For reasons that are still unclear, Hamas’ financial supporter Qatar has stopped payments to the terror group. This has led Hamas, in turn, to stop paying the salaries of 50,000 government employees in Gaza. More on the financial crisis in Gaza can be found here: “Hamas unable to pay salaries in Gaza after Qatari aid delay, officials say,” Reuters, July 16, 2023:
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers have been unable to pay salaries for 50,000 public sector workers, with officials in part blaming a delay in a monthly payroll grant from Qatar, a crucial aid donor to the impoverished Palestinian enclave.
The government of Qatar has been the main financial supporter of Hamas in Gaza. Why has it suddenly stopped its aid? This may reflect a desire to win favor in Washington by ending aid for a group that the U.S. has designated as a “terrorist organization.” Or perhaps Qatar, which has had a rapprochement with the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council that had formerly boycotted it, has now been pressured by fellow members of the GCC to cease supporting Hamas, the Gazan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, that is regarded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a persistent threat to their family monarchies.
The salary crisis has sparked an unusual amount of criticism on social media in Gaza, including by some of Hamas’ own employees. A drop in tax revenue and a jump in spending have made the situation even more difficult.
Hamas in Gaza has been hit financially not only because of Qatar’s cut in aid, but because the Gazans, as a result of their increasing impoverishment, now pay less in taxes, while the government’s spending, in order to support the ever-greater numbers of people living below the poverty line, steadily increases. Poverty, too, helps explain a rise in illnesses, which in turn requires more spending by the Hamas government on medical care.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents live in poverty, and the economy is dependent on foreign aid. Qatar has paid hundreds of millions of dollars since 2014 for construction projects. It currently pays $30 million per month in stipends for families, fuel for electricity, and to help pay public sector wages.
Qatar had been donating $30 million each month to keep Gaza afloat. That money has paid for essential services – support for poor families, electricity, and the wages of 50,000 government employees. Now Doha has cut that aid, and Hamas has had to stop paying the salaries of those government employees, who had been surviving, just, since 2013, on 60% of the salaries they were officially to be paid. And now even that is gone. Those employees have no other sources of income.
Hamas officials say no salary aid has been received since just over half of a $5-million grant to support the May payroll. The reason for the delay was not clear.
In Doha, Qatar’s International Media Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The government [in Gaza] is going through a stifling and escalating financial crisis, with a continuous increase in the deficit month after month, which led to the delay of salaries this month,” Awni Al-Basha, the Hamas-appointed deputy minister, told Hamas Aqsa radio.
“We are making significant efforts to pay the salaries, and we hope to do so at the end of this week,” he said.
Without the money that Qatar used to provide and no longer does so, it is hard to see how the salaries of 50,000 government employees will be paid. Is there perhaps another donor willing to step into the breach – which can only mean Iran?
Monthly payroll costs Hamas NIS 125 million ($34.5 million) per month, said Basha….
Qatar’s previous aid amounted to $30 million a month, which almost equalled the amount of monthly payroll costs. Even with that, public sector employees have not been paid their full salaries in a decade; most of them have been receiving only 60% of what they were due.. Those 50,000 salaried government employees are now not being paid at all. If this continues, it will necessarily lead to mass layoffs in the government and to an even greater level of impoverishment in the Strip, where more than half the people already live below the poverty line.
“With 60% (of salaries) we used to meet the basics of our needs at home. What happens when the salary is completely cut off?” said Mahmoud Al-Farra, an employee at the Hamas government media office. “This a big disappointment.”…
Having your salary “completely cut off” is a lot more than a “big disappointment.” It’s a financial nightmare.
Now that the financial condition in Gaza has become so dire, voices are now raised on social media by those Gazans whose desperation makes them willing to criticize Hamas rule directly, despite the possible consequences at the hands of a vindictive regime.
Just two Hamas leaders have each managed to accumulate fortunes of $2.5 billion
Some Gazans even suggest that the crisis isn’t real, but that the Hamas rulers have been helping themselves to even more of the donors’ aid than in the past. Gazans are well aware that there is massive corruption in the Hamas administration, though the staggering size of it is still not common knowledge. Just two Hamas leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa ibn Marzouk, have each managed to accumulate fortunes of $2.5 billion. In addition, there are 600 “Hamas millionaires,” consisting of the top echelon of Hamas members and their relatives, who live in luxurious villas in Gaza, in communities hidden from view.
600 “Hamas millionaires,” live in luxurious villas in Gaza
We hear a lot about Hamas’ inroads in the West Bank, where it has become more popular than the Palestinian Authority. But in Gaza, it is Hamas that is now losing favor because of the economic collapse, and it may be replaced by other, even more extreme groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose members are perceived as less corrupt – possibly because they haven’t been in power and so have had no chance to divert donor aid to themselves. Perhaps Qatar will in the end come to Hamas’ financial rescue, renewing its aid, but that would mean ignoring the wishes of its powerful neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who regard Hamas, accurately, as the Gazan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and hence a threat to their regimes.
