Galloway's Big Brother charity investigated

[faceless]

Terror' charity faces third probe
29.12.06

A London-based charity providing aid to Palestinians is under investigation again over alleged links to militant Islamist group Hamas. The Charity Commission has launched a formal probe into Interpal, which supplies relief and development aid to Palestine and its refugees. Respect MP George Galloway picked Interpal as his chosen charity when he appeared in Celebrity Big Brother and raised £1.3 million. The Charity Commission confirmed that an investigation began earlier this month to look at any "indirect and inappropriate" links between the charity in north-west London and supporters of Hamas.

A spokesman for the commission said: "We have not frozen the charity's assets and at this stage we do not intend to do so." US authorities named Interpal a "specially designated global terrorist" in August 2003. But two previous investigations by the Charity Commission found no evidence of links between the charity and terrorism.

The new investigation follows claims made in a BBC Panorama programme in the summer.

Story is from the right-wing Daily Mail's sister paper the Evening Standard,

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You'd think these bastards would have something better to spend their time on. When "Hamas" is basically not a single entity, but the people themselves, it doesn't take a genius to work out that money given into the figurative communal pot there is going to filter out in all directions. And who says that Hamas are terrorist anyway? The americans? What have they got to do with anything on a legal matter involving British subjects?

As Galloway mentioned yesterday, the USA harbours many hundreds of terrorists and murderers in Florida who escaped or were thrown out of Cuba. But that's ok, because they were right-wing terrorists eh?

[major.tom]

I find these sorts of argument, which are often parroted by the media, most contentious:

...links between the charity in north-west London and supporters of Hamas

What does this mean? Some people working for the charity know or have spoken with people who know or have spoken with or voted for or are members of Hamas? Does this constitute a "link"?

The fact that Hamas are currently the elected representatives of the Palestinian people does not even enter into the equation. The logic seems to be "Hamas is evil, so anyone 'linked to' Hamas is evil." -- guilt by association, selectively applied.

[popinjay]

90% of the work Hamas does has nothing to do with any kind of force or resistance. A lot of the anti-zionist action they take is against military targets. It's fucking disgusting that people can be criticised even if they were donating to Hamas, when the USUK donate billions every year to the fascist criminal state of Israel.