Britain Is Funding Hamas | Here’s the Proof
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In The Matrix, they're talking about the risk that this MOSD is linked, is controlled by Hamas. And the part, besides the fact that Hamas would be identifying the beneficiaries, what really seemed to bother the British government was not this potential for aid diversion, but that their reputation could be at risk.

Hello and welcome to State of the Nation with me, Alain Vivi. Where on earth is Hamas getting its money from to finance jihad? Seriously, where on earth? Our listeners of this podcast will know about Hamas's three main patrons. They know about Qatar, which gave money to Hamas for years in suitcases with Israel's consent, hoping to buy quiet from Hamas. Prime Minister downplaying it this week, but Qatar, a major state sponsor of Hamas,

They'll know about Iran, which bankrolled the organization to surround Israel with a ring of fire. You'll know about Turkey, which even treats Hamas terrorists in its jails. Listeners also know that Hamas gets money by hijacking humanitarian aid, that it sells it for extortionate prices at the black market, that when Israel switched off the taps, that meant it no longer had money to pay its fighters, putting it in a serious financial crunch. Hamas has money.

We know about UNRWA, the UN agency whose staff took part in October 7th. So many principals and deputy principals, operatives and Hamas's military wing. We know how by taking care of education and social services and wealth care, UNRWA allowed the government of Gaza, Hamas, to focus on what it does best, building tunnels and waging jihad against the Jews.

But Hamas gets its money from somewhere else and this week there was a shocking headline. Britain. Britain directly financing Hamas. Britain partnering with the UN, partnering with Hamas to give cash to Hamas.

It was a shocking revelation, so shocking I didn't think it was true. But it is. And NGO Monitor has the receipt. So I'm glad to be joined now by Anne Herzblug, the legal advisor of NGO Monitor, the guardian of the guardians who is responsible for this terrific expose. Anne, how are you? Good, how are you? Great to be here. Good to have you here. Help me make some sense of this. What is going on? Why is Britain funneling money to Hamas?

Well, it's a story actually that's been going on a long time. It certainly didn't start last week when the story aired. And it's really been happening since Israel left Gaza in 2005. And we have the situation where we have 13 UN agencies and about 70 international NGOs that have been operating in the territory, all of whom receive money.

And where are they getting their money from? Governments, the EU. And the UK has been one of the primary funders of this aid network for many years. And it turned out a couple months ago, we came across a document. One of the things also that's important to note is that over the past, I'd say, five years or so, there's been this trend within humanitarian aid to switch to cash-based funds.

aid rather than giving, you know, bags of flour, food. There's been this trend where these groups want to start giving out cash vouchers. And the UK has really been a pioneer in this system. And so we uncovered a few months ago a document where they were talking about how they are implementing this cash-based system in Gaza in conjunction with UNICEF.

And one of the main partners involved in that is this MOSD, Ministry of Social Development, in Gaza, which of course is run by Hamas, controlled by Hamas. So hang on, let me get this straight. Britain is taking taxpayer pounds and giving it to a United Nations program that is partnering with a Hamas ministry to hand out cash?

Yes, that is what is so eye-popping here. Now, it's not surprising that governments like the UK are giving money to UN agencies. That's very common. And that in and of itself has a lot of problems, which we can get into. But in this particular case, from the document we found, UNICEF is working with this Ministry of Social Development to get the beneficiary lists.

So that means this ministry is deciding who gets the money, according to this document, which is quite shocking. Yeah, and presumably Hamas isn't really giving it to needy civilians and is using it to funnel money. But I mean, it's just such a staggering, such a staggering allegation that I really want you to spell out the evidence. How do we know this?

So how we know this is, again, a few months ago, we actually were looking into this issue regarding the United States because USAID had been funding cash-based programs with a couple NGOs, U.S.-based NGOs. So we alerted the media as well as the United States government that we had found these grants that were highly troubling.

But then in the course of that research, we also uncovered this document that was authored in 2022 by the consulate general in Jerusalem, the British consulate general,

And they were talking about... Which is not actually a consulate. The Consulate General is Britain's effective diplomatic office to the Palestinians, and it's located in Israel's capital city. Yes. So that's, again, a whole other can of worms. So in this document, they're outlining, they're discussing their humanitarian aid program between 2022 and 2026,

And what was shocking to us was we saw, you know, they're having this involvement in this cash program. And in the document, they discuss the risks of this program. They have a risk matrix. And in the matrix, they're talking about risk.

the risk that this MOSD is linked, is controlled by Hamas. And the part, besides the fact that Hamas would be identifying the beneficiaries, what really seemed to bother the British government was not this potential for aid diversion, but that their reputation could be at risk if this became public, if this was found out. So then these-

