Elizabeth Warren says “Ban Bitcoin” but it’s Israel that funded Hamas
She’s pushing bullshit on cryptocurrency’s use in terrorist financing. Here’s the truth:
Warren’s defacto ban:
Elizabeth Warren has again pushed for sweeping regulatory changes with the supposed purpose of cracking down on cryptocurrency’s use in terrorist financing. She said “We need new laws to crack down on crypto’s use in enabling terrorist groups” [1] She wishes to force all Bitcoin and cryptocurrency open source wallet providers and miner/node infrastructure to do AML/KYC checks, which is impossible for a decentralized permissionless system. Therefore, Warren effectively wants to ban it.
Tyranny
Our central premise is that Warren’s regulatory proposals would do massive harm to civil liberties and would NOT achieve the stated purpose. Furthermore, we argue that the general public is not properly educated on the true actions of the Israeli government regarding Hamas, and that all future decisions regarding terrorism should be considered with this information.
Warren’s Wrong on Hamas:
Regarding crypto’s use in terrorism, the claims Warren’s making are a gross misrepresentation of the facts. First her proposed bills cite a Wall Street Journal article which uses data from the blockchain analytics firm Elliptic [2]. But the company that’s cited in the WSJ article, Elliptic, says this is untrue [3]. Elliptic said on their own blog post:
Even Elliptic
“There is no evidence to suggest that crypto fundraising has raised anything close to this amount, and data provided by Elliptic and others has been misinterpreted. We have spoken to representatives of the lead signatory, Senator Warren, as well as the authors of the Wall Street Journal article, to clarify this.” [3]
Even Chainalysis
Warren includes funds that the cryptocurrency exchange in question owned, ignoring if those funds were owned by Hamas or not. This is equivalent to counting the bank and an individual with an account as the same entity. Even the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which is normally tough on the need for regulation, has disputed Warren’s claims as a gross misrepresentation. [4] In their own blog post they stated that:
“We have seen recent estimates related to the attacks on Israel that appear to include all flows to certain service providers that received some funds associated with terrorism financing. In other words, those totals include funds not explicitly related to terrorism financing.” [4].
Israel funded Hamas:
Despite the false accusations and propaganda spewing from Elizabeth Warren’s holes, it’s actually Israel’s own government that propped up Hamas for years using fiat money. While many readers will be quick to dismiss Libertarian news outlets such as AntiWar.com which have posted this type of information for years. [8] They will have a hard time dismissing the Israeli newspapers and the New York Times which recently covered this exact issue. [5] Netanyahu propped up and empowered Hamas with billions of dollars over the course of years, for the purpose of preventing a peace deal which would force Israel to give up land on the West Bank. [8] [10] [11]
Quotes from the New York Times in italics:
Israel’s national security adviser
“Shlomo Brom, a retired general and former deputy to Israel’s national security adviser, said an empowered Hamas helped Mr. Netanyahu avoid negotiating over a Palestinian state.” [5]
As long as Hamas was in-charge of the Gaza Strip, Israel could say at the UN “look we have no partner for peace”. Then they’d avoid having to make land successions. The New York Times continues:
“Mr. Lieberman: “For Netanyahu, there is only one thing that is really important: to be in power at any cost,” he said. “To stay in power, he preferred to pay for tranquility.” Suitcases filled with cash soon began crossing the border into Gaza” [5]
Haaretz
The money flowed from Israel to Qatar to Hamas. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz covered this extensively: [11]
Military Intelligence Director Amos Yadlin commented on June 13, 2007 that “Israel would be happy if Hamas took over Gaza because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state.” [11]
Jerusalem Post
Then a different Haaretz article covering the Jerusalem Post’s coverage: [10]
According to the Jerusalem Post, in a private meeting with members of his Likud party on March 11, 2019, Netanyahu explained the reckless step as follows: The money transfer is part of the strategy to divide the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. [10] [8]
Ynet & Netanyahu’s Major General
And further brought to our attention by Scott Horton [8]:
“In an interview with the Ynet news website on May 5, 2019, Netanyahu associate Gershon Hacohen, a major general in reserves, said, “We need to tell the truth. Netanyahu’s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.” [10] [8]
New York Times
And this same money was what enabled the terrorism attacks on Oct 7th and NOT Bitcoin as Elizabeth Warren will have you believe. As the New York Times confirms:
“Israeli intelligence officials now believe that the money had a role in the success of the Oct. 7 attacks, if only because the donations allowed Hamas to divert some of its own budget toward military operations.” [5]
Scott Horton
These are only a few of the hundreds of quotes from Israeli newspapers and Israeli officials. Please see Scott Horton’s excellent write-up for even further information. [8] The amount of evidence is overwhelming including first hand quotes from Netanyahu himself. [12]
Our main point
We question the use of US tax dollars to prop up Israel to empower Hamas as a legitimate use of either country’s taxpayer funds. Furthermore, we argue that without proper disciplinary measures taken against this type of action, further corruption could potentially occur. And most importantly, our core thesis is that banning Bitcoin for this negligent action from Netanyahu, represents an unnecessary trampling of individual civil liberties and a gross misrepresentation of the facts. This comes from a philosophical, historical, legal, and logistical angles.
Philosophical
From a philosophical angle, we argue that anything could potentially be used for terror, and it is not the role of the government decide what technology or speech is legitimate. In fact, the primary purpose of Bitcoin was to protect against inflation. It was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, right as Barrack Obama entered office and corruption occurred.
Wikileaks leaked emails show that Barrack Obama got orders from Citibank’s CEO on who his cabinet should include [7], right before that same cabinet (Timothy Geithner) went on to bailout Citibank with massive inflation that Bitcoin was designed to resist. So Elizabeth Warren is saying that one of the only tools designed and used to protect citizens against government overreach and corruption, should be controlled by government overreach for your own protection?
Legal
From a legal perspective, Bitcoin is really just encrypted text and therefore, this speech’s value is subjective and the constitutional freedom of speech applies. The government does not have the authority to dictate writings on distributed ledgers. There’s no entity to sanction. You can’t sanction speech.
Practical
From a practical perspective, cryptocurrency can not be controlled globally given it’s massive global popularity and technical design to resist governments across borders. Therefore, governments would only deprive law abiding citizens of their civil liberties with low benefit to actually stopping crime. Even ex-CIA officials will tell you this.
Even CIA
Yaya J. Fanusie is a former CIA analyst and director of policy for anti-money laundering and cyber risk at the Crypto Council for Innovation. Yaya said quote “The U.S. doesn’t need new legislation or enforcement tools to go after Hamas’s crypto holdings.” and “U.S. government should take concrete steps to ensure that crypto exchange businesses continue to flourish onshore, where the U.S. has better regulatory reach.” [6]
The sources for this article can be found here.
Conclusion
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