For more on the economic degringolade in Gaza, where the Hamas lords of misrule keep begging for funds, and so far are not being heeded, watch this space.
..
Michigan: Leftist calls CAIR top dog ‘hateful’ as all-Muslim council
removes two commissioners who flew Pride flag
JUL 17, 2023 5:00 PM
BY ROBERT SPENCER
The Leftist-Islamic alliance continues to break down over the Left’s insistence on pushing its fascination with sexual perversion and deviance upon everyone.
Hamtramck City Council
All-Muslim Michigan council votes to REMOVE two commissioners
who broke new rule banning flying of Pride flags on city property
by Stephen M. Lepore, DailyMail.com, July 14, 2023:
A Michigan city with an all-Muslim council that made waves banning LGBTQ+ Pride flags on public buildings has removed two members of a city commission for breaking the new law.
Hamtramck, population 27,000, is an enclave surrounded by Detroit. More than 40 percent of residents were born in other countries, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and a significant share are of Yemeni or Bangladeshi descent (read: Muslim).
On Tuesday, the council unanimously approved removing Russ Gordon and Cathy Stackpoole from the Hamtramck Human Rights Commission for flying the rainbow flag over a public sidewalk, with a member saying they ‘defied the rule of law.’
It became the first city in America to have a majority Muslim population in 2015 and in January 2022, became the first to have an all-Muslim city council and mayor in Amer Ghalib.
In mid-June, the council voted to ban LGBTQ+ flags from publicly owned flagpoles after a tense hourslong meeting that raised questions about discrimination, religion and the city’s reputation for welcoming newcomers.
They also unanimously approved a ban on the commission flying any flags on city property.
‘This Council believes in fairness, neutrality towards our residents, and the rule of law, amongst other things for this community. We passed a resolution recently to do just that, and two of our sworn commissioners outright defied it, and did what they wanted,’ Councilmember Khalil Refai told Fox News.
Gordon was the chair of the commission, who’s purpose is ‘to promote mutual understanding and respect for multiculturalism and diversity, advocate for peace and justice and encourage tolerance and constructive communication.’
‘You guys are welcome,’ council member Nayeem Choudhury said when the flag ban was voted on. ‘(But) why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You´re already represented. We already know who you are.’
Some members of the all-Muslim council said the pride flag clashes with the beliefs of some members of their faith. Businesses and residents aren´t prohibited from displaying a pride flag on their own property.
‘We want to respect the religious rights of our citizens,’ Choudhury said….
Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan branch of the [Hamas-linked — RS] Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights advocacy group, said Hamtramck’s strict flag policy doesn’t discriminate against anyone.
‘If there was one group that was not being granted access to something while others were then we would have a problem,’ Walid said.
He said some Muslims who oppose an LGBTQ+ flag are no different than conservative members of other religions with similar views.
‘Flags carry symbolism. Those symbols carry social and political messages,’ Walid said.
‘It is clear that you are either ignorant, hateful and or spiteful,’ said a transgender speaker….
Typical adolescent response by LGBTQ. Who else gets to fly their flag on public property?
Colorado: Teen converts to Islam, says if he couldn’t go to
Middle East, he planned to build a bomb in US
JUL 18, 2023 8:00 AM
BY ROBERT SPENCER
The story below goes out of its way to note that Meyer was at odds with the people at the local mosque. The implication is that this mosque doesn’t teach anything but unicorns and rainbows. And that may be so, but why weren’t the people there able to convince Meyer that he was misunderstanding his new, peaceful, benign religion? Why was he so susceptible to the ISIS version of Islam? Why are so many other converts as well? And why are authorities so unanimously uninterested in such questions?
===========================
Castle Rock man charged for terrorist ties
by Colleen Flynn, KDVR, July 17, 2023:
DENVER (KDVR) — An 18-year-old man was arrested at Denver International Airport on Friday for his alleged connection to a known foreign terrorist group, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado said Monday.
Davin Daniel Meyer was charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He made his first court appearance on Monday, according to the release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado. “According to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, Meyer pledged an oath of allegiance to the leader of ISIS and intended to travel to serve as a fighter for ISIS in Iraq,” the release said.
The FBI Denver field office, along with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, is investigating the case.
Someone who knew Meyer contacted the DougCo Sheriff’s Office in June 2022 to alert them of their concern for Meyer’s behavior, an arrest warrant read.
Between then and November, the FBI and the sheriff’s office communicated with the person who contacted them. That person told investigators that Meyer used to be a white supremacist but began practicing Islam, possibly as early as October 2020.
The individual told investigators that Meyer had begun watching radical online content and became even more involved after attending an “eight-month-long camp between 2021 and 2022 that focused on mental health and behavior treatment,” the affidavit said.
