According to the data revealed by German daily @welt, #Hamas is sitting atop a secret foreign investment portfolio worth in excess of $500M.
Clemens Wergin, Die Welt’s chief correspondent, noted that “The balance sheet also contains coded references about 49 Million US Dollars that went from the portfolio into Hamas’ coffers, an estimated 40% of which went to military/terror expenses.”
According to the @WorldBank, that sum would be enough to repair all physical damage incurred during the war as well as compensate for the resulting economic losses.
If Hamas wanted to use the money to make life better for people in Gaza, the money could be used to fund:
1,000 schools;
1,163 mosques;
3,163 medical clinics;
or 14,336 homes.
Astonishingly, not a single English-language news outlet has (so far) picked up on this major story.
This @CNN "fast facts" page on Judaism totally omits any reference to the Jewish homeland until after WWI, makes it seem as if the State of Israel was only formed in response to the war and the Holocaust.
It wasn't.
The Land of Israel is *central* to Judaism.
According to Jewish tradition, all of creation began in Jerusalem.
Abraham, Issac and Jacob all passed through the city.
Kings David and Solomon built the Jewish temples there.
The Land of Israel is subject to numerous biblical laws, observed by religious Jews to this day.
One of the best known is the Shmita, which takes place every seven years. For an entire year, the lie must rest and lay fallow.
.@MariamBarghouti is what some might call a "media darling." When well-known media outlets look for a Palestinian voice, Barghouti is someone they can rely on to speak as a "researcher" or "analyst" or "journalist."
During the video, parents to a newly-born baby mention her name: Seif al-Quds.
Had the Times translated the name and provided context, viewers would have known it means "Sword of Jerusalem," the name Hamas gave to its rocket bombardment of Israeli cities, towns.
Then there's the use of Israeli officials "said."
There's plenty of evidence, established by journalists and independent bodies, that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure in civilian districts, hides its personnel
and command HQs in hospitals, mosques and health clinics.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza (pictured), was interviewed at length by @AlJazeera yesterday. "During the fighting, we received information that there were children in areas in Israel which we wanted to attack. Because of this, we ended up aborting these missions."
Iranian-backed terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad indiscriminately launch rockets at Israeli civilian centers.
These rockets are notorious for their inaccuracy. Islamic Jihad and Hamas simply don’t know where they will land.
For example, one such rocket fired during the fighting in May killed a Muslim father and his teenage daughter in Lod. timesofisrael.com/woman-and-chil…
"Just see how many are dead on each side," some say, "the numbers don't lie."
Since “numbers don’t lie,” here are some statistics Israel's detractors may want to consider:
16 – The number of years since Israel removed every man, woman, child and soldier from the Gaza Strip, only to have the territory consumed by Hamas and transformed into a forward-operating terrorist base.
20 – The number of years that Palestinian terrorists have been firing projectiles at Israel from the Gaza Strip, with each and every intentional attack on civilians constituting a war crime.