Fatah ‘Inadvertently’ Gives Millions to Hamas
Charles Johnson
Wed Aug 8, 2007 at 9:20 am PDT • Views: 330
The “moderate” terrorists of Fatah “inadvertently” paid 2.3 million dollars to the “outlawed” terrorists of Hamas, out of the funds they were given by Israel. (And at this rate, I’m going to run out of scare quotes.)
It’s a complete mystery how such a thing could have happened. Probably a computer error. Abbas’ gov’t inadvertently pays salaries to outlawed Hamas militia.
The government of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas inadvertently paid one month’s salary to 3,500 members of the Hamas militia he outlawed, Finance Ministry officials said Wednesday.
The salaries were paid out of funds transferred by Israel, who specifically stipulated that the money mustn’t reach Hamas. The ministry ordered banks on Wednesday to cancel the deposits - totaling $2.3 million - made the day before, officials said in telephone interviews from the West Bank town of Ramallah. However, by the time the deposits were canceled, some of the militiamen had withdrawn the money, said Ahab Ghussen, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza.
“At first we thought that the people in Ramallah were showing regret and wanted to compensate the legitimate forces in Gaza, but we found that they still are displaying aggression toward their own people,” Ghussen said. [Right. —ed.]
It was unclear how much money militiamen withdrew.
UPDATE at 8/8/07 9:51:50 am:
The Haaretz article quoted above is apparently wrong in one little detail; it wasn’t a “month’s” salary—it was a full year.
Frank says: