HOW QATAR FINANCED HAMAS, WITH THE ABLE ASSISTANCE OF AMERICAN BANKS

As a compliance officer who has been dedicated to countering the financing of terrorism since before 9/11, it turns my stomach, every time I see a photograph of a Palestinian in Gaza brandishing a new US One Hundred Dollar Note.

First, because I know that it was the Palestinians in Gaza who voted Hamas into power a known (and OFAC-designated) brutal terrorist organization nearly twenty years ago, hoping that it would be less corrupt than the Palestinian Authority. Not only did they get something even worse than the PA, they now have a completely devastated territory, which will take decades to rebuild. Who will pay for that?

Second, I know that the currency of the realm in the Territories, since they are not a state and don't issue their own, is the New Israeli Shekel (NIS), so why on earth did the State of Qatar choose to pay them aid money in USD? Qatari authorities knew that the Gazan would have to change the greenbacks into currency that they could use on the street, and Hamas, which had the money service business monopoly would exact an obscenely high fee to change the hundred dollar bills into Shekels. Thus Hamas was able to divert funds to build those hundreds of miles of tunnels, buy arms and ammunition, and all the other tools and implements of war. Thank you, State of Qatar, for knowingly financing the worst terrorist organization on the planet. it would easily have purchased Israeli currency on the open market for distribution. Does that make the Emir a war criminal?

Finally, the greedy American banks that supplied all those greenbacks also have their share of blame. Should we publish the names of the large US banks that sent multi-million dollar shipments of currency, when they knew that Qatar was funding Gaza "relief" with Dollars?

That's why those photographs make me angry.