Earlier today, I blogged that Hamas makes no distinction between civilian cops and Qassam Brigades.
Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghossain's admission to Time magazine struck me as significant because after the Gaza war, the casualty count and the status of many Palestinians as "military" or "civilian" casualties became a major point of contention.
Now, Elder of Ziyon raises a different point more relevant to the here and now: The PA provides funding for Gaza's civilian Hamas-affiliated police force. How much?
At first blush, one would be certain that Hamas pays them all. However, a little number crunching indicates that between at least a $269M is paid out of the PA budget to security in Gaza annually, and perhaps as much as $630 million!
. . .
These numbers can be adjusted somewhat lower if the salaries are going to former policemen who are being paid to do nothing. But on the surface, this is part of the security budget, and any way you slice it, hundreds of millions of dollars of the PA security budget is being spent in Gaza, ostensibly for security.
This may be why Hamas maintains a legal fiction between the al-Qassam Brigades and the police – because they are being paid out of different pockets, and this way Hamas terrorists can draw a second salary, courtesy of the world's nations.
Hamas and its apologists already muddy the waters with false distinctions between the terror organization's "armed" and "political" wings. So it's no surprise that the Palestinians further whitewash the role of terrorists because they're bureaucratically defined as civilian cops.
There's too much money at stake.
Read more at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
