Muslim Brotherhood pours millions into Hamas while Egypt suffers

Asharq al-Awsat has a withering indictment of the illegal financial ties between Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leaders.

Some countries dig holes for themselves that they can escape later. A policy adopted by some of the rulers of Third World countries is to keep citizens in poverty and illiteracy and isolation for easy control. This is what was adopted and approved by the rulers of Egypt. If we reviewed data from Egypt, it is clear that it is in a bottomless hole in its balance of payments, initiated by the 50% deficit in depending on imported food, not to mention the energy bill, which consumes a quarter of the annual budget.

A ddemonstration was expected on June 30 current, reflecting the bitterness of many against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood...People that stand queues in front of bakeries .. Water that is not available for agricultural land, and malnutrition affects a quarter of the Egyptians according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, and the Government of the Muslim Brotherhood talks about the arrival of bumper wheat crop which will never arrive.

However, despite all the suffering of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is focused on supporting their ally in the Gaza Strip, Hamas.

Hamas lost its primary benefactor Iran, and the Brotherhood decided to compensate the tours undertaken by Khaled Meshaal and Ismail Haniyeh to Qatar, Turkey and Egypt.

In Egypt there is now the Egyptian Foundation and the army on the one hand, and on the other is the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood. Because of the Sinai attacks from extremists and terrorists, the Egyptian armyclosed of a large number of tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza Strip last month, as it tries to stop to Hamas rearming, including short-range rockets and anti-tank missiles.

But the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt supports Hamas in ways that sometimes hurts the public interest.

In spite of the continued deterioration of the economic situation in Egypt under the presidency of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood has been providing direct financial assistance for its the sister branch of Hamas.

During the revolution, Hamas received much secret aid from the Muslim Brotherhood; because of the financial crisis experienced by Hamas, the Brotherhood decided compensate them and pay millions of dollars being smuggled into the Gaza Strip at the expense of Egyptian interests and millions of Egyptians who are living below the poverty line.

In the program about real estate activity in the Gaza Strip, 'France 24' TV had an amazing investigation, as the land in Gaza doubles in price per month... Luxury villas worth at least a million dollars, yet they are always occupied.

Tunnels are the way to wealth, and smuggling is the first step to wealth, and those close to the government are the lucky ones. At the end of the TV program, a contractor says: "the future of land and real estate will be in Gaza .. Prices in all the world goes down, but in Gaza it is going higher."

Khairat al-Shater, a senior businessmen and among the most important planners in the Brotherhood is said to be responsible for coordinating the transfer of funds to Hamas. In recent months, [he?] stated that he had transferred millions of dollars to the head of financial affairs for Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in Egypt, and to the chief financial officer of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. A large portion of these funds are transferred to the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as well as other uses of the movement.

In addition to remittances, senior Hamas figures invest in assets for the profit of the movement and for themselves as well in Egypt. In these cases, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are directly involved in Hamas investments in Egypt...

Hamas members in Egypt enter in an investment partnership with senior financial officials of the Muslim Brotherhood. They benefit greatly from the heavily-backed investments in Egypt, which is at the expense of the Egyptian people.

As well as remittances and investments, there are those who accuse Hamas of violating Egyptian law by smuggling undeclared sums, more than 10 thousand dollars from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. According to the International Association of Air Transport Association (IATA), an individual leaving from Egypt may take up to $10,000 and 5000 pounds. But Hamas members leave Egypt with millions of dollars at a time through Rafah.

And Cairo continues to transfer millions of euros allocated to Hamas from Middle Eastern countries through Egypt, and a senior official continues to fill his bags with millions of dollars while leaving Egypt into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, and also it is said that there are some prominent activists in the military wing of Hamas in Gaza who continue to transfer millions of dollars and euros from Egypt into Gaza.

In an article published in the journal «Atlantic» American Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the «Foundation for Defense of Democracies», wrote that Hamas leaders have begun floating an idea attractive most of the people in Gaza: "Why don't you raise the economy of Gaza from the tunnels to the surface, with the help of Egypt? Hamas through the abuse of this tunnel method with the Muslim Brotherhood began to achieve this, which is in fact a vibrant economy based on smuggling, chaos and the Egyptians deprived of their rights, and also depriving the people of Gaza .. It's an economy to enrich Hamas officials.

Keep in mind that while this article is probably correct, it is clearly timed to have an effect on the upcoming June 30 anti-government demonstrations in Egypt.