The Palestinian Sunni Islamic fundamentalist organization- ‘Hamas’ received two BTC donations in its Bitcoin wallet which are worth 2500 Dollars, as reported by Globes, Israel’s oldest Hebrew-language daily evening financial newspaper. Hamas received these donations from an unknown source which is situated in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis. The daily evening financial newspaper regards these donations as a breach of Coinbase’s terms of services. On this Coinbase has not given any kind of response before the publication.
The Sunni Islamic fundamentalist organization is in power since 2007. According to Israel, the United States, and the European Union, Hamas is considered a terrorist organization.
On the other hand, due to the weakening economic isolation against the Gaza Strip by Israel and the United States, made the Palestinian organization to Tweet this on 29th Jan-
#Hamas invites the ppl around the world to support #Gaza by sending BitCoin in order to break the israeli siege since 13 yrs 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/oZ2MuYq71p
— Ahmad Matar 🇵🇸✌ (@AhmadMatar21) January 29, 2019
If we look back, Israel did support Gaza Strip in the past, but due to the hard economic times given by the U.S. to Israel, Israel is unable to support Gaza Strip now.
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Regarding the two donations received by the group, Whitestream- an Israel based intelligence startup was the first one to take notice of the blockchain activity last week. As per Globes, the two founders of the intelligence startup- Itsik Levy and Uri Bornstein reportedly said-
“In exposing illegal activity, you could say that blockchain itself does most of the work. All activity on the network is registered and documented, so it can be read at a later stage. […] We have been decoding blockchain transactions for a long time. According to our figures, only 2 percent of the total Bitcoin turnover involves the dark-net or is related to terrorist or criminal activity.”
Reading these comments about the two percent of total Bitcoin turnover involving the ‘dark-net’ is a very vulnerable statement which can be misleading in some serious ways. There was not much explanation about the ‘dark-net’ by the daily evening financial newspaper. The 2 million people who live in the Gaza Strip can’t be terrorist, no matter what perspective the ‘Israel- Palestine conflict’ or the general government of the Gaza Strip gives to the onlookers. Therefore, it becomes a dear duty of the social platforms like the Globes, to concretely explain the exact facts and figures to clear off the situation both within the country and as well as on an international platform.
The lack of responsibility, the misleading reporting, and the attraction centered headlines project an anti- Bitcoin and anti- cryptocurrency atmosphere. It rather messes up the public imagination about the decentralized internet currency and unfortunately reduces it to a criminal means of money making only.
Yesterday, according to ‘The Australian’, the govt. of Israel opened up in a report about the ‘close links’ between the ‘Palestinian led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and militant groups.’ The Strategic Affairs Ministry of Israel supports the country in fighting the BDS movement. This 80-page extensive report opened up some in-depth connections between the ‘pro-boycott groups and activists affiliated with Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.’ In the report, there were several ex-members of the Palestinian groups were exposed. These groups were involved in BDS activities through Palestinian and NGOs at a global scale and were regarded as terrorist organizations by the United States, European Union, and Israel. The Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said-
“We have always seen indications of connections between BDS groups and designated terrorist organizations. […] What we discovered surprised even us.”
On the other hand, according to ‘The National’, the Prime Minister of Israel- Benjamin Netanyahu release a new weekly webcast on Sunday. In the webcast, he said- “get rid of the fake from the news. […] Only cover the reality, and I will continue to ensure that it will be positive.” It seems the Prime minister of the country is following the footsteps of the President of the United States- Donald Trump, in terms of interacting with the masses rather directly through social media.
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Looking at the BDS movement’s popularity on the international level, it has only increased over the past years. It is because of the non- violent messages. For instance, it steered clear off from passing any heated comments or reply on the report made by the govt. of Israel. It rather said-
“This wildly fabricated and recycled propaganda report from the far-right Israeli government cannot be dignified with any response.”
The hard economic times faced by Iran is giving birth to desperate times in the country. As a result, the country is embracing the digital currency and has started to mine Bitcoin in order to have some sense of control. For instance, on 30th Jan, the country pitched its own cryptocurrency called- ‘Crypto Rial.’ The country expects Crypto Rial to gain momentum among the nations that are also under the US sanctions.
