Donations from Brazil to GazaWednesday 14/12/2016

 How does international aid benefit terrorist organizations?
Article by Leandro Duchovni Silva

For the full report: Donations from Brazil to Gaza

On July 20, 2010, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sanctioned a law (number 12.292) which allows for donations of up to R$ 25,000 000 to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority by the Brazilian government.

 Donations from Brazil to Gaza are controlled by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is an organization that has been providing food, medicine, and social services to the Palestinian people for 67 years. Unfortunately, UNRWA has never taken steps to withhold assistance to extremist groups; and in some cases, it has cooperated openly with terrorists. Now that Hamas is the ruling power in Gaza any international aid that UNRWA receives goes directly to this terrorist organization.

In just less than 5 years, Brazil has donated more than 24 million US dollars to Gaza in food and money, which goes directly to Hamas via UNRWA. The majority of the Brazilian population is unaware that this law exists because it’s sanctioning was never broadcast in the media. It would appear that the government is purposefully keeping Brazilians ignorant of this law and the consequent inflation of already high taxes.

Since Gaza is under the control of Hamas, one has to wonder whether international aid ever reaches the suffering populace it was intended for.  Experience tells us that most of the funds and supplies will end up in the hands of Hamas. “The funneling of international aid to finance terror by Hamas and other violent Islamist groups in the Gaza Strip is widespread and the world is hideously naive as regards the scope of the problem”, said Avi Dichter, former Shin Bet director and now the head of the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

 An in-depth look at Gaza will reveal UNRWA’s obligation to Hamas if it wants to continue to operate in Gaza. The problem goes even deeper, UNRWA workers are permitted to openly affiliate with terrorist groups, in fact, it will helps in getting a job. Yoni Fighel, a former Israeli military governor in the Palestinian territories notes that, “as long as UNRWA employees are members of Fatah, Hamas, or PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], they are going to pursue the interests of their party within the framework of their job … Who’s going to check up on them to see that they don’t? UNRWA? They are UNRWA.”

Furthermore, UNRWA supports Hamas, and other terrorist groups, as part of the Palestinian landscape. Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, a Middle East historian, notes that UNRWA institutions have not only produced terrorist ideologues; they have also produced terrorist masterminds like Ibrahim Maqadama, who “helped create the military structure of Hamas,” according to Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. Gold is cited as saying that at least 46 terrorist operatives were students in UNRWA schools.  Even UNRWA employees have been involved in terrorist attacks against civilians, with widespread reports of terrorism from UNRWA-supervised facilities, from schools to the transport of terrorists in UNRWA ambulances.

 Despite the years of hardship Brazil is facing, politicians are still donating precious money that the country desperately needs to finance terrorist organizations in Gaza. It would be reasonable to assume that if the population of Brazil had known about this law, and the siphoning of their money to terrorist organizations, these donations would not have been permitted.