Despite Israeli Alerts, U.N. Transfers Thousands to Hamas Affiliates
BY BENNY AVNI - Special to the Sun
January 28, 2005
UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations agency transferred thousands of
dollars to a Palestinian Arab charity affiliated with terrorism long
after Israel warned of the terror connection, though the U.N. publicly
claimed payments to the organization had stopped.
The blunder points to trouble inside the U.N. Development Program, a
huge operation headed by Mark Maloch Brown, who has recently been
appointed Secretary-General Annan's chief of staff, largely for his
organizational skills and his ability to handle the press. The U.N.
plans to launch an internal probe as a result of the revelations
uncovered by The New York Sun.
According to a UNDP letter that was seen by the Sun, the agency
transferred the sum of $6,000 to an account in the Jenin branch of
Cairo Amman Bank in September 11, 2003. The account belongs to the
Jenin Zaka, or charity committee.
A subsequent letter from UNDP, dated October 3, 2003, written in
Arabic and addressed to the head of the Jenin organization, actually
states that the transfer was a mistake and demands a return of the
funds. "It was transferred to your account by mistake," the letter
states, adding that the money "was intended for the Tul Karem Charity
Committee."
Both committees were identified by the Israeli Defense Force as part
of a charity network affiliated with Hamas, the terror organization
that has boycotted the recent election in the Palestinian Arab areas.
The head of the Jenin committee, Ahmed Salaatnah, spent time in
Israeli jails between 1993 and 1995 for terrorist activities in the
Izz a Din al Kassem, the operational military branch of Hamas
responsible for a chain of suicide bombings.
The money transfers in the fall of 2003 are interesting because it was
made clear to the head of the UNDP office in Jerusalem, Timothy
Rothermel, by the IDF four months earlier that the charity
organizations were fronts for Hamas.
In a June 25, 2003, letter to the Israeli authorities Mr. Rothermel
acknowledged that he has "taken note" of Israeli concerns about the
Hamas af filiation, but claims that money transfers to them would stop
only once the "deteriorating humanitarian status" of the population
ended.
Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., exposed the UNDP
support for the two charity committees in a recent op-ed piece in the
Wall Street Journal. In a subsequent letter to the editor of the
Journal, U.N. undersecretary-general for communication, Shashi
Tharoor, claimed that after the June 25 letter, which acknowledged the
Israeli complaints, "no further payments were made by the U.N." to the
Hamas affiliates.
The documents, however, clearly show that at least one transfer of
thousands of dollars was made in September. Mr. Tharoor told the Sun
that he relied on information from UNDP. A UNDP spokesman, William
Orme, said yesterday that his agency is checking into the new facts,
and that if the documents discovered by the Sun are accurate, an
internal investigation will be launched immediately. "We were told no
payments were made following June 2003," he said. Mr. Maloch Brown was
not available for comment.
The gentle request to return the money, which was made by the UNDP's
Mr. Rothermel to the formerly jailed terrorist Mr. Salaatnah, makes
little difference, since according to Israeli intelligence sources
both the Jenin and the Tul Karem committees are part of the Hamas
civil infrastructure in the territories.
That infrastructure, according to an Israeli intelligence document
seen by the Sun, has turned the terror organization into the most
powerful political force there. The Jenin charity and its sister
organization in Tul Karem, which was founded in 1981, are part of the
Hamas vision of creating an Islamic state as an alternative to the
secular leadership of Fatah, now headed by the recently-elected
Mahmoud Abbas.
Both the Tul Karem and the Jenin committees were outlawed by Israel in
2002 for their terrorist connections. Unlike the U.N., which makes a
distinction between the terrorist and civilian parts of Hamas,
American and European authorities do not.
Israeli soldiers discovered documents in the office of the Tul Karem
committee that show direct connection to the now-infamous Holy Land
Foundation, the American-based Hamas charity that was shut down by the
Bush administration in December 2001, in a post-September 11 attempt
to shut down terror-funding charities.
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