"It is some kind of a robbery on the funds of Arabs and Muslims," Rantisi charged

CAIRO, August 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Palestinian resistance movement Hamas downplayed Saturday, August 23, U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to freeze the assets of six of its top leaders and five Europe-based pro-Palestinians charities.

The new American decision was also ridiculed by one of the five relief organizations.

"Bush's decision will have no effect on Hamas at all because the movement does not have assets in the U.S., Europe or even Arab countries," Abdul Aziz Al-Rantisi, a senior Hamas leader, told Al-Arabiya news channel.

"It is some kind of a robbery on the funds of Arabs and Muslims (in the U.S. and the European countries).

Rantissi charged that the new decision by "Zionist" Bush is tantamount to "a declaration of war on Islam."

Rantissi, one of the six Hamas leaders on the Bush's list, maintained that one day the U.S. "will pay the price for its crimes against Muslims, who would retrieve their stolen money."

In a statement Friday, August 22, Bush said that "at my direction" the Treasury Department has moved to block and freeze the assets of the six top Hamas leaders.

They were identified as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, Rantissi, Mussa Abu Marzouk, Khalid Mishaal, Imad al-Alami, and Osama Hamadan.

He argued the move was prompted by the group’s claim of responsibility for August 19 bus bombing in occupied Jerusalem, that killed 20 Israelis.

The freeze also targets five non-governmental organizations that Bush charged of providing "financial support to Hamas."

Two of the organizations, the France-based the Committee for Palestinian Charity and Aid (Comite de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens, or CBSP) and the Association de Secours Palestiniens (ASP) in Switzerland, have been working in cooperation with more than a dozen relief organizations in the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

The other three are INTERPAL in Britain, the Palestinian Association in Austria, and the Sanabil Association for Relief and Development, based in Sidon , Lebanon, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The U.S. Treasury Department put the five groups on a list of "Specially Designated Global Terrorists."

'Ridiculous'

In a quick reaction to the Bush move, the CBSP aid organization dismissed the allegation as "ridiculous."

"We have no direct or indirect link at all with Hamas," a spokesman for CBSP, Youcef Benderbal, told AFP. 

He said the Paris-based CBSP, which started in 1990, was only active in helping around 3,000 Palestinian orphans by raising donations.

"Everybody knows us. If we represented any danger whatsoever, the French authorities would have made us shut down," he said.

Asked about the position of international law on confiscating and freezing funds of individuals and NGOs, Dr. Ahmad Abul Wafa, a professor of international law at Cairo University, told IslamOnline.net Saturday that a country could freeze such funds in conformity with its laws, but should not be part of a discriminatory drive against particular groups of people.

The funds of NGOs and rights groups should not be seized but respected, given that they have been legally raised, he said.

The expert asserted that such actions should not be directed at groups simply because they are championing the defense of people suffering under occupation.

He also advised, in this respect, Arabs and Muslims to "learn the lesson" and stop depositing their assets and funds in foreign banks.

The law expert further said that the charities which face assets freeze could resort to the U.S. litigation to challenge the decision.

Washington has already frozen the assets of charities in the U.S. that were tied to Hamas.

In December 2001, the government froze the assets of the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, accusing it of acting as a front for "terrorism."

This was the first time the U.S. has gone beyond acting against the military wing of Hamas and tried to shut down the political wing of the movement that provides social services and relief assistance, the New York Times reported.

Challenge

As European officials remained reluctant to comment on the matter, the Bush decision could face European opposition, it said.

Jonathan Weiner, a senior State Department official under President Bill Clinton who dealt with terrorist financing, said the freeze would be a provocative challenge to the European governments.

"It is laying down the gauntlet to the Europeans. Here for the first time they have demanded to go after Hamas's political organization in Europe ," the Times quoted Weiner as saying.

However, the daily quoted a senior administration official as saying that some European countries had already signed on to the freeze.