Andy McCarthy re: “Humanitarian” Flotilla

NRO — The Corner

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

 

The Grand Jihad and the “Humanitarian” Flotilla   [Andy McCarthy]

The main points of my new book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, are (a) that the West, including Israel, is under attack by Islamism, a “civilizational” movement (that’s how it describes itself) that is much broader and more sophisticated than Islamist terrorism; and (b) that this movement collaborates energetically with the modern hard Left because, for all their differences, Islamists and Leftists are in harmony on several important matters, including who their enemy is:  us — Western civilization, American constitutional republicanism, and the culture of individual liberty. It was my hope that the book would accurately describe the challenge. I was not banking on there so quickly appearing incidents that prove my point.

Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism reports today on the “humanitarian” flotilla that so clearly provoked the deadly confrontation with Israelis who are trying to protect themselves from Iran-backed Hamas — the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian “resistance” faction that exists for no other purpose than to destroy Israel. As Steve points out, the pertinent background goes back to Leftists led by George Galloway:

It’s worth remembering why the aid was being transported by sea in the first place. A convoy led by then-British MP George Galloway ended in violence at the Egyptian-Gaza border in early January after authorities delayed their entry into Gaza.

An Egyptian police officer was shot and killed by Hamas gunmen. Egypt deported Galloway, made it clear he was unwelcome there again, and told the convoy it could no longer enter through its crossing. Galloway’s partner in that convoy was the Turkish-based International Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), which helped lead the flotilla.

IHH was a key player in the Free Gaza Movement flotilla. Israeli officials say IHH is tied to Hamas, and even to al Qaeda, and it was banned in Israel in 2008 for being “part of Hamas’s fundraising network.” Court papers in the U.S. prosecution of Abdurahman Alamoudi also tie it to terrorist activity, citing French intelligence expert Jean Louis-Bruguiere’s assessment that IHH played “[a]n important role” in the Millennium bomb plot.

IHH also is part of the Union of Good, a collection of charities run by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The union was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008 as a terrorist entity due to its fund-raising activities on behalf of Hamas and Hamas-controlled organizations in the West Bank and Gaza.

I write at length in the book about Qaradawi, who is probably the most influential Sunni cleric in the world and whose recent accomplishments include sparking the rioting over the Danish cartoons, giving the Islamic jurisprudential seal of approval to “martyrdom” suicide terrorist attacks by Muslim women, and similarly endorsing terrorist attacks against American troops in Iraq.

Steve continues:

During the past year, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has chronicled the Hamas-ties of relief convoy participants, led by Galloway. In March 2009, he defiantly handed a bag of cash directly to a Hamas minister and announced that:

“By Allah, we carried a lot of cash here. You thought we were all fat. We are not fat. This is money that we have around our waists … We are giving you now 100 vehicles and all of the contents. And we make no apology for what I am about to say: We are giving them to the elected government of Palestine; to the Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.”

After the January convoy, a Palestinian media outlet reported that Hamas political and militant leaders were fighting for control of $1 million delivered in the Viva Palestina/IHH convoy. And last week, before the confrontation on the Mediterranean, Palestinian political scientist Talal Okal told the Christian Science Monitor that Hamas controls anything that comes in from the relief efforts. Hamas activists were even seen driving ambulances the convoy left behind:

“They want to show that they dominate everything, and that everything in Gaza passes under their eyes. So, if these boats arrive, Hamas will receive it [the aid] and distribute it how they want, to their supporters and according to their policies.”

With that in mind, Israel’s concern that the flotilla might carry goods Hamas could use in weapons and explosives isn’t so far-fetched.

No, not far-fetched in the slightest. In fact, that’s the plan. And it’s been the plan since Hamas came into existence in 1987 — including when, as I mentioned yesterday, Hamas was run from Virginia for several years during the Intifada.

The rest of Steve’s report is here.