Flying Flotilla To Gaza Will Flout US Law Against Aid To Hamas

by Daled Amos


IMRA [Independent Media Review & Analysis] notes that it is being reported that there is now a plan to send a flotilla to Gaza by air next year:

A pro-Palestinian group based in the US will send a plane loaded with aid to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's air and sea blockade, an official said Sunday.

"We intend to send an aircraft to Gaza in much the same way boats were used -- without going through Israeli or Egyptian airspace," said Paul Larudee, an organizer with the California-based Free Palestine Movement sponsoring the flight.

Authorities in Gaza are supportive of the initiative and are working to locate a landing site, Larudee said. Gaza's now-defunct Yasser Arafat International Airport is not being considered, he said.

In the meantime, Free Palestine Movement officials will look for a plane designed for rough landings and takeoffs such as those used in Alaska and other locales lacking proper aviation facilities, Larudee said. The plan is to send a light aircraft equipped with material sometime in the spring of 2011, after the next sea voyage.

"Breaking the blockade by air may be even more feasible than by sea. An aircraft cannot be boarded while in flight, and the right aircraft can land almost anywhere in Gaza," a statement on the group's website says.

Following on the heels of the flotilla being planned by Rashid Khalidi--Obama's friend with ties to the PLO--maybe it is time to address the legal issues associated with American assistance to terrorist groups.

Jonathan Schanzer asks Do Gaza Flotillas Provide Material Support to Hamas?--and refers to former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy who looked into the legality of the flotilla:

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.

The application of the law has been further defined by the Supreme Court:

According to a Supreme Court decision in June (Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project), the prohibition against material support can apply even when the offerings are not money or weapons.

...However, as Chief Justice John Roberts noted, even if the support is administered with peaceful intent, it can lighten the financial burden of a terrorist group, and thus allow it to expend resources on terrorist activities.

It is all well and good for left wing groups to pursue their agendas, but when they intend to break the law in order to do it, it is time to see whether the US government takes it own laws seriously.

Daled Amos

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.