 Some of the Arab League money recently transferred to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been paid out to Hamas ministers this week, according to PA sources. The United States has been leading a campaign to keep international funds from paying Hamas officials' salaries ever since the Islamic militant group won parliamentary elections this winter.
The freezing of international money to the PA for this end has kept some 165,000 civil servants, about half of them armed thugs police officers, from receiving wages this spring, helping plunge the Palestinian areas into financial crisis. The Arab League raised money to help the Palestinians in March but was unable to transfer it until earlier this month. America has pressured banks not to allow money to flow to the PA, lest they be held in violation of US anti-terror laws, which forbid sending money to organizations that the government has designated terrorist groups, as Hamas has been. At the time of the transfer, the Arab League declined to specify how the $100 million provided by it and Saudi Arabia had reached Abbas.
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