LtE's 30/1 - Tuesday Morning Edition

Setting Good Money on Fire After Setting Bad Money on Fire in Gaza
By Vince Coyner January 24, 2024

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Over the decade-and-a-half since Hamas was elected, Gaza has received approximately $40 billion in support from around the world. That included $5 billion from the United Nations, almost $2 billion from Qatar, $20 billion from the Palestinian Authority (which itself receives billions annually from the world community), as well as over a billion dollars each from the US, Europe, and Iran.

The average works out to about $3 billion annually for a population of approximately 2.3 million people or about $1,300 per person living in Gaza. That $1,300 makes up a little less than half of the per capita income of the average citizen of Gaza. Other sources of income are primarily small businesses and agriculture.

We’re told that the citizens of Gaza live in poverty that Israel imposes upon them. The approximate $3,000 per capita income of the citizens of Gaza puts them at about 165 in the world rankings, ahead of 30 nations, most in Africa.

However, the reality is that, if Palestinians live in poverty, it’s the fault of Hamas. The leaders of Hamas have stolen at least $11 billion of the money that was supposed to go to the citizens of the Gaza Strip. They enjoy that fortune relaxing safely in their multimillion-dollar compounds in Qatar.

What’s more, and far more deadly, is that Hamas spends billions of dollars a year on things that have nothing to do with supporting Gazan citizens. Firstly, they have spent over $1 billion on a 350-mile-long network of tunnels under Gaza, a 141-square-mile strip of land. Every mile of those tunnels represents piping or concrete or steel that could have gone to building schools, shopping malls, hospitals or anything else that could have positively affected the lives of Gazans. But they didn’t.

Those tunnels had to be used for something, of course, and that something was and is preparing to attack and actually attacking Israel. Of course, to do that, they need weapons and Hamas has spent $5 billion on weapons over the last decade and a half. Everything from small arms to bombs to missiles.

Together, the total theft for the tunnels and the military spending equals $17 billion or 42% of the world’s contributions to Gaza over that 15-year period. 

But here’s the thing: As bad as it was that Hamas squandered at least 42% of Gaza’s donations, the reality is that the real damage isn’t the money. The real damage is that, instead of focusing the people on building a thriving, robust economy, Hamas instead focused on teaching children to hate Israel and launching tens of thousands of rockets into Israel.

So, Hamas pushed the hate narrative and launched missiles into Israel on a regular basis, actions that would, of course, prompt reprisals, which would, in turn, reinforce the hate. It was and is a never-ending cycle of victimization, hate, and poverty. Hamas, not the Gazans, profited from this. Yet, somehow, the money keeps coming... because most relevant actors don’t care about actual progress or peace.

Nonetheless, they say that hindsight is 20/20. That’s true, and so too is the reality that, had Hamas taken a different path and its leaders pushed for living in peace with Israel rather than cultivating a perpetual war footing, we wouldn’t be watching Gaza turned into a parking lot. But they didn’t, and we are.

This is simply another example of leaders using their citizens as cannon fodder so that they can accumulate fortune and power. When the dust settles, one can only hope the Gazan people look at the difference between their world and the luxury their leaders enjoy and decide to vote for a different path forward, one that doesn’t include perpetual war and tragedy. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.