In February, a spokesman for the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) boasted of his organization’s recent attacks on Israel, and promised that they would continue until “the land and the holy sites are liberated.” Since its founding in 2000, the PRC, which receives funding and other support from Tehran, has committed numerous acts of murderous terrorism. Joe Truzman notes that it has nonetheless never been subject to U.S. sanctions, and urges the Biden administration to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
Designating the PRC as an FTO would block the group’s access to most banks around the world and allow federal law enforcement to seize its financial assets, including cryptocurrency wallets. In August 2020, the Justice Department announced its largest-ever seizure of terrorist-affiliated cryptocurrency accounts, including 150 belonging to Hamas, which had previously asserted that its cryptocurrency donations were “untraceable.”
Hindering the PRC’s access to funds might curtail its rocket attacks against the Israeli population.
Designating the PRC as a terrorist organization could [also] limit its access to web-hosting services and social-media platforms. The PRC uses two websites as well as several Telegram channels and Facebook pages to spread propaganda, including videos of attacks from the conflict last May. The organization also used these media to promote videos and statements made by the “Joint Operations Room,” a coordinating body comprising the PRC and numerous Palestinian factions, many of them under U.S. terror sanctions.
Finally, an FTO designation could help the U.S. government partner with social-media sites to eliminate the PRC’s access to their platforms, replicating the U.S. government’s previous work against Islamic State, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and many other terror groups.
Read more on National Interest: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/us-should-sanction-gaza%E2%80%99s-popular-resistance-committees-201697