Gazan Islamists raise money despite misgivings
Gazan Islamists raise money despite misgivings
By John West
GAZA (Reuter): It was a charity event where not everyone present supported the group raising money.
They gave anyway, and the Islamic Reform Society raised more than US$115,000 at a recent dinner in the poverty-stricken Gaza Strip, where unemployment is at least 80 percent and average annual income about $500 per head.
One Gazan businessman, Taysir Safadi, bought a five shekel ($1.50) poster of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque for $25,000 in an auction at the supper after sunset during the Moslem daytime fasting month of Ramadan. Another bought a poster for $10,000.
Money from the event went to fund a network of schools, clinics and social welfare that backs the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, the group dedicated to destroying not just the PLO's peace deal with Israel but the Jewish state itself.
When Israel and some Western states talk about Hamas and rising Moslem fundamentalism among the two million Palestinians in the occupied territories, they speak darkly about the looming shadow of Iran and backing from fundamentalist-inclined sheikhs and merchants in the rich Gulf countries.
But many of those who donated at the dinner were businessmen, either neutral or actually opposed to Hamas.
"I know all these groups follow Hamas and even though I don't like Hamas I give money to their charitable societies because I trust them to distribute it honestly," said Jowed Mehdi, a Gazan textiles factory owner who donated $8,000.
Mehdi was part of a delegation of Palestinian businessmen that traveled to Tunis last year to advise PLO leaders on economic policy. These days, he is one of the few Gazans to speak warmly of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.
"I am a Fatah supporter but when it comes to charity, politics has nothing to do with it. Donating part of my income is my religious duty and I give the money to whomever I trust to use it properly," he said.
In the past few years, the Islamic societies have built up a web of schools, clinics, and even a kind of social welfare network that embraces tens of thousands of poor Gazans.
But more important, they have also gained a reputation for efficiency and honesty in these services that wins them backing far beyond their political constituency of Moslem fundamentalists and makes them largely self-reliant.
"It is not only Palestinians who regard Hamas in this way but a growing number of foreign assistance providers," said Sara Roy, a leading researcher on the Gaza Strip for many years.
"Some senior (UN) officials in Gaza acknowledged that Hamas is the only faction they trust to distribute food donations to the people," she wrote in a recent study.
Palestinians say Moslem fundamentalist groups also raise large sums in Europe and the United States by pricking the consciences of Palestinians and the millions of devout Moslems who live there.
Many of the leaders of the Islamic social movement are young and well-educated. The organizers of the dinner were in their late 20s or early 30s.
"We are in the Islamic wave but even if the Azz al-Din Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas) came here asking, I wouldn't give them one penny," said Mohsin Abu Eitah, 31, one of the group.
"We can only get money from people if they know it is going to charity," he said.
Islamic society officials are reluctant to reveal their overall budgets but it runs easily into millions of dollars a year. Abu Eitah said the Reform Society raised about $80,000 when flooding hit the town of Rafah last year and created a housing crisis.
The three biggest Islamic societies provide social security of $30 per month each for more than a thousand orphans. During the month of Ramadan they distributed meat and other food presents to about 10,000 families in the Strip.
"The poor are the kind of constituency Hamas hopes to win. Hamas and Hamas-aligned groups invest in a political constituency," said Ziad Abu Amer, professor of political science at Bir Zeit University in the occupied West Bank.
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