Beyond the pale

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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