Status: 10.11.2023, 22:01 p.m.
By: Bona Hyun
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Fighting Hamas has been a top priority since the war in Israel. An effective method would be to cut off the terrorists' sources of funding.
Berlin – Hamas' sources of money are one of its livelihoods. "Money is the oxygen of terrorism," former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. Without the ability to raise money and move it around the world, terrorists could not act, Powell said. In order to fight Hamas, it could be effective to limit the terrorists' sources of funding.
Fight against money laundering: Cutting off Hamas' oxygen
Every year, many millions flow to the terrorist organization. But how are they financed? "They have deliberately built up a financial security umbrella for the day when Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Turkey stop their financial support for Hamas," an expert on money laundering told the Tagesspiegel. According to Welt am Sonntag, the Hamas leadership is said to have bank accounts all over the world.
One way to fight Hamas would be to cut off their money. © Majdi Fathi/apaimages/imago
Hamas' Money Source Traces Back to Cryptocurrency
Clues to Hamas' sources of money for Israel's attacks One of the things that leads Israel back to digital currencies. Leading cryptanalysis firm Elliptic has examined the flow of money in the year leading up to the attacks. According to the report, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) have received large amounts of funds in cryptocurrencies.
The PIJ reportedly received $2021 million in cryptocurrencies between August 93 and June of this year. Another $41 million is said to have gone to Hamas. According to Elliptic, some of these groups even engage in crypto mining, which allows them to even benefit and make money from the basic maintenance of cryptocurrency networks.
Fighting Hamas: Curbing Terrorist Financing Not Effective Enough
Israeli and American officials have been trying to crack down on this type of terrorist financing for some time, according to the report. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) develops the standards and best practices for combating money laundering. The FATF's "grey list" still includes dozens of countries that do not meet these standards, including Jordan, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
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The FATF has been complaining for years that many states are not effectively implementing their laws to curb terrorist financing. Germany once again received a poor grade in the latest report. In this country, according to the FATF, terrorist groups misuse donations and launder drug money through the purchase of luxury goods.
Germany apparently slept through money transfer to Hamas
An example: In 2018, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is said to have slept through the forwarding of a suspicious transaction report to the responsible public prosecutor's office. The Bonn authority analyzes suspicious transaction reports from banks. This is supposed to combat money laundering, but most of the reports probably get lost there. In this case, 38,000 euros could be transferred from Germany to Hamas accounts, which came out too late.
The problem of Hamas terrorist financing is already known
Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock assured that no German funds had been misappropriated to finance Hamas. "Of course, we don't do terrorist financing," the Green politician said late Tuesday evening on ZDF. The Federal Republic of Germany supports people in need within the framework of development cooperation, but does not provide direct budget support to the Palestinian Authority.
In an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in October 2023, Israel's ambassador Ron Prosor criticized the fact that Germany partially finances the dissemination of anti-Semitic content in the Palestinian territories. Now is the time to wake up and ask ourselves whether you have supported the right people in recent years.