On Feb. 5, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered 170 million shekels, the equivalent of $43 million, to be transferred to Gaza.

Mr. Olmert said the funds represented an Israeli commitment to divert tax revenue to cover Palestinian Authority (PA) salaries for its officials in Gaza.

However, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) has issued a detailed report titled “Can the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah Forces Retake Gaza: Obstacles and Opportunities,” documenting how the PA has misused Israeli money.

The group, run by former Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold, says the PA has diverted cash reserves taken from Israel to pay the salaries of up to 12,000 Hamas officials. This is in spite of the active state of war between the Palestinian Islamist group and the State of Israel.

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The JCPA report, authored by Dan Diker and Khaled abu- Toameh, reveals Hamas salaries are paid by means of an order issued by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a Fatah member.

This report will have wide ranging criminal implications for the new Israeli government, because Israeli counterterrorism law forbids any public or private concern from providing financial aid to any terrorist entity.

Israeli government sources defend cash transfers to pay salaries in Gaza, saying that the U.S. State Department has insisted that Israel transfer these funds to Gaza.

However, strict American counterterrorism laws also forbid any public or private concern from providing financial aid to any terrorist entity.

“It is widely believed that the PA in Ramallah only pays the salaries of civil service employees in Gaza to encourage them to stay at home to avoid working with Hamas,” the report said. “However, PA Prime Minister Fayyad also pays the monthly salaries of between 6,000 and 12,000 Hamas Executive Force operatives in Gaza, in line with the 2007 Mecca national unity agreement.”

The JCPA report shows that the PA has been paying armed Hamas terror groups as a part of the Mecca Accord, a reconciliation agreement reached between the Fatah and the Hamas in March 2007. That accord remains intact. The salaries, transferred in cash by the Israeli government, have continued to be paid despite Hamas’ complete armed takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

Messrs. Diker and abu- Toameh said the cash transfers continued even through the Hamas-Israel war in January, meaning the Israeli government was actively funding many of the same people it was fighting.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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