More evidence that military force deters terrorism comes from a recent statement of Hamas’s second-in-command Moussa Abu Marzouk, who recently told the Washington, DC-based news outlet Al-Monitor that his organization would consider subsuming itself under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and seeking a two-state solution. Although he can hardly be taken at his word, this sudden embrace of what Hamas has long considered anathema must be chalked up to the success of the IDF’s campaign in Gaza—which hasn’t caused Abu Marzouk to radicalize his rhetoric, but to moderate it.
This same Abu Marzouk stated in an October 23 interview that it is the responsibility of the United Nations, not Hamas, to provide for and protect Gazan civilians. This surprisingly frank admission gets to the heart of how the group has used the massive international aid—from the UN, from NGOs, and from Western and Muslim countries—that flows into the strip. Ari Heistein and Nathaniel Rabkin explain:
Over the fifteen years during which it has controlled the Gaza Strip, Hamas has honed exploitation of aid into a science. The group does not generally expropriate aid items directly, but rather uses its control of the government apparatus in Gaza to ensure that donor funds are siphoned off, either directly to Hamas or to entities it controls. For example, the strip’s private security companies are all licensed by the Hamas Ministry of Interior, and their staff must be approved and trained by the ministry. UN and other aid-group facilities therefore end up paying Hamas to guard them.
Hamas also imposes high taxes on goods in the strip, including food staples, meaning that a substantial portion of the salaries paid to local aid-agency employees winds up in Hamas’s coffers. Given the enormous role played by the UN and other international groups in Gaza, taxes paid by their employees likely account for a substantial fraction of Hamas’s revenues. . . . Hamas also tries to directly involve itself in the work of UN agencies in Gaza.
A similar strategy, write Heistein and Rabkin, is employed by another Iran-backed terrorist group, the Houthis, who have plunged Yemen into a disastrous humanitarian crisis and are now profiting from the aid meant to alleviate it. “In Syria,” Heistein and Rabkin add, “a government that operates more like a terrorist organization provides a hint of what Hamas and the Houthis could become, if they win international recognition.”
Read more on Quillette: https://quillette.com/2023/12/10/aiding-terror-how-terrorists-exploit-humanitarian-organizations-2/