Hearing of the Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade Subcommittee and the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - Hamas' Benefactors: A Network of Terror

Hearing

"ISIL, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas -- these are all some of the most dangerous terrorist groups out there today. Though they all have their differences -- notably different ideologies and different objectives -- what they do have in common is that they are all non-state actors who need to get their resources from somewhere.

We are now just about two weeks into the open-ended ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. In the previous two months, Hamas terrorists fired over 4,500 rockets indiscriminately into Israel, including its most populated areas, such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Of course, it isn't forgotten that the start of these attacks coincided with the abduction and murder of three innocent Israeli teenagers. Hamas originally denied its complicity in this heinous crime, but last month admitted responsibility. And it is important to note where this admission took place, and by whom; the announcement was made by a known terrorist and Hamas operative in Turkey -- where he lives openly.

This is the same Turkey that is a supposed U.S. and NATO ally that is harboring, not just this one member of Hamas, but it is known to be harboring several of Hamas' top operatives. But harboring these terrorists isn't where Turkey stops -- it provides financial, material, and political support for this U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization, and has been doing so for years, without repercussions. In fact in 2011, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a political party.

But Turkey isn't the only U.S. ally, or at least U.S. partner that has been known to harbor Hamas leadership and provide the terrorist group with funds; Qatar -- the very same Qatar that the administration entrusted to monitor the Taliban 5, who were swapped for Sergeant Bergdahl, and which it recently agreed to an $11 billion arms sale with -- has been known to be perhaps Hamas' largest financial patron.

Not only does Qatar harbor Hamas' figurehead, Khaled Meshaal, Qatar reportedly threatened to exile him if Hamas accepted an Egyptian backed ceasefire agreement last month. In 2012, the Emir of Qatar was the first head of state to visit Gaza and pledged over $400 million dollars of infrastructure money to Hamas.

Qatar funds Hamas' salaries in Gaza, as well as its projects, building terror tunnels from which to attack Israel rather than building up Gaza for the Palestinian people. The administration took a step to block a recent transfer of funds from Qatar for Hamas terrorists, and earlier this year, the Treasury Department openly admitted that Qatar: for many years openly financed Hamas; is also supporting extremists groups operating in Syria; and has become such a permissive terrorist financing environment.

And that includes its funding of the Muslim Brotherhood and, along with Kuwait has become a major source of funding for ISIL -- a threat that must be eliminated. According to reports, Egypt has charged former leader Mohammed Morsi with giving national security documents to Qatar, and Qatari connections to the Brotherhood are deep and troubling.

But the Administration has not done nearly enough to curb Qatari support for terror. We cannot continue to allow Qatari funds to go to terrorist groups -- Hamas, or any other -- unabated and unaddressed.

Yet we have been setting the example for the Qataris and Turks with how the administration is dealing with Iran. Iran has long been a U.S. designated State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) and has actively worked to target and undermine our national security interests.

Iranian technology and rockets have been used to launch thousands of rockets further into Israel, placing the majority of the country at risk; and the regime's financial support has allowed Hamas to continue to resupply itself after its stockpiles run low or are destroyed by Israel.

Yet for all that we know of the relationship between Iran and these terrorist groups, the administration has ignored all of this in pursuit of its weak nuclear deal with Iran; in fact, the Iranian regime's support for terror, its ballistic missile program or its human rights record aren't even on the table in these negotiations, so while we continue to give away the store, we strengthen and legitimize Iran and embolden other actors who see just how naïve we truly are being to this threat.

We saw how well this approach worked with North Korea during those nuclear negotiations; and I was one of the first who admonished the Bush administration for its mistake to take North Korea off of the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, and for the terrible example it set for future nuclear talks with rogue regimes; while North Korea continues to circumvent and violate UN Security Council resolutions -- like the incident with the North Korean flagged vessel and the Cuban weapons, or the reports that Pyongyang is seeking to conclude an arms deal with Hamas -- it couldn't be any clearer that it deserves to be redesignated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism country now.

Some of our allies no longer trust us, and our enemies no longer fear us; if we don't take immediate and decisive action against those nations that support terror and undermine our national security -- especially those that are supposed allies -- then we put our interests and our citizens at greater risk.

We cannot allow this support for terrorism to continue -- we must cut off the funds going to Hamas and other terror groups. Only then can we begin to take down those terrorist groups and counter their radical ideologies; it all starts with the ideology, but like a flame without air, these radical ideologies without money and support will die out."

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