And yet it has been found out. And I don't know how much they're reeling from the revelation. And I had a look at this document. They identify the risk of aid diversion, real or imagined, as being severe. And they decide to go ahead with it anyway. Why does Britain decide to give money to a UN agency partnering with Hamas?

despite knowing the significant risk of it going to Hamas. And it's not like Britain is one of the countries that doesn't think Hamas is a terrorist organization. That's what's so crazy here. Hamas is prescribed as a terrorist organization under UK law. Yeah, and in fact, when the embassy responded to the Channel 12 news segments, they said providing funding to Hamas is a crime. So they're well aware of the problems of giving money to Hamas.

or involving Hamas and money transfers. This is kind of beyond belief. But I think, you know, this is certainly a problem in this case with the UK, but it's really a bigger problem. It's not restricted to the UK. We've seen this many governments, the EU, the UN. I think it's a couple of things. I think, first of all, and this will be, let's say, the most charitable explanation, right?

They have they identify and which is true. They have identified people in need and they believe that providing the need to these people is worth the risk of a diversion.

Just the VA risk of aid diversion. Right. So they've made that calculus that the aid that they need to give is way more important than this aid diversion, although they're not taking into account, of course, the long-term consequences of aid diversion, which we, of course, have all seen starting on October 7th and leading to the disaster that has gripped the region the past year and a half. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a bigger question. You know, a bigger question not just in the UK. It's a bigger question about the whole approach to international aid in Gaza. Why does Gaza need to be treated as an eternal welfare recipient? Why do Palestinians in Gaza get told that Gaza is not their real home, that they're refugees, that they have a right to relocate to Jaffa, and until they do that, that they get not only free healthcare and education, but cash at the expense of the British taxpayer. I mean, if someone offered you...

unlimited cash from Britain until you get to move to Tel Aviv, you'd become a terrorist as well, wouldn't you, with that sort of incentive structure? Instead of working to bring down Hamas or trying to generate economic self-sufficiency, they just keep Gaza

permanently dependent on welfare, despite knowing that it's going to an organized crime group that's running interference for the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's absolutely wild. And just when we say Hamas being the government of Gaza and the Ministry of Social Development, am I getting the name right? Yep. Yeah. Is headed by a charming gentleman called Razi Hamad. Correct. What can you tell us about Razi Hamad?

Well, he is the person that we may all remember appeared on Al Jazeera, I believe, saying that if they could, they would commit October 7th over and over again. October 8th, October 10th, October 1st, May 1st, he said. Everything we do is justified. Exactly. It was Lebanese TV, actually. Yes, the charming individual involved, you know, in charge of this ministry. He was appointed in 2019. And, you know, it...

And this was the other thing, though, in addition to, let's say, wanting to help Gazans. And you raised the point. This is the point. I think a lot of people in this sector, in the humanitarian aid sector, in the governments that are dealing with these aid issues, it's a very narrow group of people and they have a hive mind.

And a lot of them, unfortunately, share this ideology, you know, so it's very hard to break out of that. And, you know, in the most extreme case, we see UNRWA, where they're peddling fantasies of eliminating Israel and indoctrinating generations of children. But we also see that in these other groups, you know, when we've been we've been looking at this issue for close to 20 years now.

But when you look even at what the UN calls the humanitarian country plan for the Palestinians, the number one goal is political. The number one strategic things that they speak about to carry out their objectives is filing negative reports against Israel in the UN. It's completely political. This is not

A lot of the things we see are not humanitarian aid as one would think of humanitarian aid. When you ask someone on the street, what does humanitarian aid mean? Most people would say building houses, making wells, food. That's not what we see here. A lot of the humanitarian aid is actually for political campaigns, right?

And the interesting thing, too, is when and although the UN has gotten a lot less transparent about these projects, a lot of times what you would see on the project descriptions on UNOCHA's website, because they coordinate putting together donors and NGOs and UN agencies, is you would see things like as part of this project, we will issue five press releases, right?

What do you need to issue a press release for? You know, and why in advance are you already coming up with the press releases you need to issue? You know, things like that. And for reports that are just for complete political purposes, they don't have any other purpose. They're not reducing conflict here.

So again, this problem has many facets and just this UK funding we found was one of the most egregious examples of it.

patently, patently clear that these organizations, they claim they're neutral, right? Which on a charitable interpretation says they're apathetic about whether Hamas remains in power or not. It means they're neutral on the question about whether Hamas should run Gaza or not. But it's worse than that because for 20 years they have had to work with the government of Gaza Hamas in order to operate there. Hamas has laid down the terms on which they can operate and they have to accept the rules of the game. And the rules of the game obviously include

massive aid diversion by Hamas. When I get asked, while the aid agencies deny that Hamas is hijacking any aid, I say, these are the same agencies that say they have no idea how Hamas built 400 miles of military tunnels using concrete that was meant to go to civilian reconstruction. I mean, if...

