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 international donor funds, which now likely includes Israeli cash transfers to the Hamas in Gaza.

The Jerusalem Center, run by former Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold, says the PA has directed cash transfers to pay monthly salaries of up to 12,000 Hamas Executive operatives. The cash dispursements come despite the ongoing state of war between the Palestinian Islamist group and the State of Israel.

The JCPA report, authored by Dan Diker and Khaled Abu-Toameh, reveals that Hamas salaries are paid on the instructions of PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

This report may 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 theMecca 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.

The cash transfers continued even through the Hamas-Israel war in -January 2009. The report would seem to implicate the Israeli government for funding the PA’s direct financial support of the elements of the Iranian backed Hamas terror group that the Israeli Defense Forces was battling in Gaza.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Terror victims holding an American federal court judgment against the Hamas organization have legally restrained more than $11 million belonging to the terrorist group.

On Feb. 5, Egyptian officials stopped Hamas leader Ayman Taha at the Rafah border crossing from entering into Gaza with suitcases containing millions of dollars in cash.

Although Mr. Taha insisted that he be allowed to bring the funds into Gaza, the Egyptians refused and required him to deposit the funds in the National Bank of Egypt’s (NBE) branch in al-Arish in the northern Sinai.

Attorneys for the terror victims immediately served a restraining order on the NBE’s American branch at 40 East 52nd St. in New York. The restraining notice informed the NBE that the plaintiffs have an unsatisfied judgment, owed to them by Hamas in the amount of $116 million and warned the NBE against paying out the deposited funds or permitting the withdrawal of the funds by Hamas.

Moreover, it places the NBE on notice its Egypt’s government ownership does not grant it sovereign immunity from garnishment proceedings pursuant to the U.S. Terror Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA). Victims of Hamas terror attacks had lobbied for the law.

As TRIA provides: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law… in every case in which a person has obtained a judgment against a terrorist party on a claim based upon an act of terrorism the blocked assets of that terrorist party shall be subject to execution or attachment in aid of execution in order to satisfy such judgment.”

According to Shurat HaDin director Attorney Nitsana Darshan Leitner, press reports that Egypt harbors Hamas money in trust “are erroneous.”

“The funds have now been restrained and cannot be moved by the Egyptian government nor Hamas,” she said. “They will be paid to the terror victims. Shurat HaDin’s earlier legal actions against banking institutions providing services to Gaza have been highly effective, and Hamas is now being forced to smuggle money across the border in suitcases. Every time Hamas funds are stopped anywhere the terror victims will immediately move on them.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

With Israel’s Gaza campaign against Hamas and the Israeli election in the past, Israel must now contend with its next challenge – Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.

Although Mr. Abbas has been broadly touted as a “moderate” peace partner for Israel who can lead Fatah to the establishment of a Palestinian state, he has used the last few months to engage in an international campaign to delegitimize and weaken Israel – especially in the past few weeks.

His actions have focused overtly on two separate issues motivated by different, if overlapping, concerns:

In recent weeks, as a result of the Israeli military action in Gaza, the international focus has been on Hamas and not on the PA in the West Bank. Mr. Abbas has shown alarm at the possibility of a softening of international sanctions against Hamas and the rival faction’s involvement in rebuilding of Gaza. Both of these measures would bring Hamas increasing international legitimacy and weaken Fatah’s position as “the” legitimate Palestinian authority.

Mr. Abbas has thus sought to keep his faction, Fatah, center-stage in public awareness and show the PA acts decisively and with influence on behalf of the people of Gaza.

On Jan. 27, after a meeting in the Mukata, his headquarters in Ramallah, Mr. Abbas held a press conference, during which he said:

“Israel does not want peace, otherwise it would not have done this. We need to understand this and tell it to those coming from Europe and America… We will do all we can to prove Israel committed crimes [according to Geneva Conventions] that would make your skin crawl… We appealed to international war crimes courts and called for setting up a query to investigate these war crimes. We’ll do our best to prove that Israel committed awful and disgusting crimes.”

