“Trump’s Claim that U.S. Taxpayer Money Funded Hamas Attacks Is False” (New York Times, October 8). If the NYT says that something is “false” and Trump is involved, perhaps it is worth investigating..
Although we say that we don’t like Hamas, they are the legitimate government of millions of Palestinians and have more popular support than Joe Biden does among Americans (AP: “The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is ‘most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,’ while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party.”)
The most expensive services provided by the U.S. government to residents of the U.S. are, in Gaza, paid for by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), established in 1949. UNRWA pays for health care, schools, food, etc. for as many Palestinians as want them (fueled by these unlimited resources, Gaza has one of the world’s highest rates of population growth and, thus, there are more customers every day).
The U.S. is the largest donor to UNRWA (source):
Every American tax dollar that the U.S. sends to UNRWA to fund standard government services frees up a dollar for Hamas to spend on whatever it may choose.
From the NYT, a few months after Joe Biden took office, “Reversing Trump, Biden Restores Aid to Palestinians”:
The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it would restore hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid to Palestinians, its strongest move yet to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s policy on the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. … The move will once again make the United States a leading donor to the United Nations agency that assists about 5.7 million Palestinians in the Middle East.
It is true that we haven’t directly funded Hamas’s military operations, but by funding UNRWA to provision Palestinians with education, health care, food, etc. we are the primary enablers of Hamas’s military (much larger than the economic activity of Palestinians would otherwise be able to support).
My personal rating of Trump’s statement: Substantially True. The U.S. seems to be the biggest money source for Hamas, which “strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” (charter, which also says, “The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim”).
[Of course, schizophrenically the U.S. also funds Hamas’s enemies, sending $billions to Egypt, which keeps its border with Gaza closed and won’t allow Palestinians to emigrate to Egypt (they built a wall, bizarrely with help from the U.S., which says that walls don’t work), Jordan, which has opposed Palestinian military efforts, and Israel (“the Zionist entity”). So it would similarly be accurate to say that the U.S. enables larger militaries in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.]
Curiously, quite a few American Democrats who don’t identify as Muslim are now tweeting about “standing with Israel” (they’re also going to stand with Ukraine, with the 2SLGBTQQIA+, and in how many other places?). In other words, the very people who have been funding Hamas since the beginning of the Biden administration are now saying that they somehow support Hamas’s enemy.
Here’s the principal funder himself:
The top Democrat in Congress when the funding for Hamas was restored:
Governor French Laundry:
The Democrat who runs San Francisco:
The Democrat who runs Los Angeles:
New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker 2018 (source):
Senator Booker today:
How was Hamas going to achieve Booker’s 2018 objective of getting rid of walls in Palestine if not via military action against Israel?
The Black Lives Matter folks in Chicago (relevant to a comment, below):
Related:
Hamas military budget is estimated at overall $1 billion annually, and freeing few hundreds millions for them is a big deal for them.
Fun fact: Cory Booker was president of Oxford University’s L’Chaim Society (a major Jewish students’ society) when he was there as a Rhodes scholar. My wife met him when she visited her friend Rona (also a L’Chaim Society member) in Oxford.
Fazal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker says he grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. But maybe being from the NYC region made him “Jewish enough” for the society ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University_L%27Chaim_Society ), which Wikipedia says had a substantial number of non-Jews as members (also notes that the Orthodox haters interpreted Leviticus strictly wanted the “gay students” kicked out).
L’Chaim (word by word translation: “To Life” ) stands for “Cheers” while drinking. So I would not read much into someone being president of L’Chaim society.
Presumably some of those UNRWA subsidies go to the female, lesbian, & hotties in need.
As a recent U.S. citizen from Venezuela (thank you uncle joe), I’m not that concerned about the issues of these religious minorities in far-flung regions. I’m more concerned with my newly granted voting rights here and with my ability to breeze through airport customs ahead of “real” U.S. citizens with passports because I’m special. God is great!
This is a particularly moronic post, even for Phil. The fact that 53% of 2m voted for Hamas is not “more” than the number of voters who voted for Biden, yeah i get it, one is a percentage. The fact that political leaders are coming together in support of Israel should be something applauded not ridiculed with the usual idiocy about zir/zie and so on. Fazal is right that Corey Booker is a long time friend of the Jews and in fact regularly visits the Rebbe’s gravesite to pray.
jdc: 53 percent approval rating is not “more” than 40 percent? https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
I asked ChatGPT: “Is a 53 percent approval rating more than a 40 percent approval rating?” and our future overlord responded with “Yes, a 53 percent approval rating is more than a 40 percent approval rating.” (the shortest ChatGPT response that I can remember! There was no mention of equity, etc.)
“The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party” gives a ratio of nearly 4:1 in support for Hamas vs. the alternative. That’s almost as good as the ratio of support for Democrats over Republicans among American college professors (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_American_academics ) and even better than the ratio of votes won by Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump in California (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_California ).
In response to “Does the Black Lives Matter movement support Hamas?” … As of my last update in January 2022, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement at large has not expressed official support for Hamas. The Black Lives Matter movement primarily focuses on addressing violence and systemic racism against Black communities in the U.S. However, like many large movements, BLM is decentralized, with multiple local chapters and affiliated organizations.
Individual members or smaller groups within the BLM movement may have expressed solidarity with Palestinian causes in general, particularly in the context of protests against Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people should not be conflated with explicit support for Hamas or its actions.
Always be cautious when making broad generalizations about any movement, and try to differentiate between the positions of individual activists or local chapters and the overarching goals and positions of the movement as a whole. If there have been developments or statements after January 2022, I recommend checking with reliable and up-to-date sources.
[See https://x.com/BLMChi/status/1711793142742073573?s=20 ]
Phil, just to be clear, we at BLM entirely support our Hamas brothers. Ibram Kendi is our intellectual guidestar!
In tough times like this it’s important to remember that the Jews control Hollywood! (and we are all grateful for this)
TS: You might be out of date. From https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing :
Speaking of LA, a decade ago there were 22 Jews on The Hollywood Reporter’s annual list of the Top 50 Showrunners. In 2022, that’s down to 13. Other than the half-Jewish (and already famous) Maggie Gyllenhaal, you’d have to go back six years to find a single Jew on Variety’s annual list of 10 Directors to Watch.
Thanks to the odious new Hollywood house style that requires a detailed ethnic and racial classification at the top of all capsule biographies, we can see just how many self-identified Jews are in the Sundance writers and directors labs, or the NBC, Paramount, and Disney writers and apprenticeship programs—it is zero.
Has the US ever proclaimed unwavering support, ironclad and unbreakable bond etc. with any other country (for so long)? Guessing not even south africa had those guarantees during apartheid era.