Palestinian news sources reported earlier this month that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised $300 million to the Gaza-based terrorist organization Hamas. If true, this pledge would cover nearly half of Hamas’s reported $769 million budget next year, and would make Turkey its primary benefactor.
Hamas and Turkish officials deny the report, and Hamas probably won’t submit to an external audit any time soon. But let there be no doubt: Hamas is for sale, thanks to the Iranian nuclear program and the Arab Spring.
In the past year or two, Iranian proxies have fallen on hard times. The U.S. and Europe responded to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by enacting tranche after tranche of financial sanctions, and Iran is increasingly unable to make good on its pledges. According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, this means hard times for long-time proxy Hezbollah. And despite Hamas’s public statements about increasing its budget by 22 percent in 2012, it’s likely hurting, too. It was widely reported that the group failed to make payroll in Gaza this summer.
{Weekly Standard/Matzav.com Newscenter}
So much for “moderate allies of the West”.