Sources at the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) have confirmed representatives of the Palestinian Authority have approached the International Court of Justice with an eye toward charging Israel with war crimes. Formalities, which require submission of an application, are being pursued.

On Feb. 4, during an address to the European Parliament, Mr. Abbas called on for an investigation against Israel for “war crimes” committed during the Gaza operation:

“We must do our utmost to ensure Israel is compelled to take responsibility for the horrific crimes… There are crimes and people who committed those crimes have to be held responsible so that these crimes cannot be repeated.”

According to a Ramallah-based journalist, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority recognize that the Annapolis plan for peace is dead – that its negotiations are stalemated and there is no way to advance them. Other means of advancing its agenda and pushing Israel to make concessions are now being sought.

A report in Tuesday’s edition of Ha’aretz details Mr. Abbas’ approach. His tactics have largely focused on diplomatic isolation of a right-wing government, should it be established, led by Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Abbas has been trying to convince the international community that such an Israeli government must face conditions similar to those faced by the Hamas government,” the newspaper said. “…The Palestinian Authority prepared a plan for ‘diplomatic resistance’ to Israel. The purpose of the plan is to offer an alternative to the ‘military resistance’ of Hamas and preserve Fatah as a relevant force, even in the absence of a peace process.

“Abbas met last week with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and [shared]… his deep concerns about the establishment in Israel of a right-wing government headed by Netanyahu. Abbas stressed that such a development means a deathblow to the peace process.

“…During all his meetings, Abbas compared a right-wing government in Israel to the Palestinian unity government of Fatah and Hamas, which followed the Mecca Accords in 2007. ‘You refused to fully cooperate with such a government because Hamas did not meet the Quartet’s conditions on ending terrorism and recognizing Israel,’ Abbas told the European leaders. ‘You will have to adopt a similar stance toward an Israeli government that will oppose the creation of a Palestinian state and genuine negotiations over the core issues of a permanent settlement,’ he added.”

Mr. Abbas said should a right-wing government come to power in Israel, it should receive the same sort of sanctions that have been imposed on the Hamas government or apartheid-era South Africa.

The bottom line: As the new Israeli government prepares for new negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, it may now face an unexpected hard-line leader in the personage of Mahmoud Abbas.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

The recent Israeli military incursion into Gaza bore hope it would destroy the tunnel system Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups use to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

However, the Middle East Newsline has revealed new tunnels have been designed to withstand Israeli air strikes and Egyptian search operations.

The new tunnels, built in daylight with earth-moving equipment, are longer and deeper to prevent either Egyptian or Israeli detection.

“Our business has gotten much more expensive,” a tunnel operator in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah confirmed.

The tunnel operators said Egyptian and Israeli efforts have raised tunnel costs as well as reduced orders by Gaza merchants for civilian goods from the neighboring Sinai Peninsula.

They said many merchants have been convinced Gaza’s borders would eventually reopen under any Hamas cease-fire accord with Israel.

Since the Hamas-Israel war ended on Jan. 18, operators said, smuggling profits have dropped by at least 50 percent. They said orders for smuggled goods from Egypt also declined by about half.

“The smugglers are much more careful and break up shipments to avoid detection,” another operator said. “This slows down traffic and makes things more expensive.”

The operators said the Hamas government has taken direct control of about 100 tunnels for such imports as weapons, electronics and fuel. They said Hamas smuggling employs different tunnels to avoid detection.

“Hamas has tightened security at their tunnels and operates secretly,” the operator said.

Over the last two weeks, Hamas has also overseen the distribution of gasoline around the Gaza Strip. Palestinian sources said the huge influx of fuel smuggled from Egypt recently has driven legions of youngsters to the streets, where they sell containers of gasoline to drivers. They said the fuel was half the price of that charged by Israel in 2008.

