Catastrophe - Dick Morris [66]
Barack Obama disagrees. And when it comes to applying his point of view, he’s an absolutist about it.
Of course, he’ll learn. He will come to realize that his constitutional philosophy is leaving us unprotected. Unfortunately, that might not happen until we get hit again.
ACTION AGENDA
As President Obama dismantles the war on terror, the burden shifts to us, the American people, to be more vigilant than ever. In this unilateral disarmament, he has one crucial accomplice: the news media. The liberal press has always regarded 9/11 as a diversion exploited by the right wing to keep political power. They act as if it had never happened. In our previous book, Fleeced, we describe how the media minimizes the risk from terrorists, even going to the lengths of biasing its reporting of thwarted attacks so as to understate their likelihood of having succeeded.
We have to watch every move Obama makes—and sound the alarm each time. Only by speaking out when the mainstream media will not can we keep alive the sense of urgency and danger that accurately reflect the times in which we live.
We will likely be hit again. We cannot dismantle our defenses without exposing our people to grave danger. President Obama will come to regret his backsliding on this issue. We can only hope he does so before more lives are lost. He certainly doesn’t seem to get it yet.
7
THE UNITED STATES SENDS AID TO HAMAS…YES, HAMAS!
The terrorist group Hamas is dedicated to spreading worldwide jihad and to the destruction of Israel. The group reigns supreme in the Gaza Strip, showering Israel with rockets every day as it preaches its doctrine of hate and violence. These days, that’s not news. But what is news—and qualifies as a catastrophe—is that the Obama administration is giving Hamas almost $1 billion in aid—money that is coming straight from the pockets of you, the American taxpayer!
Of course, this aid doesn’t go directly to Hamas, which the State Department lists as an Iranian front. Instead, it’s channeled through the group’s old partner, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The U.S. contribution makes up the largest portion of a $4.5 billion package of aid to the West Bank and Gaza, voted by the international community to rebuild Gaza in the wake of the Israeli invasion.247
But Hamas controls UNRWA. It has so infiltrated the UN that the agency has effectively become a front group for Hamas. The terrorist group pulls its strings.
Make no mistake: When we give money to UNRWA, we’re giving a check directly to Hamas.
Caroline Glick, the deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post and one of the most astute observers of the Israeli/Middle East scene, minces no words on the connection.
“UNRWA openly collaborates with Hamas,” she notes. “Its workers double as Hamas combatants. Its refugee camps and schools are used as Hamas training bases and missile launch sites. Its mosques are used as recruiting grounds. And…the UN agency is also willing to act as Hamas’s surrogate.”248
Indeed, Peter Hansen, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, concedes that he has terrorists on his payroll. As he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in October 2008, “I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.”249
The links between UNRWA and Hamas are chilling.
\
* * *
HAMAS AND THE UNITED NATIONS: PERFECT TOGETHER
February 2002: A member of the Palestinian terrorist faction known as Tanzim, Alaa Muhammad Ali Hassan, confesses during interrogation to perpetrating a sniper shooting from a UNRWA school in a refugee camp near the city of Nablus. Hassan also revealed that terrorists were using UNRWA school facilities to build bombs intended for terrorist attacks.
August 2002: A Hamas member and ambulance driver named Nidal Nazzal confesses that he used an UNRWA ambulance