August 7, 2013 15:52
by Pesach Benson
Jonathan Schanzer (National Post) urges Washington to bankrupt Hamas. If Uncle Sam engages in a little arm-twisting with Qatar, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority, the Egyptian army will take care of the rest.
The Egyptian Army’s ongoing operations against the subterranean tunnels connecting Egypt to the Gaza Strip, which have long served as key arteries for bulk cash smuggling, are wreaking havoc on Hamas’s finances. One senior Israeli security official told me that, in the current environment, an additional reduction of 20-30% in Hamas’ revenues could “destroy” the movement . . .
Ala al-Rafati, the Hamas economy minister, recently told Reuters that these operations cost Hamas $230-million — about a tenth of Gaza’s GDP.
International diplomacy trying to defuse Egypt’s military/Muslim Brotherhood standoff collapsed. Now what?
Source material can be found at this site.
