Informing
Policy
for Progress
January 2024

Hamas’s blood-soaked billions: How does the terror group stay rich?

Shlomo Maital

Did Israel and the US really try shutting down the flow of money to Hamas?
“Israeli security officials scored a major intelligence coup in 2018: secret documents that laid out, in intricate detail, what amounted to a private equity fund that Hamas used to finance its operations. The ledgers, pilfered from the computer of a senior Hamas official, listed assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Hamas controlled mining, chicken farming and road building companies in Sudan, twin skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates, a property developer in Algeria, and a real estate firm listed on the Turkish stock exchange. The documents, which The New York Times reviewed, were a potential road map for choking off Hamas’s money and thwarting its plans. The agents who obtained the records shared them inside their own government and in Washington.

Nothing happened.

For years, none of the companies named in the ledgers faced sanctions from the United States or Israel. Nobody publicly called out the companies or pressured Turkey, the hub of the financial network, to shut it down.

Prof. Shlomo Maital on how HAMAS got their money under our noses.

Link to the full column on JP

December 2023

Israels hi tech bounces back

Shlomo Maital

The October 7 massacre saw Israeli hi-tech employees called up for IDF reserve duty and funding dried up. despite it all, Israel’s hi-tech industry is bouncing back better and stronger.

Link to the full column on JP

 

December 2023

How should Israel respond to climate change?

Shlomo Maital

Prof. Shlomo Maital zooms out on the global nature of climate change, and then zoom back in on Israel’s response to it – interview with Prof. Ofira Ayalon

Link to the full column on JP

November 2023

The tunnels: How Hamas buried Gaza’s future

Shlomo Maital

The web of tunnels beneath Gaza was made not to facilitate life but to bring death. And it is at long last seen by Israel as an existential strategic threat that must be destroyed.

Link to the full column on JP

November 2023

The Day After The Gaza War

Reuven Gal

The current conflict in the Middle East creates both a need and an opportunity to establish an overarching goal for the day after the war. Gaza has offshore gas in the Mediterranean, known as the Gaza Marine field. Utilizing this gas field, in collaboration with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel – could change dramatically the future of the Gaza Strip population.

Link to the full article on JP

Link to the full article on IsraelOK.com

October 2023

Israel-Hamas war: Netanyahu’s gov’t is guilty of fatal incompetence

Shlomo Maital

In no criminal code can you convict anyone for being incompetent. But in politics? Incompetence in Israel has become an existential threat.

Prof. Shlomo Maital is writing on Israel’s worst day, and remined us that: “We may be down, but not out. Jews are resilient. They bounce back from tragedies that might sink other nations.”

Link to the full column on JP

October 2023

Israel’s economic battle plan: Steering the economy through war

Shlomo Maital

How should Israel manage its economy during and after a prolonged war that may be fought on two fronts – South and North?

Here are some thoughts and suggestions from Prof. Shlomo Maital

Link to the full column on JP

September 2023

What causes violence, murders among Israeli Arabs, and what can cure it?

Shlomo Maital

By September 1, some 165 Israeli Arabs had been murdered since the start of the year. The violence is clearly out of control. But why? And what can and should be done?

Prof. Shlomo Maital speak with his Neaman Institute colleague Dr. Nohad Ali on the violence among Israeli Arabs: Causes & cures.

Link to the full column on JP

September 2023

Jewish, Democratic, Whole: it’s time to choose

Eitan Adres

Dr. Eitan Adres, in collaboration with Prof. Uri Bar-Joseph, on the Israeli “trilemma” of the three fundamental values: Jewish state; Democratic state; and the post 1967 war borders.

Link to the full article on JokoPost

August 2023

Not meat or milk: Israeli food tech can help fight climate change

Shlomo Maital

We can no longer afford the luxury of drinking cows’ milk and eating beef. Record heat in July in Israel and abroad has brought this fact home.

Prof. Shlomo Maital brings the breakthroughs of the future in food production, and how it is done.

Link to the full column on the JP