I thought you may find this bit of news reported in the Chicago Tribune interesting:
WASHINGTON - U.S. government officials authorized giving nearly $1 million in foreign aid to a Palestinian university with links to the terrorist group Hamas, despite vetting the school eight times for ties to terrorism, according to a government audit.
The audit concluded that the vetting process, initiated by the U.S. Agency for International Development and conducted by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, found no "derogatory information" on the Islamic University in Gaza between 2002 and 2006 -- even after Hamas claimed a parliamentary majority in Palestinian elections in 2006. Several times, university officials certified that they provided no material support for terrorism.
A companion audit found that USAID's operations in Gaza and the West Bank have largely implemented policies to keep future aid out of terrorist hands.
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) asked USAID's inspector general to conduct the audits after a Washington Times report detailed some of the aid payments to Islamic University earlier this year. He said in an interview Tuesday that the failure to detect terrorist ties at the school suggested "either incompetence or a complete breakdown of the vetting system as run by the State Department."
From Patrick Poole, who maintains a blog about terrorism in his home state of Ohio, Funding HAMAS Terror Through Palestinian Universities - Even from Central Ohio:
"That Palestinian university mentioned would be the Islamic University of Gaza, an institution founded and controlled by the terrorist group, HAMAS. As Matthew Levitt describes in his book, HAMAS: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (Yale Univ. Press), the Islamic University of Gaza has been the central institution in the HAMAS terror infrastructure. A 2006 Baltimore Sun article quotes HAMAS lawmaker and professor Jameela El Shanty regarding the Islamic University of Gaza: "HAMAS built this institution. The university presents the philosophy of HAMAS."
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Lantos exoriated USAID officials earlier this year for their funding of IUG in violation of US law:
Providing U.S. assistance to a terrorist-controlled university in Gaza was out of the question and, in fact, violates U.S. law. This outrageous support for terrorism must and will end.
That would be the same HAMAS-controlled Islamic University of Gaza that the Dublin, OH-based Arab Student Aid International has poured millions into over the past decade. As I reported back in September ("Ohio-based Saudi 'Charity' Supporting HAMAS Terror University"), Arab Student Aid International admits providing more than $5 million in direct cash contributions to three terror-operated Palestinian universities, including IUG..."
