Where is Hamas getting all their money?

[yeoman6987]

I cannot imagine it is cheap to continue to have a constant barrage of bombs being released. They must have a secondary source of income arriving to help pay for this.

[Lithos]

1. Many sources

For Direct funding ($$$) they used to get a fair amount of it from Iran and Iran's puppet - Hezbollah, but they ticked them off when they refused to support Iran's ally - Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad, so that pretty much has dried up. Current funding today comes from Qatar and from their own fund-raising activities among Palestinian ex-pats and other sympathetic individuals world wide.

They also get a fair amount of indirect assistance from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries who provide training and operational support (doctors, etc.).

[yeoman6987]

2. Thank you

Except for food, water and needs for the population, I wish counties would stop giving to Hamas. (I know the same can be said for Israel), but if Hamas didn't have bombs, I doubt Israel would have released even one bomb.

[Igel]

12. Some think they do.

It's a commonplace when looking at funding sources to complain about uncritical givers.

For certain Muslim holidays--like with Xian ones, at least in the past--charity is considered part of the celebration. You have a goat sacrificed and you send a chunk for a poor family. You donate a chunk of cash to a benevolent fund to help the poor of your own faith. That's how it works.

But too often if the imam or organizer backs militant causes, while part of the money may go to groups that just feed the starving and clothe the naked, so to speak, some goes to other worthy causes to help the oppressed. If not distributed that way by the organizer, the organizer may turn the money over to some larger international group that does this. That money might feed the poor, but also be helping Hamasian militants in Gaza, jihadis in Afghanistan, ash-Shabaab in Somalia, or helping to build a mosque in a poor part of Nigeria or sending Qur'aans to a poor part of Egypt. Most militant organizations *also* have a charitable arm, now handing out food and shelter to wind minds and hearts and now cutting off hands and heads.

This is less of a problem, we like to think, than in was in 2001. We like to think all kinds of things. Some are even true.

[Puzzledtraveller]

3. ^this^

[sabrina 1]

5. Why would Qatar, an ally of the US, which sent proxy 'protesters' to Libya eg, help Hamas?

And the Saudis? Why would THEY support Hamas?

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. Annihilation of Israel is a common goal among all of those countries, but they need our business

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. politics makes strange bedfellows -for all practical purposes the Gulf States and Israel are allies

- including Qatar. But domestic consumption, the need to prove their street credibility, to grant a powerful group within the Palestinian Territories alternatives to Iranian funding (which has pretty much dried up anyway) - all to balance out their position and reduce criticism for being such a close ally to the United States. Remember during major parts of the Lebanese civil war - for all practical purposes Syria and Israel were expo facto allies against the PLO. It gets complicated - No Arab government these days are going to bat openly for the Palestinians or fight Israel. They can though give some money and statements of support as a way to deflect criticism for not doing more for the Palestinians.

[sabrina 1]

18. Well, if everyone knows they are supporting the Palestinians anyhow, why not do it openly?

None of this makes any sense. We are then allies of people who are working against us in many ways, IF we are to believe the public statements of the US Govt.

[Lithos]

9. Qatar is first and foremost an Islamist state

Yes, they have strong ties to the US, but they have a long history of supporting Islamist groups. Their leadership is capitalistic, conservative and Islamic.

They supported a Taliban embassy as late as 2013. They have been a long time supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt allowing many leaders to remain in residence. (We're talking before and/after their recent brief government.)

They did send protestors to Libya, but remember Libya is today undergoing a civil war between Secular and Islamist groups. Their support was primarily to the Islamist groups based in Benghazi. They are still supporting these groups.

Saudi Arabia only recently has stopped their support with the rise of ISIS, though individuals still provide a fair amount of monies to Hamas.


L-

[sabrina 1]

16. That is extremely complex. Why would Qatar have wanted to topple the Gadaffi government

unless you're saying they support extremists. The West used Gadaffi to keep the Al Queda elements in Libya under control airc. Are you saying Qatar supports Al Queda? If so it makes even less sense that the US would be aligned with them.

Thank you for the response, I'll have to do a lot more reading on all of this it seems.

[Capt. Obvious]

11. Saudi prefers to destabalize the rest of the region

but only up to a point.

[hack89]

14. The Qatari royal family has a long history

With the Muslim Brotherhood

[Puzzledtraveller]

4. Great question that will be roundly ignored.

Sadly.

[Larkspur]

8. That question explains why Hamas' rockets are ineffective at hitting Israeli targets

None of Hamas' rockets match the fire power of Israel, the 5th most powerful military in the world.
Most are either intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome or land in the desert bothering no one.
Anyone with a high school level chemistry education can make and man Hamas' rockets.

[Igel]

10. Some of them go 50, 80 miles.

That's not something I can make. I have a college level chemistry education with a couple of years of physics.

And i've been a professional translator. In the aerospace field. Yes, it is rocket science.

Then there are the reports of a stash of Russian-made Kornet anti-tank weapons being found in Gaza. If true, those, likewise, are not high school chemistry projects.

We justify the faults of those we like, and demonize our opponents. That's what it means to be human, to be critical of some and not others. That is *not* what it means to be a critical thinker.

[KamaAina]

13. Also, where are they getting the supplies?

Doesn't everything in Gaza have to go through Israel?

[hack89]

15. There is an extensive tunnel network into Egypt

Now that Egypt is destroying the tunnels Hamas will be hit militarily and financially. All the weapon material came through those tunnels and the smugglers paid taxes to Hamas.

[Uncle Joe]

17. From Israel.

Thanks for the thread, yeoman.