The thousands missiles this Palestinian militant group has launched over Israeli territory made it clear that the financial aid it receives for allegedly social and political ends is instead being used to finance its terrorist operations in Middle East, in the tolerant sight of a disoriented and tired culture.
The terrorist movement receives financial aid to bomb Israel (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
The hostility displayed by Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya) towards enemies of the Salafi movement, is both doctrinaire and existential. From its inception in 1987, when it fought against Arafat’s PLO –despised for secular and decadent- to these days, when it has succeeded in taking control of the Gaza Strip, it has been promoting a radical holy war against all those who do not form part of the religious community that has been blessed by the Prophet (“I have created Man and Devil for the purpose of their worship” […]. They fear Allah and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors in order to extricate the country and the people from the desecration, filth, and evil”, reads article 3 of their charter. In furtherance of this vision of the world, this Palestinian organization has killed millions of civilians and military in Israeli territory, no matter they were Jewish, Christian or Muslim.
Hamas’ terrorism ultimately embodies what Hegel calls “freedom of the void” (Freiheit der Leere), an exercise aimed at destroying the existing order and the necessary expulsion of those who intend to support or restore it. The consequence of it is the ethical denial of my distinctiveness, my uniqueness, my particular way of living.
Paradoxically, against such an unyielding questioning of my own identity, we have been building an insubstantial humanism in the Western world. In other words, a culture that twists the reality of human conflicts by sticking to the technical neutrality of a stray normativism. A distorted pacifism that would rather escape from those who deny my values and my own social configuration. It’s the politically correct cowardice of leaders who would stop dead in their tracks in face of the controversy roused by the extreme violence, for the sake of maintaining fictitious balances or apparent consensus. In this thin-skin highly susceptible humanism, that betrays its own traditional roots, there are no enemies or friends or allies; there are no irreconcilable human differences; there are only stiff, shallow people who have been brought together by the universal egalitarianism that could only take place in an already completely disenchanted society.
Along this winding road, we have built legal architectures that require a different determination of the will to prevent them from becoming just skeletal legalisms. The adoption by the UN General Assembly of the Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999), as well as Security Council Resolutions 1267 (1999) and 1373 (2001), required of all members of the international society to immediately freeze funds destined to finance terrorist acts, persons and organizations. In order to implement this mandate, countries must take a position on public or private sponsors of present terrorism, such as Hamas and other groups that embrace the Islamist fanaticism.
Hamas militants in southern Gaza (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
Weakening or destroying the funds feeding these groups seems an appropriate and smart measure that allows delaying the physical confrontation with the terrorist threat –thus avoiding the fright such confrontation causes in today’s bad conscience– without falling in the paralysis entailed in a shallow borderless humanism.
However, this ideology that dithers when faced with the tragic destiny of modernity has ravaged already. The war beaten Europe knows it, and suffers it from within. The Latin America of progressive utopias appears to be distant and sidesteps this problem. During the recent conflict with the State of Israel, Hamas proved how useful it was to show itself as a legitimate political and social representation of the Palestinian people. By disabling the mandatory controls imposed for the global fight against terrorist financing, Hamas has received substantial funds allegedly designated for their humanitarian and assistance work, and has used them instead in their military and subversive machine. The result is that while more than 56% of Gaza inhabitants are poor and live in precarious development conditions, Hamas leaders are equipped with an arsenal of rockets worth several million dollars (of their own manufacture, such as the Qassam rockets with ranges from 3 to 40 km., and others imported via Iran, such as the Grad, with a 20 km range, or the Farj-5, with a 180 km range).
One of the main state sponsors of Hamas is Qatar, which, according to recent reports, has transferred to the Palestinian group more than 1.5 billion dollars in charitable aid. A recent judgment by a US district court established the involvement of Turkey, nothing less than a NATO member, in the financial support of Hamas: the Kurveit Turk Bank, based in Istanbul, where terrorists’ accounts are maintained open, has not been monitored, just like the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), a recurring fundraiser for Hamas. The judgment is important because it establishes how these illegitimate circuits use the cover of educational entities, such as the Islamic University of Gaza, known for being the top source for recruiting young people for Al-Qassam Brigades. In addition to these two countries of Sunni roots, mention should be made of Iran and their military wing in the region, Hezbollah, which, as established by Karmon and Azani or –among us- Chaya and Sierra, despite propagating the prevalence of the Shia Islam beliefs, are a strategic supplier for Sunni extremists, consistent with their common hate of Israel and the Jewish.
The terrorist activity of this organization would not be that strong and arrogant without the complex and extended network of contributions and donations (Zakaat) around the Dawah, that is, the call that every follower of Islam feels to fight for the transformation and improvement of the society as designed in the Coram. As shown by Levitt’s ground-breaking studies, this translates into a scheme of non-profit organizations, shell corporations and other cover mechanisms throughout the world, that allow those assets to be ultimately used in the armed fight against the unbelievers.
Hamas’ radical Islamism and a humanism with no concrete human beings are two faces of the same misfortune: they both suggest that the threat to the free spirits exceeds the Middle East scenario by far. The struggle for a new sacralization of what’s truly human, though difficult, turns out to be the only option worthy considering vis-a-vis such a sad and corrosive nihilism.
Juan Félix Marteau @jfmarteau
Professor of Criminology and Director of the Center for Hemisphere Security, Terrorism, and Financial Crime Studies (University of Buenos Aires).
https://www.infobae.com/opinion/2021/05/28/hamas-y-el-humanismo/
