Jim Geraghty
Tuesday, September 03, 2024
About two weeks ago, Jonathan Polin and Rachel
Goldberg-Polin, parents of 23-year-old Israeli-American hostage Hersh
Goldberg-Polin, gave a speech on the third night of the Democratic National
Convention in Chicago:
Among the hostages are eight
American citizens. One of those Americans is our only son. His name is Hersh.
He’s 23 years old, and like Vice President Kamala Harris, Hersh was born in
Oakland, California.
On Oct. 7, Hersh and his best
friend, Honor, went to a music festival in the south of Israel. It was
advertised as celebrating peace, love, and unity. They also went to celebrate
Hersh’s 23rd birthday. As rockets began to fall, Hersh, Honor, and 27 other
young festival-goers took refuge in a 5-foot-by-8-foot bomb shelter. Terrorists
began to throw grenades into the shelter.
Hersh’s left forearm — his dominant
arm — was blown off before he was loaded onto a pick-up truck and stolen from
his life, and me, and Jon, into Gaza. And that was 320 days ago.
Last Thursday night, the Democratic presidential nominee
briefly addressed the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, and emphasized that no
matter what, “We have got to get a deal done”:
BASH: President Biden has
tried unsuccessfully to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He’s been
doing it for months and months, along with you. Would you do anything
differently? For example, would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to
Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.
HARRIS: Let me be very
clear. I’m unequivocal and — and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s
defense and its ability to defend itself. And that’s not gonna change. But
let’s take a step back. October 7, 1,200 people are massacred, many young
people who are simply attending a musical festival. Women were horribly raped.
As I said then, I say today, Israel had a right — has a right to defend itself.
We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have
been killed. And we have got to get a deal done. We — we were in Doha. We have
to get a deal done. This war must end—
BASH: And in the meantime—
HARRIS: And we must get a
deal that is about getting the hostages out. I’ve met with the families of the
American hostages. Let’s get the hostages out. Let’s get the ceasefire done.
BASH: But no change in
policy in terms of arms and — and so forth?
HARRIS: No. I — we have to
get a deal done. Dan — Dana, we have to get a deal done. When you look at the
significance of this to the families, to the people who are living in that
region — it — a deal is not only the right thing to do to end this war but will
unlock so much of what must happen next. I remain committed since I’ve been on
October 8 to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution where Israel
is secure and in equal measure the Palestin — the Palestinians have security
and self-determination and — and dignity.
That interview was taped Thursday afternoon and aired
that evening. Sometime between Thursday and Friday, Hamas took six of the
hostages, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and executed them “using multiple
close-range gunshots,” according to Israel’s Ministry of Health. A Hamas spokesman
said that in the aftermath of a successful hostage rescue in Nuseirat, “new instructions
were issued to the Mujahideen assigned to guard the prisoners regarding dealing
with them if the occupation army approached their place of detention.” In other
words, if Hamas operatives believe a rescue attempt is imminent, they are instructed
to execute the hostages.
“I’ve worked tirelessly to bring Hersh home,” President Biden said in a released statement from his Rehoboth
Beach house.
Harris’s released statement Saturday was better and angrier,
a quiet call for regime change in the Gaza Strip:
Hamas is an evil terrorist
organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its
hands. I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire
world. From its massacre of 1,200 people to sexual violence, taking of hostages,
and these murders, Hamas’ depravity is evident and horrifying. The threat Hamas
poses to the people of Israel — and American citizens in Israel — must be
eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza. The Palestinian people too have
suffered under Hamas’ rule for nearly two decades.
The administration’s position is that “Hamas must be
eliminated” and “Hamas cannot control Gaza,” but Israeli military forces must not enter Rafah and the
administration has been negotiating with Hamas, fruitlessly, since the beginning of the year. Apparently, the idea is
that the Palestinian people in Gaza are supposed to desire new leadership,
while the U.S. pressures Israel to give Hamas a better deal. Why would the
Palestinians want to get rid of Hamas, when Hamas has figured out how to get the
Biden administration to act as its agent, negotiating on its behalf with
Israel?
There is no deal to be reached with Hamas.
I don’t doubt that Biden and Harris want the hostages
released. But they have this blind faith that some combination of incentives
and Israeli concessions will get the leaders of Hamas to see reason and release
the hostages. They imagine a Hamas leadership that is full of rational,
good-faith negotiators.
The evidence that we have indicates that the leaders of
Hamas are sadistic maniacs who cannot be cajoled into ceasing barbaric behavior
that comes as naturally to them as breathing.
Hamas runs, in significant part, on foreign money — some
from Iran that is difficult to block, but also some from donors in other
countries, some knowingly, some unknowingly financing terrorism.
From the Treasury Department’s assessment of foreign terrorism financing,
published in February:
The group’s primary external
funding comes from Iran, which has provided it roughly $100 million per year.