Egyptian forces, guided by U.S. military trainers, have increased measures along the Sinai border. They said the Egyptians, said to have blocked about 20 tunnels this month, have been helped by the installation of surveillance cameras along the 8.6-mile border.

“Right now, the Egyptians are trying to stop us,” another operator said.

“But we know from the past that this changes rather quickly.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

The Middle East Newsline has disclosed a new U.S. Army report warning Iraq could collapse in wake of a rapid American withdrawal.

The U.S. Army War College report said Iraq remains in dire need of American reconstruction and stability efforts. The report said an accelerated U.S. withdrawal could leave Iraq and the rest of the region in chaos.

“A rapid withdrawal while on the verge of irreversible victory could cause a collapse in Iraq surmounting to secular conflict or civil war and would be a monumental setback to U.S. foreign policy,” the report, titled The Serpent in Our Garden: Al Qaida and the Long War, said. “Not to mention this setback would have a serious impact on the price of oil, negatively affecting world economies.”

Authored by Col. Brian Drinkwine, the report said U.S. stabilization efforts in Iraq have been hampered by a lack of expertise. The report said Washington must double or triple reconstruction personnel to “ultimately speed up a full transition over to Iraqi control.”

“Currently, Coalition [counter-insurgency] efforts continue to struggle because of the limited availability of civil reconstruction and governance expertise, primarily a State Department role or mission,” the report said.

The report was released this month amid plans by the new Obama administration to accelerate a U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq. Officials said several leading commanders, including Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus, have warned Mr. Obama that a rapid withdrawal could destabilize Iraq.

“A stable Iraq with a capable and legitimate government, able to self-rule and defend its borders and interior, is of mutual interest to many Middle Eastern countries as well as the world’s major powers,” the report said. “This mutual interest can be leveraged to assure commitments by other nations to support continued stability in Iraq until the country can emerge as a stabilizer in the Middle East, capable of offsetting a rogue state such as Iran or capable of dealing with newly emerging non-state threats.”

The report said the United States should reduce its “overt military presence” in the Middle East. But Col. Drinkwine, regarded as a leading counter-insurgency expert, said Washington must “stay very connected.”

“We must drop the democracy dialogue and then gain better footing to communicate strategically with multiple target audiences,” the report concluded.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

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.

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

Yesterday, the 120 seats in Israel’s Knesset Parliament stood for election, and as the results came in late into the night, it saw a reversal of fortune for the ruling Kadima Party as it snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

As of press time, with more than 85 percent of ballot boxes counted, the Kadima political party, led by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, had won about 22 percent of the popular vote, giving her party 29 seats in the election.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), which describes itself as the “voice of the Jewish people,” ran a banner headline saying “Vindication for Livni in surprise victory.”

At 1:30 a.m, Israeli time, Ms. Livni, exuded with self confidence and spoke to a throng of Kadima suporters in a large hall in Tel Aviv, proclaiming that “the people of Israel have spoken,” because the projected results showed that Kadima had won a plurality of votes.

She called it a “total victory,” declaring that as the party with the highest amount of votes in the Israeli political spectrum, she and her party had received a “clear mandate” to rule the country.

Ms. Livni’s speech, accompanied by loud music and continuous applause by party faithful, went on for more than 15 minutes, where she repeated over and over that Kadima had won.

However, she had not taken into account the possibility of political parties across Israel’s political spectrum combining their total votes to throw Kadima out of office.

The Likud party, led by former Israeli Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Finance Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, followed with a projected 28 seats.

Israel Beiteinu, led by Russian-born Avigdor Lieberman, who took a hardline stance against Israeli Arab leaders who opposed Israel’s recent military operation in Gaza, was expected to win 16 seats

Israel’s veteran Labor party, led by Israel Defnse Minister Ehud Barak, suffered an astounding defeat, garnering only 12 seats.

Israel’s four Orthodox Jewish parties gained at least 19 seats, while Israel’s Arab parties claimed 10 seats.

