts. Imagine the effect it would have on New York commuters. Or simply list acts of absolute carnage committed in the name of Muslim honor – particularly between their own Muslim factions. No name-calling, just the five journalistic Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why.
You write: if someone says they ‘feel insulted’ then you’ve insulted them. – That’s how the Canadian Human Rights Commission works. If the plaintif feels offended, then the act is treated as an offense. Readers who want a stroll on Alice in Wonderland country, google the Canadian Human Rights Commission and its nemesis, Ezra Levant.
The operative word in the sentence is not “Terrorist” but “rejectionist.”
If Hamas would only stop stating their intentions in explicit language, they’d be dropped from Foggy Bottom’s list of official Bad Boys quicker than a fart will blow away in a hurricane
— and would then be free to continue on their merry way targeting the innocent, the weak & the helpless, just as they did before
but now without the “Official Nasty-Nasty” designation of the State Dept (also Treasury Dept, BTW)
. . . .just like Fatah.
@ Canadian Otter:
Absolutely sickening. I wish I lived in a free country.
…
I’ve been banned from two forums even though I didn’t say anything even remotely resembling hate or prejudice, but apparently if someone says they ‘feel insulted’ then you’ve insulted them.
Strange though it doesn’t seems to work in those same forums for Jews, Israelis , Christians, Buddhists, cow farmers, cabbage herders or whatever. Actual insults and expressed hatred are just the ‘Soupe de Jour’ for all other stripes – nothing special.
..
No, it just seems to apply to those group of very sensitive delicate peace loving protectors of paradise on earth here.
It’s cultural terrorism,and the ordinary person is powerless and abused by it.
THE NEW USA –
Panetta denies medal of honor to marine who dived on grenade to save comrades – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/12/panetta-denies-medal-honor-marine-dived-grenade/
US Army manual – Don’t criticize pedophilia, abuse of human rights, of women, or anything derogatory of Islam – it might offend our friends.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/12/new-army-manual-orders-soldiers-not-to-criticize-taliban-pedophilia-anything-related-to-islam-or-adv.html
To be fair, Canadian armed forces were given the same guidelines. Our soldiers were sickened by the daily sight of little boys lining up outside the barracks and being picked up by Afghan soldiers. Canadian soldiers’ complaints got nowhere. Condemning child abuse would have undermined the relationship Canadian forces were trying to establish with Afghan armed forces and government. Canadian media reported about it, but just a little.
MEANTIME, IN THE GREAT WHITE NORTH
Canadian blogger being sued for libel because of her link to Mark Steyn, with a demand for $500,000 for damages – http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.ca/2010/10/richard-warman-sues-blazingcatfur-for.html
Blazing Cat Fur made news a few months ago by exposing violent reaction to a Jew walking his therapy dog Cupcake near an Islamic demonstration. The presence of a dog ‘offended and frightened the ladies’ said the demonstrators.
Pamela Geller is covering this latest slapsuit: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/12/free-speech-battle-linking-litigation-blazing-cat-fur-under-fire.html
2 sentences, my #2 comment is in moderation
I would like to see the state dept sued for obstructing jewish settlement of the west bank and being compelled to observe its treaties by encouraging jewish settlement. It needs a rich jew like adelson to fund it
OTHER GOOD NEWS – Jew sued police dempartment for denial of access to Temple Mount and WON!