Flow of Saudis' Cash to Hamas Is Scrutinized. By DON VAN NATTA Jr. with TIMOTHY L.
O'BRIENPublished: September 17, 2003 Nearly a year ago, Khalid Mishaal, a senior leader of Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization, attended a charitable fund-raising conference here where he talked at length with Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto Saudi ruler. According to a summary of the meeting written by a Hamas official, Mr. Mishaal and other Hamas representatives thanked their Saudi hosts for continuing ''to send aid to the people through the civilian and popular channels, despite all the American pressures exerted on them.'' ''This is indeed a brave posture deserving appreciation,'' the Hamas officials said, the document said.
Today Mr. As relations between the Israelis and Palestinians continue to deteriorate, in no small part because of recent Hamas-sponsored suicide bombings, Saudis have come under fresh scrutiny by American and European investigators here and in Israel for their political and financial support of the group.
Flow of Saudis' Cash to Hamas Is Scrutinized. The Real Connection between Iran and Hamas. By Matthew Levitt Iran’s active state sponsorship of Middle East terrorist groups is well documented, from terrorist and insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan to Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas and PIJ in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Iranian regime has been described by U.S. officials as the “central banker of terrorism” and has a nine-digit line item in its budget to support terrorism, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist groups annually. Illustrating how the support for terrorism is part of an official government policy, Iran has used its state-owned financial institutions to dole out these funds. For most, this is not news. Even the technocratic Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a multilateral body that operates by consensus and includes Russia and China, has issued a series of warnings about Iran’s deceptive financial practices, including its money laundering and terror financing. That’s right. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development - Wikipedia, the. The Holy Land Foundation was the largest Islamic charity in the United States. Headquartered in Richardson, Texas,[1] it was originally known as Occupied Land Fund.[2] In December 2001, the U.S. government designated HLF a terrorist organization, seized its assets, and closed the charity.
In 2004, a federal grand jury in Dallas, Texas charged HLF and five former officers and employees with providing material support to Hamas and related offenses. The prosecution did not allege that HLF funded violence; rather, its theory was that HLF distributed charity through local zakat (charity) committees located in the West Bank; that Hamas controlled those zakat committees; and that by distributing charity through Hamas-controlled committees, HLF helped Hamas win the "hearts and minds" of the Palestinian people. The first trial, in 2007, ended in the partial acquittal of one defendant and a hung jury on all other charges.
The jury did not return any guilty verdicts. Chronology of events[edit]