|
Trending Topics
|
U.S.: EU Slow to Fight Hamas
(Ha'aretz/Reuters) U.S. Treasury General Counsel David Aufhauser, chairman of the U.S. interagency task force on terrorist financing, expressed dismay on Tuesday over what he called Europe's inability to see the Islamic militant Hamas organization as a "terrorist group." The military wing of Hamas, the Iz a Din al Kassam Brigades, is on the EU's list of banned "terrorist" organizations, but many European governments had not designated Hamas itself as a terrorist group or frozen its assets because they insisted on making a distinction between its military and charitable wings. "That logic, with all due respect, is sophistry," said Aufhauser. "It assumes the right hand of the same person can abdicate responsibility for the conduct of the left hand. The idea that there's a firewall between the two defies common sense."