As Dario Prestigiacomo from our EuropaToday editorial team explains, Germany has chosen the hard line: quickly deporting foreigners who support Hamas terrorists. According to German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, this is legally possible. The Islamic Resistance Movement, whose Arabic abbreviation is Hamas, is a terrorist organization that killed 1,400 people, almost all of them civilians, and took 199 people hostage in the south of Israel on the morning of Saturday, October 7. . Praising, supporting and encouraging terrorism is also a crime. Also in Italy.

At the same time, the topic is very slippery. For three reasons. The first two are official. Free thought is protected by the Constitution, and Hamas’ apology should not be confused with solidarity with Palestine, which is not entirely aligned with Hamas. Then immigrants from all over the world, Germans (or Italians) in Europe, and Palestinians would be treated differently for the same alleged crime. In fact, only the first could be repatriated. Germans and Italians no because they are already at home. Even Palestinians who were probably stopped at demonstrations in Europe will stay where they are. In fact, there is no Palestinian state: to whom should it be handed over? Rather, they should be brought back to Israel in the weeks when the Tel Aviv army dropped tons of bombs to drive Hamas away from its borders. It is easy to predict the Israeli government’s reaction.

Risk of terrorists escaping to Libya and landing in Italy

The third reason is quite important: the likely supporters of Hamas’ hard line, mostly among Arab immigrants in Europe, will be too numerous to be put on a few dozen planes and repatriated. Perhaps we should ask European governments, including the German government, to be more calm. And above all, solutions that will help Israel defeat terrorism once and for all, just as the free world was able to do against Al Qaeda. But also to prevent Hamas terrorists and several hundred thousand refugees from fleeing to Libya and landing in Europe. Via Lampedusa, Italy. Or via the Balkan route.

The Mediterranean is on the brink of the abyss. As happened many times during the Cold War. But governments of the time built solid roads. such as those that led to the Olso peace accords between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (August 10, 1993). The agreements failed precisely with Hamas’ seizure of power in the Gaza Strip and terrorist attacks in Israel. And the simultaneous entry of the religious right into Tel Aviv governments, clearly against the Oslo accords, against the emergence of a Palestinian state, and in favor of settler settlements on the West Bank. Instead, let’s talk about the money given to Hamas territory as the Iran-backed terrorist movement caused the failure of two agreements: in addition to the Oslo peace, the imminent agreements between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And the offensive on October 7 froze.

8 billion gift: Hamas thanks us with war

The two million two hundred thousand people living in the Gaza Strip in the last decade received an ideal of $3,600 each. Including newborns. Considering an average of four children per couple, this works out to $21,800 per family. Almost 8 billion in total: that’s seven and a half billion in euros. If you ask Hamas, if the money did not reach its target, the pipes of the European-financed aqueducts were removed to make rocket launchers, and only family members recommended by the terrorists were employed in public offices. Yes, we need a new intifada, while the protesters of the rich world, who have already turned the tables, shout in the squares. But Palestinians should not unleash their protests against Israel. against Hamas.

The Islamic Resistance Movement has dominated Gaza, the Strip’s largest city with a population of half a million, since 2007. The violence, through gunfights and targeted killings, forced the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to move to the West Bank, the other territory that was supposed to form the Palestinian state. However, the difference between the two organizations is clear.

Hamas is a religious-terrorist movement that has openly declared among its goals the destruction of Israel and the killing or deportation of its 9.3 million inhabitants. The PNA is instead the embryo of the State of Palestine that emerged from the Olso peace accords, which were supposed to guide the peaceful transition towards autonomy and then independence for a nation of five and a half million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Especially a significant part of the younger generations now supports Hamas and its anti-Semitic project.

Thereupon, Gaza bought weapons and prepared for the attack.

In 2021 – as it has now emerged, at the time when the October 7 attack began to be planned – the American Associated Press agency tried to calculate the amount of donations made by democratic states to the Gaza Strip, although not directly to Hamas. Once basic services and infrastructure were guaranteed from abroad, the organization avoided disputes and protests. And best of all, he was able to devote his secret finances to the purchase of weapons and the training of his own army. The same thing we saw when working in southern Israel. But there are numbers at stake here.

From 2014 to 2020, United Nations agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, as reconstructed by The Associated Press: $600 million in 2020 alone. More than 80 percent of the funds were distributed through the Agency to Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which constitute the three. – A quarter of the population on the Strip. The institution also provides food, school and health services to 280 thousand children.

The sweet life of the Hamas leader: He is in Qatar to avoid arrest

The very rich state of Qatar, home to Hamas leader Ismail Haniye, who is wanted all over the world (left, in the photo above), has officially donated $1.3 billion worth of aid since 2012. They are employed in construction, healthcare and agriculture. With this financing, Qatar guarantees the salaries of Hamas government officials. However, an undeclared part would go to military activities.

The Palestinian National Authority also sent $1.7 billion to Gaza for at least 2021. These were to be used to support the families of tens of thousands of Hamas’s supporters, employees and officials who lost their jobs when it came to power in 2007.

War bricolage: water pipes turned into missile launchers

In response to incessant rocket attacks on southern Israel, Egypt allocated $500 million, also in dollars, to remove rubble and rebuild Hamas neighborhoods that Tel Aviv had destroyed over the years. Germany and other governments under the banner of the European Union instead spent 80 million (75 million euros, 8 million euros from Italy) on the construction of the water network and drinking water treatment plants in Gaza. The pipes would be taken from the aqueduct construction sites, manned by Palestinian personnel, and then converted into rocket launchers.

The United States has also done its part: $5.5 million in aid to Gaza in 2021 alone and $90 million in aid to the activities of the Palestine Refugee Organization, in the West Bank alone.

Iran’s money was used to build rockets fired at Israel

There are also governments like Qatar that directly support Hamas. Of these, Iran, which entrusted 70 million dollars to leader Ismail Haniye in 2022, was used in the production of thousands of rockets. Presumably the same ones that have been launched at Israel since the morning of October 7th.

Funds collected through mosques and associations around the world are a separate section. A river worth hundreds of thousands of dollars also flows through virtual money channels. As the Israeli Office to Combat the Financing of Terrorism (NBCTF) announced in May 2023. As of 2021, Tel Aviv researchers discovered 190 crypto accounts on the Binance platform: two were linked to the Islamic State, while others were linked to Palestinian companies controlled by the Hamas constellation.

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