Ascertain the truth without exploitation. Difficult task in a country in which, rather than truly cornering terrorists, the focus is on looking for scandals, real or presumed, to move the approval polls in one’s favor. It happens due to the investigation into the alleged financing of Hamas which led to the arrest of 9 people and the seizure of seven million euros. The story is now known: aSome non-profit organisations, in particular the “Palestinian Association in Italy”, of which Mohammad Hannoun is president, would have used the organizations to divert to Hamas the generous fundraising which should have instead reached the exhausted population of Gaza.
«Do not use the investigation to criminalize solidarity», the Ucoi (Union of Islamic Communities) immediately underlined, «but», it said forcefully, «using charity as a cover is a betrayal. If illegal financing conduct is proven, it must be rigorously prosecuted”. At the same time, however, the Union rejects «with the same firmness any attempt to use this investigation to criminalize an entire movement or humanitarian solidarity: helping civilians in a transparent and traceable way is legitimate, using charity as a cover, if proven, is a betrayal».
The banknotes found in 17 searches carried out by Digos (including the three offices of the Charity Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Genoa, Milan and Rome), in Turin, Bologna, Bergamo, Florence, Monza Brianza, Lodi, Sassuolo (Modena) remain seized. In all, underlines the prosecutor’s office, it was cash seized for one million and 80 thousand euros, found not only in the Abspp headquarters but also in the residences of the people under investigation. In one case, approximately 560 thousand euros had been hidden in a compartment created in a garage in Sassuolo.
Meanwhile, politics is split with mutual accusations of connivance and exploitation. And the emphasis with which (perhaps to divert attention from the simultaneous approval of the reform of the Court of Auditors?) on national TVs reported the news doesn’t help either. Starting from the definition of Hannoun as “leader of the Palestinians in Italy”, and not as president of an association called “Palestinians in Italy”, almost as if he represented, like an ambassador, or a delegate of the Palestinian National Authority, the entire Semitic people present in Italy. Until you ignore that the same Netanyahu, according to recent revelations by Yuval Diskin, former head of the Shin Bet, the Israeli security service contributed significantly to the growth of Hamas with the aim of weakening the Palestinian National Authority and prevent the birth of a Palestinian state. Already in 2015, the current finance minister, the settler Belazel Smotrich declared to the Israeli Knesset channel that «Hamas is an advantage and Abu Mazen (president of the PNA, ed.) is a burden».
Netanyahu has never hidden that he wants the isolation of Gaza with full control of the Strip by Hamas.
AND, while the images of the recent seizure, by the Genoa prosecutor’s office, of the millions of euros probably destined for the terrorist organization, come to mind, those of November 2018 also come to mind when entire suitcases full of dollars were seized while they were transiting through Qatar, via the Israeli government, to Hamas. Then we talked about evidence of financing strategy which between 2012 and 2018 aimed to strengthen terrorists. The funds, over a billion dollars, were coming transferred electronically from Qatar to Israel and, by Netanyahu’s government, then brought in cash to the Strip. The Israeli Prime Minister claimed at the time that it was about financing the weakening of the PA: «Maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state», Netanyahu stated.
