Corrupt PA Accuses Slightly Less Corrupt Hamas Leader of Corruption

Palestinian leaders have been robbing their own people blind ever since Yassir Arafat, who when he died was found to have left a fortune of between one and three billion dollars. Now the corrupt Palestinian Authority has just accused the corrupt Hamas of corruption, focusing on the high-end suits and shoes of Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau. More on the televised attack on Haniyeh can be found here.

On May 8, 2023, the Awda TV (Palestinian Authority) aired a video criticizing Hamas and its senior leadership for living abroad in luxury while the residents of the Gaza Strip languish in poverty. Among the examples provided in the video is Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh, who the video says has appeared in public wearing a $5,500 suit and $3,000 shoes….

Onscreen text: “Name: Ismail Haniyeh. Occupation: Chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau. Place of residence: Qatar.”

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Narrator: “In 2022, Haniyeh wore a Canali suit worth $5,500. It is not only Haniyeh’s suit that attracts attention, but his shoes as well, which are worth $3,000.”

Onscreen text: “Canali suit: $5,500 US. Shoes: $3,000 US. Sum total: $8,500 US. 27,500 Israeli shekels.”

Narrator: “Palestinians in Gaza are asking themselves: How many families could live off the cost of Haniyeh’s clothes and shoes? Ismail Haniyeh – who has been living abroad for years – is talking about poverty in Gaza. Doesn’t Haniyeh – who is reveling in luxury – know about the gas and electricity shortages and the unemployment that are causing the Palestinians to languish in Gaza?

Haniyeh is not alone in reveling in luxury – most Hamas leaders have left Gaza, together with their families. The leaders of Hamas have left Gaza, following their investments and companies abroad. Does this represent Gaza?

Qaniyeh lives in a luxury apartment in Qatar, believed to have been provided to him by the government of Qatar. Many senior Hamas leaders choose to live in deep-pocketed Qatar, where the government is the most favorable, of all Arab states, to Hamas. Qatar has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Gaza – money that must first go through Hamas, which is the absolute ruler of the Strip. Hamas then distributes Qatar’s aid money as it sees fit, always managing to divert some funds to its grasping leaders, such as Ismail Haniyeh. And today’s corrupt Hamas leaders are not a patch on two earlier Hamas leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa Ibn Marzouk, each of whom managed to accumulate the scarcely believable sum of $2.5 billion.

Living in Qatar makes perfect sense for Hamas leaders. Why should they be expected to endure the poverty and violence, and the deep resentments of ordinary Gazans struggling to stay alive, when they can live so much more pleasurably in Doha? Why should such an important personage as Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, be expected to live amidst so much wretchedness in Gaza, when he can perform his duties in Doha, while enjoying an opulent lifestyle thanks to the largesse provided by deep-pocketed Qatar? And as the senior political leader of Hamas, Haniyeh needs to present a suitably impressive figure on the world stage. Those $5,500 Italian suits and $3,000 shoes that Haniyeh wears can be considered necessities given his line of work. It is only right and proper that some of the donor funds provided to Hamas be spent on ensuring that its leaders have suitable clothing to wear when they go on television, or meet with other leaders on the world stage.

But not everyone agrees. Clearly the recent public attack on Ismail Haniyeh for his luxury clothing and shoes was orchestrated by Hamas’ archrival, the PA. The indictment of Haniyeh for his free-spending ways appeared on Awda, the television channel of the Palestinian Authority.

Of course, the PA has to be careful, when it charges Hamas leaders with corruption, because its own leaders, with President-for-Life Mahmoud Abbas at the head of the grasping pack, are also corrupt. In Ismail Haniyeh’s defense, it seems he has stolen only tens of millions of dollars from donors’ aid provided to Gaza – while, as I noted above, two other Hamas leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa ibn Marzouk, managed to squirrel away $2.5 billion apiece. Why didn’t the PA’s Awda mention those examples of much greater corruption and theft? Almost certainly because Mahmoud Abbas, President-for-life of the PA, and the head of Fatah, did not want to draw attention to grand theft on such a scale, for that might prompt Palestinians to begin investigating the $400 million business empire owned by Abbas and his two sons Tarek and Yasser. Better to stick to Canali suits and handmade Italian shoes, as a way to pull Haniyeh down, rather than to bring up the much greater amounts stashed in Swiss bank accounts and Riviera real estate that leaders not just from Hamas, but also from the PA, are known to favor.