Hamas also generates of revenue from an expansive and sophisticated
international investment portfolio, previously estimated to be worth at least $500
million. This investment portfolio has invested in companies and assets located
across the world, including in Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Türkiye, and the
UAE, and is managed by Hamas’ Investment Office In addition, Hamas relies on a
global fundraising network to raise funds for its nefarious activities. Hamas
is prolific in soliciting donations from witting and unwitting donors worldwide
in both fiat and virtual assets.
Hamas facilitators have used
numerous methods to collect and transfer funds into the Gaza Strip. These
include crowdfunding websites and sham charities, where in some cases, the
destination of the funds was concealed under the guise of humanitarian efforts.
In other cases, they solicited funds directly for their cause from sympathetic
donors. Hamas has also used complicit VASPs [virtual asset service providers –
basically, digital asset banks] and money transmitters throughout the globe to
move funds. In the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks,
Treasury designated a Gaza-based VASP called Buy Cash Money and Money Transfer
Company for serving as a key node in Hamas’s virtual asset fundraising schemes.
The same entity has also been identified as being involved with funds transfers
on behalf of other terrorist groups.
Hamas’s global financial footprint
and use of the regulated international financial system means that its
facilitators likely have access to the U.S. financial system, particularly as
Hamas has sought to raise funds from international supporters. U.S. persons
have been convicted of providing or conspiring to provide material support to
Hamas from the United States in recent years. After the October 2023 terrorist
attacks, Hamas supporters around the world mobilized global fundraising efforts
on behalf of the group. These online fundraisers took various forms, often
seeking to collect money on crowdfunding sites under the guise of charitable
donations for Gaza.
Hamas is not designated a terrorist group in Switzerland,
the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, or the
United Nations. This gives the group quite a few banking and financial options.
(In case you’re wondering if this is part of Switzerland’s longstanding neutrality,
note that the country does designate al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Palestinian
Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations.) The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and the UAE) also do not
consider Hamas a terrorist organization, but back
in 2016, the GCC countries did designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
The Biden administration could do some more arm-twisting
of these allies, pointing out that they’re willing to classify Hezbollah and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad as terrorists, but not Hamas.
In particular, The Economist noted last November that one of the key countries for
financing Hamas’s operations is our NATO ally, Turkey:
Israel’s declared goal of
destroying Hamas for good requires its financial base to be dismantled, too.
Very little of this sits in Gaza. Instead, it is overseas in friendly
countries. Furnished with money-launderers, mining companies and much else,
Hamas’s financial empire is reckoned to bring in more than $1bn a year. Having
been painstakingly crafted to avoid Western sanctions, it may be out of reach
for Israel and its allies. . . .
Today, while Hamas’s politicians
favor Doha, the capital of Qatar, and its companies range from Algeria and
Sudan to the UAE, its financiers live in Istanbul. Zaher Jabarin, accused
by Israel of running Hamas’s finances (which he denies), is based there, as are
several other individuals under sanctions by America for funding the
organization. Eager to garner regional influence by supporting the Palestinian
cause, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, offers shelter. Israel says
that the Turkish government hands out passports (which it denies) and lets
Hamas keep an office in the country.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s banking system
helps Hamas dodge American sanctions by conducting complex transactions across
the world. A booming, lightly regulated crypto market makes things even easier.
Many of Turkey’s biggest banks, including Kuveyt Turk, have been accused by
Israel and America of knowingly storing Hamas’s cash. Some murmur that Mr
Erdogan quietly approves. In 2021 the Financial Action Task Force, a G7
watchdog, placed Turkey on its “grey list” of countries doing too little to
freeze terrorists’ assets.
Last year, the U.S provided $196 million in assistance to Turkey, mostly
humanitarian assistance. This is separate from the $23 billion sale of new F-16s and upgrades to
existing jets that also went to Turkey.
In April, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
addressed his country’s parliament and declared, “While everyone else remained
silent, we defined Hamas as a resistance movement, not a terror group.” The
audience responded with chants of “death to
Israel.”
President Biden invited Erdoğan to the White House this
spring, but the visit was postponed. At the NATO summit in July, Biden greeted Erdoğan, and was effusive about the Turkish
government dropping its opposition to admitting Sweden to NATO:
Mr. President, it’s good to see you
again — delighted to be with you. And, you know, we’re at this historic summit
meeting. We’re resolving a lot of things, I hope.
And you made — you made all the
more historic by the agreement you reached yesterday in the admission of Sweden
and how you’re going to proceed. I want to thank you for your diplomacy and
your courage to take that on. And I want to thank you for your leadership, Mr.
President.
Also in July, in an interview with Newsweek at the NATO summit,
Erdoğan accused the U.S. of being complicit in Israeli human-rights violations.
Turkey has always been a complicated U.S. ally, but its
ability to encompass so many contradictions — to be the home base of Hamas’s
financiers and to get nine-figure sums in foreign aid and to
denounce the U.S. as complicit in genocide and to get sweet U.S arms-sales deals is
amazing.
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