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Forward (The Jewish Daily) – August 8, 2007
“Israel helping in Holy Land trial”
Prosecution of Muslim group brings charges of bias
Nathan Guttman
Washington - The Bush administration’s most recent effort to prosecute alleged funders of terrorism is raising charges of Islamophobia and causing ethnic tensions in Texas, where the case is being tried.
The case against the Holy Land Foundation is currently being heard at the United States district court in Dallas. Federal prosecutors allege that the foundation served as an American fund-raising front for Hamas.
The case is a crucial test for the Bush administration, which failed in its first two efforts to prosecute alleged American terrorist fundraisers. A handful of Jewish organizations have actively called for the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, and this has led to charges of Islamophobia from Texas Muslim groups.
Thus far, the courthouse has drawn a steady stream of protesters who have said that prosecutors and Jewish organizations are singling out Muslim charitable organizations. Among those picketing outside the courthouse is Khalil Meek, president of the Muslim Legal Fund of America and a member of Hungry for Justice — a coalition of mostly Muslim groups supporting the defendants.
“To support a prosecution which is only political, without any evidence, is not a good idea,” Meek said in a telephone interview from Dallas……
Within the Jewish community, the claims of anti-Muslim bias are described as baseless. But while no Jewish organization made an official statement on the case, Jewish activists have been warning of Holy Land Foundation ties to Hamas for years...
The first witness called to the stand was Matthew Levitt, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former FBI analyst and Department of Treasury official.
During the cross-examination, defense attorneys tried to shake Levitt’s credibility both as an expert on charity groups related to Hamas and as an impartial scholar. The defense pointed out that Levitt was unaware that at least one of the charities he had mentioned was supportive of Fatah and not Hamas.
Later, the defense argued that Levitt was biased in favor of Israel, noting that he has spoken several times at events sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and by Jewish federations, and that founders of Levitt’s think tank are major donors to Aipac…
The Dallas trial is the third effort by government prosecutors to tie Muslim activists in the United States to overseas terror groups. In a case in Chicago two men charged with recruiting and providing money to Hamas were acquitted from all terrorism-related charges and found guilty on lesser charges of obstructing justice.
Federal prosecutors were also embarrassed in the Florida case of Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida was accused of running the American operations for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, including fundraising and coordination.
At the end of a lengthy trial, in which dozens of witnesses were flown in from Israel and a bus bombing was recreated and filmed, the jury could not reach a verdict on most of the major charges and Al-Arian was found guilty only on minor accounts.
Israel provided assistance to the prosecution in both cases, as it is now doing in the Dallas trial….
http://www.forward.com/articles/11354/
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