Either they're completely incompetent because that went under their noses and this did too, or they're lying in order to cover up their complicity in how Hamas has hijacked international aid and international welfare in order to build its war machine. And I wonder...

I mean, how much oversight do these organizations have over their own programs inside Gaza? The aid workers inside Gaza, the people who are doing this work, are they, you know...

blonde Norwegians with blue helmets and blue eyes? Or are these local Palestinians who are embedded in the same clan structure in which Hamas is embedded and who ultimately fear for their lives if they put a foot out of line and see where the money is and go after the money and power, which is Hamas. And they're either openly complicit with it or at best, at best, cowed because Hamas is an authoritarian state. That's just the reality. Yeah, I mean...

First of all, what's ridiculous is when you look at the aid parlance, and this is in the UK document as well, they refer to the Hamas ministries as the, quote, de facto authorities. So in any UN report, you will rarely see the word Hamas. It's always the de facto authorities. So as an initial matter, they euphemize and erase Hamas for what it is. So that's the first thing they do in this step.

Now, I've been saying from the beginning, this is like the monkeys, you know, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. There is no way that these organizations who have been operating for 20 years in Gaza did not know what was going on. A hundred percent. Of course they did. Lazarini should be in jail. Lazarini should be in jail for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Yes.

I believe that 100%. And if Hale Neuer has anything to do with it, he will be. Yeah.

We'll see what happens. We'll all walk to Zola. It'll be successful. But this is beyond UNRWA. I always say UNRWA is the tip of the iceberg. That's the one we know most about. It's the most egregious, but it's not the only one. And the other thing is, I mean, I've had in the past issues with UNICEF before. We found in 2017 that UNICEF was partnering with NGOs linked to the PFLP. And we had found...

Some of these NGOs participating in a PFLP ceremony where children were dressed up as terrorists with masks and the keffiyeh is the full garb. And I showed these pictures to a very senior UNICEF person.

And she shrugged and then said, well, you know, the U.N. doesn't consider the PFLP a terrorist organization. And the same thing is with Hamas. They're not on any U.N. terror lists. So this is another way in which the system has been able to operate because the U.N., again, does not consider Palestinian terror groups to be terrorists. And so I don't know if they have any idea.

vetting or restrictions on how the or monitoring of the aid and I'd and because the donor governments just give it to the UN, then they can wash their hands of it. And it's very doesn't have any oversight. But when Britain gives money to UNICEF, it doesn't follow up afterwards with hang on, where did this money go? How do we know it reached its recipients?

Well, that's what's unknown here because in the document we found, they say that there's independent third-party monitoring. Well, I'd like to see how independent it is because normally when we see independent third parties,

third-party reports to the extent they are publicly available. It's generally other NGOs reporting on other NGOs or people who were previously associated with that organization in question. So of course they're not independent or impartial. So we don't know, but, but,

It's not public. So so they can claim they're doing this third party monitoring. But I'll say this. When we last year, we did a freedom of information request to the British governments and took them to court to try to get information. They were giving a lot of money to an NGO called the Norwegian Refugee Council.

And in turn, the Norwegian Refugee Council works with partners in Gaza. And we asked the very simple question, who are your partners? We asked the British government because they used to publish this information. And then lo and behold, around 2019, this information disappeared from the UK website and from the UN websites. So you could not find out who these partners were. And it was around the time we started discovering the PFLP links to some of these groups.

So we filed a freedom of information request with the government and guarding this information as if it was a nuclear secret, the government would not give us the names and we took them to court and we had an official of the British government under oath in the court proceedings. And she admitted that while they did vet the Norwegian refugee council, they did no vetting of subcontractors. So, um,

And I'm sure it's the same thing with UNICEF. I am sure they say, oh, UNICEF is a trusted partner. We'll leave it to them. So if this is not the case, the onus is on the British government to come clean. Do they do vetting of UNICEF's partners? And the other amazing thing in that document was the way they claimed they were going to mitigate the risk.

of working with this MOSD for the beneficiary lists is that they were going to have a local partner help them make sure that the lists were legit. But of course, they don't name that partner. So who is this partner working with UNICEF

to help ensure the integrity of the lists. And of course, they don't stay. And I'm sure if we heard who it was, it would raise a lot of red flags just based on what we've seen elsewhere. I mean, just staggering. Staggering how these countries not only outsource their oversight to...

