Do Gaza Flotillas Provide Material Support to Hamas?: If so, should those U.S. funders of the flotilla be subject to prosecution?

Fascinating thought but not one likely to be supported by the Obama administration. After all, he is personal buddies with Rashid Khalidi.

Do Gaza Flotillas Provide Material Support to Hamas?: If so, should those U.S. funders of the flotilla be subject to prosecution?
by Jonathan Schanzer

Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy recently argued at National Review Online that the federal government has reason to investigate Rashid Khalidi, an activist Middle Eastern studies professor at Columbia University. What prompted this? Khalidi's efforts to raise $370,000 for a new sea vessel (to be named The Audacity of Hope, after President Barack Obama's second book) designed to break the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

As increasing numbers of pro-Palestinian activists try to break the blockade of Gaza, McCarthy's argument is worth exploring. Are these flotillas legal?

McCarthy notes that it is illegal for Americans "to furnish or fit out a vessel in the service of any foreign entity 'to cruise, or commit hostilities' against a nation with which the U.S. is at peace." Israel, of course, is an American ally that is imposing a policy in Gaza that Washington officially supports.

McCarthy also notes that the Logan Act prohibits U.S. citizens "from carrying on 'any correspondence or intercourse' with any foreign government… to 'defeat the measures of the United States.'" To this end, McCarthy then suggests that the Justice Department should investigate flotilla organizers' communications with the de facto Hamas government in Gaza, particularly if they seek to undermine U.S. policy.

In the end, it is McCarthy's third point that is the most convincing: The Justice Department, under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, could also investigate American flotilla organizers for providing material support to a terrorist group.

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Israel Publishes Gaza Travel Guidebook For Pro-Hamas Freedom Flotilla | Mere Rhetoric

Very nice spoof and lots of real information and real pictures. Check out that Grand Palace Hotel, very grand!

FROM: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
TO: Free Gaza Freedom Flotilla
RE: Gaza Tourism Guide

Dear Crazy People,

We’ve been given to understand that you intend to stage another media stunt, wherein you’re again going to float some empty ships – they may be full this time, they were mostly empty last time – in the general direction of the Gaza Strip. Your hope is apparently that your cameramen will capture the Israeli reaction and edit it into an overreaction or, failing that, simply reprint your feverish fantasies with slack-jawed credulity. Again.

Our problem isn’t so much that your goal involves obfuscating the millions of tons of food and aid we’ve delivered to Gaza civilians, which allowed Hamas to move money away from infrastructure and into weaponry, which led to more of our cities getting bombarded with rockets and missiles. It’s not even how, knowing that we deliver 15,000 tons of goods every week, your 10,000 tons of concrete isn’t exactly a shining testament to your good intentions. Not when just last week we handed over 810,209 liters of heavy duty diesel fuel, 21 truckloads of milk powder and baby food, 897 tons of cooking gas, 66 truckloads of fruits and vegetables, 51 truckloads of wheat, 27 truckloads of meat, chicken and fish products, 40 truckloads of dairy products, 117 truckloads of animal feed, 36 truckloads of hygiene products, 38 trucks of clothing, 22 trucks of sugar and 4 trucks of medicine and medical equipment. But again: not the issue.

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Who Are Huwaida Arraf & Adam Shapiro? Gaza Flotilla Leaders Sheltered “Mike’s Bar” Homicide Bombers | Debbie Schlussel

Debbie Schlussel blog. Always relevant.