With Mr. Lieberman declaring that he would join a nationalist coalition, sunrise on the Israeli political horizon on this morning showed the dawn of a new political era for Israel. This showed Israeli voters had given those opposed to further Israeli compromises in future negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors a clear mandate in the Knesset.

A news commentator on the Voice of Israel Radio Newsreel said at 3 a.m. this morning, local time, that Ms. Livni’s 1:30 a.m. speech will be reserved for posterity as one of the funnier moments in Israel’s political history.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com

Candidates from 34 Israeli political parties who are contending for 120 seats in Israel’s Knesset scrambled yesterday from location to location, from photo-op to photo-op in a last-minute attempt to win over another few voters.

The front-runner, Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, a 1967 graduate of Cheltenham High School, toured northern Israel and planted an olive tree on the Golan Heights. He used his appearance there to insist a government under his leadership would not withdraw from the Golan Heights. The strategic piece of land, also claimed by Syria, was taken by Israel in 1967 to protect Israel’s northern Galilee from shelling by Syrian gunners.

Mr. Netanyahu also used the occasion to proclaim that he would not compromise Israeli control of Jerusalem’s sovereignty.

Yet the surprise of this year’s Israeli political campaign is Russian-born Avigdor Lieberman, who will undoubtedly perform a leading role in any coalition formed by Mr. Netanyahu following the election.

Assuming the polls published up until now are correct, Mr. Netanyahu will likely form the next government. Senior Likud officials have gone even farther to state should Mr. Lieberman demand leadership of the Defense Ministry in the course of future coalition negotiations, Mr. Netanyahu would not be able to turn him down.

As of mid-December, Mr. Netanyahu was expected to win this election hands down, following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s fall from power. The current prime minister’s predicament came amid revelations he was caught taking bribes from an American businessman and after he was caught embezzling funds from American philanthropies.

Mr. Lieberman’s party had been expected to be relegated to the role of a yet another minor party partner in any future Israeli government.

Yet Mr. Lieberman did what no other Israeli politician did: He played on the strong emotions that emerged during Israel’s incursion into Gaza.

During that time, while Israeli military forces were fighting Hamas terrorists who were firing rockets at one million Israeli residents, Israeli Arab Members of the Knesset led mass demonstrations of Israeli Arabs against the Israeli army.

The strident support given by Israeli Arabs for Hamas resulted in a Jewish backlash against Israeli Arabs, who number 1.4 million, in a country of 7.5 million citizens.

Mr. Lieberman became the one Israeli politician to immediately integrate Israeli popular anger against Israeli Arab support of Israel’s enemy into his political campaign, and his popularity has blossomed.

Mr. Lieberman’s slogan was simple: No Israeli citizen should vote or serve in Israel’s Knesset if he demonstrates disloyalty to the country, and his call has resounded in every corner of Israeli society.

Other major Israeli political parties such as Kadima, lead by Foreign Minister Livni and Labor, lead by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have announced that their parties would sit in a government with Mr. Lieberman should either party form a future Israeli government.

The Arab world is closely following the elections in Israel and there is a clear concern in the Arab media due to the rise in the polls of Mr. Lieberman.

The Arab media also closely followed the publication of the last election polls in the weekend Israeli newspapers.

“Lieberman may pass the 20-seat mark, according to the polls of the
Israeli newspapers,” reported the popular Arab newspaper al-Quds. “This is only three seats less than Kadima is expected to get, and six less than the number of seats that the Likud is expected to receive in the elections.”


Other Arab commentators are quoted as saying that “in the coming elections, Lieberman may even be Israel’s prime minister.”

Another expression of the Arab media’s fear of Mr. Lieberman can be found in the following quote, which appeared in “al-Quds” in Jerusalem: “Lieberman will ultimately decide who Israel’s next prime minister will be, because his support for a particular candidate will resolve almost 
conclusively the issue of forming the government”

Their conclusion is correct. Mr. Lieberman’s warning about the disloyalty of Israel’s Arab population now represent the most popular position on the Israeli political horizon.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com