agencies that have been seriously compromised, but also their sense of moral authority. You know, one of the hardest things I have as, you know, kind of an unofficial spokesman for Israel is the question, but UNICEF says you can't seriously be claiming that wrong, but the Norwegian Refugee Council, you know, as if these are the ultimate arbiters of moral authority and not

deeply political organizations that have been running interference for Hamas and are completely complicit in laundering money for it. I mean, it's staggering. And the other thing is there are plenty of case studies. So you may remember from about 2016, the head of World Vision in Gaza, who was Mahmoud Khalabi,

Palestinian from Gaza, was heading the World Vision's Gaza branch. And he was arrested for funneling, diverting $40 million of World Vision's money. And he was arrested by Israel, tried in Be'er Sheva and convicted. I believe he was released actually in one of the hostage exchanges.

And when he was arrested, how did now what would a normal person say when they learned that one of their what would a business say if they learned one of their employees embezzled 40 million dollars from that?

You would be horrified. You would be like, oh my God, we must investigate. We must make sure this doesn't happen again. We have to see what's going on. What was their response in all of the European governments and the EU and the NGOs? It was, Israel is shutting down civil society. Israel is torturing this man in prison. Complete garbage.

And instead, it should have set off alarm bells. Wow, the head of World Vision stole that money? What the heck else is going on here? And the other crazy thing was at the time, World Vision said, oh, our budget's only, you know, $5 million. There's no way he could have diverted 40. What we found, they actually had a bank account in Israel, which had more than enough money for that to be stolen. And so they didn't even know about it.

The people in Australia, World Vision was based in Australia, they didn't even know about this other bank account that we actually ended up finding. So...

That's exactly it. It's willful blindness. I don't think they're blind at all. I think they know darn well what is going on. But at best, it is willful blindness. And you said that in this document in which Britain decides to partner with a UN agency that partners with Hamas, that there was a severe risk of aid diversion and identified the problem as being reputational. I'm wondering, since this report came out, has there been any reputational damage? Does anyone care? No.

I mean, we have not heard from them to us directly. But I mean, just look what happened after that story ran. They immediately within minutes, I think, of the end of the airing of the Channel 12 segment, they had a response up on their their X accounts. And

And all of media now, I mean, I can't even tell you how many media calls I've fielded in the past couple of days since the story ran. So I think this has been doing much more to their reputation, you know, calling attention to this issue that if they had just been open about it at the time, talking about it, you know, addressing these questions, you know. And I do wonder, you know, from a press perspective, you know, of course,

Some conversations with journalists will be confidential and there are things you don't want to reveal. But I'm curious why you decided to release this expose through Israeli news rather than the British media. I would imagine that if The Telegraph or The Times took the story, it would become a domestic political scandal in the UK in a way that it isn't now because it came through the Israeli media. Well, I will say we did approach...

some British media outlets and it did not run. So I'll just say it's a little more complicated than that, but I'll just leave it there. And so we felt, well, you know what, this is a story that's too important to be hidden or just end up in a report on our website.

So if the British media isn't going to talk about this, then we'll go to Israeli media. Maybe they will. Okay. And thank goodness that in this world of...

of money laundering and covering up for terrorist organizations and international NGOs acting with complete impunity. There are organizations like NGO Monitor. I say like, although you're pretty, fairly unique, so to speak, in calling them out. And how can people read up more about this, follow your work, NGO Monitor? Where should they go?

Yeah, so our website, www.ngo-monitor.org, is the best place to go where we have... You're also an NGO, ironically. We are, ironically. We have UN status, too, so we appear at the UN as much as we can to talk about these issues and hope people will be listening to us there. But we have plenty of reports on our website, not just dealing with the UK, but many countries, the EU, the United States. We have...

directory of NGOs where people can, if there's a particular group they're interested in, they can look at that. We talk a lot about funding networks and NGO networks like we've been seeing on the campuses. And you're also on social media? Yes. And so we NGO Monitor has an ex-account and I am on Anne Hertzberg 14.

on Ekka as well where people can check us out. Strongly recommended and people can also go to your website, read the full report and download the document you obtained one way or another. Let's leave it mysterious. Surprisingly, it was on. It would not be easy. It was not easy to find. We kind of came across it

by chance, but it's on the UK government's website. You just you have to know where to look for it there. These things, what's only getting there?

It is buried and buried under many layers, but it's there. It's open to the public. That's how we found it. But all there in plain sight. Anne Hulsvog, thank you very much. Thank you for joining me on State of a Nation. That's it for today's episode. I'm Elon Levy. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a review. Give us a like. Share it with your friends. Follow us on social media, stateofapod.com.

And me, Alon Levy, Alon A. Levy on social media. I'm Alon Levy, as I just said, and thank you for joining us.