The person said Meyer talked about traveling to Syria to fight and was willing to kill himself and others.
“In October 2022, the individual informed the FBI that MEYER had stated that if he could not go to the Middle East, he planned to get fertilizer and build a bomb in the United States,” the affidavit read.
Too bad! He could have gotten some fertilizer and planted a garden and done something useful with his life.
The document said Meyer had received mental health treatment including residential treatment programs. Staff members reported that Meyer refused medication citing his religious beliefs and that he was diagnosed with “autism spectrum disorder; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood; specific learning disorder with impairment in mathematics; and major depressive disorder, recurrent episode, moderate.”
As with transgenderism the chicken and egg question arises. I have been claiming for years that jihadi Muslims are insane, but were they insane when they became radicalized or are they insane because they became radicalized?
Meyer had issue with local mosque
One investigator believed that Meyer followed the ideology of ISIS and Sunni extremist groups, the affidavit read.
Meyer reached out to a local mosque that allegedly did not allow radical sects to worship there, about his disdain that women are allowed there. The mosque replied to him that he had violated a code of conduct and issued him a warning….
UK's contested migration deterrence plan set to become law
Britain’s controversial plan to deter migrants without papers from landing on British shores
was on Tuesday poised to become law, prompting criticism from the United Nations.
Issued on: 18/07/2023 - 15:58; 3 min
Text by: NEWS WIRES
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel after being rescued
during a small boat incident in the English Channel, July 18th, 2023. © Gareth Fuller, AP
The legislation would outlaw asylum claims by all arrivals via the Channel and other “illegal” routes, and transfer them to third countries, such as Rwanda.
It was proposed in response to years of growing numbers of dangerous cross-Channel journeys from northern France in small boats.
Opposition to the bill was finally crushed at a late night sitting just hours before a barge that will be used to house migrants arrived at a port on England’s south coast.
The Bibby Stockholm barge moored in Dorset’s Portland Port is expected to house 500 asylum-seekers from later this month.
500 migrants are about two weeks' worth of asylum seekers. There will have to be a very busy processing unit established to keep the barge from overflowing.
The UN refugee agency condemned the passage of the government’s Illegal Migration Bill as a “breach of international law” and warned it would expose refugees to “grave risks”.
Of course, they did! They are a Refugee agency.
“This new legislation significantly erodes the legal framework that has protected so many,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
'So many'! It encourages migrants to risk their lives on the English Channel, and it brings more crime to Britain. So, who is being protected?
It also set a “worrying precedent for dismantling asylum-related obligations that other countries, including in Europe, may be tempted to follow”, added UN human rights chief Volker Turk.
We can only hope. If Islamic migrants continue to pile into Europe, it will be just a matter of time before all of Europe is in a state of civil war. How can that fail to be obvious to the UN?
Perilous route
Opponents in the unelected upper house had sought to soften the bill by proposing changes.
But amendments to parts of the legislation including modern slavery protections and limits on how long child migrants can be detained were voted down in a series of votes.
The bill will now become law following the formality of “royal assent” from King Charles III.
More than 45,000 migrants arrived on the shores of southeast England on small boats in 2022 -- a 60-percent annual increase on a perilous route that has been used by more people every year since 2018.
Immigration -- both legal and illegal -- has long been a key political issue in the UK and was one of the main battlegrounds of the Brexit referendum in 2016, which saw the country leave the European Union.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has vowed to “stop the boats”, has insisted the Rwanda plan would have an important deterrent effect by showing that no-one who arrives illegally in the UK will be allowed to stay.
The UN, however, says the 1951 Refugee Convention “explicitly recognises that refugees may be compelled to enter a country of asylum irregularly”.
So, are the English Channel migrants being compelled by France to reach England? What a specious argument!
The Conservative government’s Interior Minister in the upper house Simon Murray said the sheer number of arrivals had “overwhelmed” the UK’s asylum system and was costing taxpayers £6 million ($7.8 million) a day in accommodation costs.
Legal challenges
“If people know there is no way for them to stay in the UK, they won’t risk their lives and pay criminals thousands of pounds to arrive here illegally,” he said.
“It is therefore only right that we stop the boats and break the business model of the criminal gangs exploiting vulnerable people,” he added.
The Rwanda plan, announced by then-prime minister Boris Johnson last year, was blocked at the last minute by the European Court of Human Rights, which is separate to the EU, and is still mired in legal challenges.
The UK government last month said it would appeal a judgement by three Court of Appeal judges who ruled that Rwanda could not be considered a safe third country.
Sunak said he respected the court but “fundamentally” disagreed with the judges’ conclusions.
To date, no deportation flights to Rwanda have taken place.
Rights groups accuse Rwanda -- ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people -- of cracking down on free speech and opposition.
Sounds like about half the countries in the world, if not more.
(AFP)
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