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Beyond the pale

Opinion

Written by The Jewish Chronicle

Friday, 05 February 2010 12:00

Giving someone money and telling him to kill a third person is clearly murder. But what if you know that someone has committed murder and help him remain at large? That scenario — abetting a felon — is akin to what a local group has done with regard to fundraising for Hamas.

Everyone knows Hamas’ bloody record of terrorist deeds inside Israel, from bus bombings to rocket attacks. It was conceived in ugly, anti-Semitic sin.

And yet the KC-based Citizens for Justice in the Middle East co-hosted a fundraising tour by pugnacious British lawmaker George Galloway last summer, despite knowing Galloway had previously given financial support to Hamas and was likely to do so again. (See related story)

Supporters can point to Hamas’ plurality in the 2006 Palestinian Arab plebiscite as a reason to legitimate it, but they cannot ignore the countervailing illegitimacy of its terrorist acts. Or at least, we won’t let them.

Now the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has called for a federal investigation into Galloway’s stateside fundraising for Hamas, which appears to run afoul of U.S. laws against providing material support to terror groups.

It shouldn’t take the threat of legal action to keep people who claim to stand for peace and justice from supporting Hamas.

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Comments (2)

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written by Jim Kenney, February 06, 2010

Rick, it is disingenuous to call people terrorists who have been defending their own territory for the past 43 years of illegal occupation by Israel during which time Israel has been in direct violation of over 40 UN resolutions, using collective punishment, targeting and assassinating their elected leaders, illegally sealing their borders, harbors and air space creating a major humanitarian crisis and randomly imprisoning thousands without charges.
The Hamas leaders were freely chosen in elections monitored by international inspectors and have repeatedly offered Israel a peace treaty for up to 50 years which Israel has repeatedly rejected. Hamas has been more faithful in keeping their promises than Israel.

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written by Caballero Andante, February 26, 2010

Jim Kenney, just exactly what planet are you from?

Whatever planet it is, you have a lot of company. It's a planet populated by those who condemn Israel for having the temerity to defend its right to exist. It's a planet populated by those who see the Arabs as a peace-loving people who only wish to coexist with Israel. It's a planet populated by those who believe that an election monitored by the likes of Jimmy Carter, and which elects a group of terrorist thugs, is a legitimate election (as it may very well be; I have no problem believing that the residents of Gaza willingly chose to be led by those sworn to the obliteration of Israel).

You and Rabbi Margolies ought to get together and talk of old times on that weird, out-of-touch-with-reality planet of yours.