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2021-01-28 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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Amid Crisis, Hizbullah 'Bank' a Lifeline for Some Lebanese
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By design. [AnNahar] When Leb
 ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
's financial meltdown began in late 2019, Hassan Shoumar was locked out of his dollar savings like everyone else in the country as banks clamped down with capital controls.
But the young engineer had an alternative. He could still pull out the dollars in his account at the al-Qard al-Hasan Association, the financial arm of the  Hizbullah
Continued from Page 2
...Party of God , a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
group.
Shoumar had kept an account at the association for years, ever since he had taken a loan from it to pay university fees. Unlike Lebanon's commercial banks, the accounts at the association didn't earn interest. But the 28-year-old Shoumar didn't care about that.
"What I care about is that when I want my money, I can get it," he said by telephone from south Lebanon.
Stepping in where the state and financial institutions have failed, Hizbullah is providing a vital lifeline for some Lebanese. In the country's wrecked economy, everyone is desperate for hard currency and liquidity as the local currency plummets in value. At commercial banks, depositors stand in line for hours and fight with managers in vain to access their dollar savings. Most banks have stopped giving loans.
But at Hizbullah's al-Qard al-Hasan people can take out small, interest-free loans in dollars, enabling them to pay school fees, get married, buy a used car or open a small business. They can also open saving accounts there.
The association, officially a non-profit charity, is one of the tools by which Hizbullah entrenches its support among the country's Shiite population, even as the group has come under enormous criticism over the past year among Lebanese furious at the political elite.
With poverty rising across Lebanon, Hizbulah provides its community with low-cost schools and hospitals and distributes heating fuel to the poor. Hizbullah continues to pay its fighters and employees in its institutions in U.S. dollars, while everyone else gets their salaries in Lebanese pounds, which lost about 80% of their value in the crisis.
Over the past year, the al-Qard al-Hasan association has seen a significant increase in clients, despite it being under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2007.
"People's lack of confidence in the banking sector forced them to find other places," said Batoul Tahini, a spokeswoman for the association.
She said the number of deposits was much higher than 2019 and previous years, though loans did not increase very much. She declined to give exact figures.
In a recent speech, Hizbullah leader Sayyed His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...
said around 300,000 people currently are dealing with the association on loans. The association says its clients are from Lebanon's various sects. But the vast majority are believed to be Shiite Moslems.
Roy Badaro, a Lebanese economist, said the association is part of Hizbullah's state-within-a-state and a "disguised way to complement their activity through microfinance, similar to Hizbullah-run schools, hospitals, etc."
"The aim is to absorb the economic crisis among poor Shiites," he said.
Al-Qard al-Hasan, whose name in Arabic means "the benevolent loan," offers interest-free loans up to $5,000 and, importantly these days, it gives them in dollars. Active for more than three decades, it is considered Lebanon's largest non-banking financial institution giving microloans.
Clients must put up gold as collateral or bring a guarantor. They then pay back the loan in monthly installments for up to 30 months, after which the collateral is returned. Clients can also set up accounts to deposit money, which is then used to finance the loans. The association operates under Islamic rules forbidding interest.
Lebanon's economic and financial crisis is the country's worst in modern history, with the economy contracting 19% in 2020. Tens of thousands around the country have lost their jobs, and nearly half the population of more than 6 million is in poverty.
The crisis shattered people's confidence in Lebanon's banking system, once among the most respected in the region. As banks took a hit, many people decided to keep their money at home, amounting to up to $10 billion, according to central bank governor Riad Salameh.
That has proven a boon for the al-Qard al-Hasan association, as some turned to it as an alternative to store their cash.
The risk for Hizbullah is that as poverty rises and the economic crisis worsens, many people might default on their loans, the economist Badaro said. If that happens, Hizbullah might have to use its own funds to cover deposits, he said.
The association's prominence has also made it a target.
A hacking group calling itself "Spiderz" claimed that it broke into the association's system and posted the identities of some clients and security camera footage from some of its branches. It warned clients to withdraw their money or else they might come under American sanctions.
Al-Qard al-Hasan confirmed there was a cyberattack in late December that it called "partial and limited." It told clients not to worry about their identities being revealed. Tahini said the issue is under investigation.
The sight of the association's clients getting their dollars without problems has also bred resentments over Hizbullah's power in Lebanon.
"This shows that Hizbullah is safe and relaxed, while we are in a dilemma," Walid Joumblatt, political leader of Lebanon's Druze community and a Hizbullah critic, said in an interview with Sky News Arabia. He joked that he was growing his beard like conservative Moslems to get a loan from al-Qard al-Hasan.
In a speech days later, Hizbullah leader Nasrallah shot back, saying all anyone had to do was fill out an application and put up the gold collateral.
He also depicted the association as rock solid, providing $3.7 billion in loans to some 1.8 million people since it was founded. He boasted that U.S. sanctions on Hizbullah officials only strengthened al-Qard al-Hasan, since some of them moved their accounts from banks to the association.
He revealed for the first time that during the 2006 war with Israel, Israeli warplanes struck a site where money and gold were stored. Despite that, he boasted, every client got their money.
"No one ever lost a cent," he said. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2021-01-28 00:36||
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