In fact, Hamas loves Barack Obama!

It seems that two Palestinian brothers that live inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip are somehow listed in government election filings as having donated $29,521.54 to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign.  How can that be … I asked.  Would that not be illegal?

And low and behold …. according to Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, donations of this nature would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving contributions from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election.

These terrorist-based contributions to his campaign fund also bring into focus some serious questions about Barack  Obama’s online campaign donation form, which apparently allows for foreign contributions.

According to one of last weeks posts on the blog, Atlas Shrugs, a series of donations were made during 2007 to Barack Obama’s election campaign by two brothers: Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan. These donations totaled $29,521.54.

On the online form on Obama’s campaign site, the Edwans listed their street as “Tal Esaltan,” which they submitted on the form as being located in “Rafah, GA.”  However, it seems Rafah is not a city in Georgia … Rafah is located in the Gaza Strip.

I checked and the Edwans’ donations are listed in both FEC filings and donordata.org.

One brother, Monir, made 20 donations ranging from $717 to $2017.50 between October and November in  2007. His donations totaled $24321.41. The other brother, Hosam, made seven donations ranging from $508.63 to $1725.96, totaling $5,200.13, all in October of 2007.

A World Net Daily reporter tracked down the Edwans, who are living in the Tal Esaltan neighborhood of Rafah, (not in Georgia … but in a large refugee camp) in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Edwans are a large clan that includes among its members many top Hamas supporters.

When questioned by World Net Daily, the two brothers praised Obama and admitted giving the money online to his campaign. They admitted that they are not U.S. citizens or even green card holders … but are citizens of “Palestine.”

Of course, the Edwans both denied they are affiliated with Hamas. Palestinian sources in Gaza confirmed the Edwans in question are secular, but would not say whether or not they supported Hamas.

Monir and Hasam Edwan denied their financial transactions, listed as donations in U.S. government election filings,  were actually donations to Obama’s campaign. Instead they claimed they purchased about $30,000 in Obama T-shirts from the presidential candidate’s online store.  This contention did not hold up during a WND interview, during which it seems they changed their story several times.

According to WND, Edwan could not seem to explain how he got these shipments of T-shirts into the Gaza Strip …  since Israel had imposed a tight closure of the Gaza Strip starting in June 2007 that lasted until June 2008, when the Israeli government agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza.

FEC spokesman Biersack told WND contributions from overseas are allowed if the donations are coming from U.S. citizens or green card carriers. But he said accepting money from foreigners would violate election provisions.

He said there are strict guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election.

“I am not familiar with the particulars of the case, so I am commenting in general. The FEC will have to examine all the circumstances before determining any wrongdoing,” Biersack clarified.

Quite expectedly, Obama’s campaign did not return WND phone calls or e-mail queries.

To me, the fact that the Edwans were able to contribute any money to Obama’s campaign at all from Gaza brings to light serious questions into the methods used by the presidential candidate’s website to accept online donations.

The website donation form asks each donor to affirm he or she is a U.S. citizen and is above the age of 16 but doesn’t require donors to prove their citizenship status, such as providing a social security number. The form further requires the donor to affirm the contribution is not coming from a corporation, political action committee or lobby group.