So where’s the outrage? Palestinians used children to dig the tunnels into Israel. Over 160 Palestinian kids died as a result of the Hamas terrorist using child labor. Yet you don’t hear a peep of outrage from Muslims, the Jew hating progressives, or the corrupt media. This would have been a great question for Megyn Kelly to ask Anna Baltzer last night. But she was too busy showing Hamas propaganda to bash Israel instead. This information isn’t hard to find, or just some ‘Israel sympathizer’ propaganda either. You can find this on the Institute for Palestine Studies.
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| Palestinians used kids to dig tunnels, over 160 died |
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Hamas’s lack of transparency about its use of its tunnel earnings compounds suspicions. While Hamas officials say local revenues comprise half the government’s $750 million annual budget for 2011, local businessmen calculate the earnings to be considerably higher, raising questions about where the funds go and why there are repeated shortfalls in monthly civil-service salary payments. Calls for accountability have mounted as the Haniyeh government has increased the tax burden. (National Economy Minister ?Ala’ Rif?ati, who upon taking office called for Gaza’s withdrawal from the Paris Protocol to spare the population Israeli-level tariffs, four months later declared his intention to raise tariffs in line with Paris Protocol rates.)
A similarly cavalier approach to child labor and tunnel fatalities damaged the movement’s standing with human-rights groups, despite government assurances dating back to 2008 that it was considering curbs. During a police patrol that the author was permitted to accompany in December 2011, nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies. At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials. Safety controls on imports appear similarly lax, although the TAC insists that a sixteen-man contingent carries out sporadic spot-checks.
All told, the tunnels have been a mixed bag for Hamas. While its detractors praise—albeit begrudgingly—its success in reducing the impact of Israel’s stranglehold, perceptions of corruption inside the organization have intensified. During the renewed fuel shortages of spring 2012, there were widespread allegations that Hamas leaders received uninterrupted electricity and that gasoline stations continued to operate for the exclusive use of Hamas members. True or not, they fed a growing mood of recrimination that Hamas had profited from the siege.