A federal judge has sentenced five representatives of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development to as much as 65 years in prison for raising money for impoverished Palestinians.  

The facts of the case are relatively simple.  In 1995, the Clinton administration placed the Palestinian group, Hamas on a list of terrorist organizations; a decision that was ratified by the Bush administration.  The money channeled to Palestine through the Holy Land Foundation (headquartered in the Dallas suburb of Richardson, Texas) was given to Zakats, local charitable organizations providing food, schooling and emergency relief to Muslims in the West Bank and Gaza.   Zakats are generally under the control of Hamas.

The government has argued that, although the bulk of donated funds went directly to relief work, Hamas could easily have diverted some of the money to terrorist activity. 

In 2007, the federal government’s first attempt to prosecute the Holy Land Foundation defendatns ended in a mistrial when a federal jury acquitted the defendants of many of the charges against them and deadlocked on others.  This legal setback was viewed by many as a profound humiliation at the time and many critics accused the federal government of overreaching and overreacting. 

In 2008, the government took a second bite at the Holy Land Foundation apple, focusing on the 108 counts on which the 2007 jury reached no verdict. 

Federal Judge Jorge Solis appears to have been deeply offended by the lack of contrition exhibited by the defendants.  At yesterday’s sentencing hearing, Solis handed down what amount to life sentences (there is no parole in the federal system), repeatedly accusing the defendants of intentionally and consciously funding acts of terrorism. 

That charge is difficult to sustain.  How can anyone possibly know whether the defendants in this case wanted a portion of the donated money to fund terrorist acts or if they sincerely believed that every penny raised was going directly to humanitarian relief.

Legally, it doesn’t matter.  The government only had to prove that the Holy Land defendants knew that Hamas would have access to the donated money.  Since the American government considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization, the defendants were guilty if they knew, or if they should have known, that the donated money might be under the control of Hamas.

Still, 65 years in prison for trying to help the poor, the sick and the hungry?  Can such a draconian sentence be justified?  Do these sentences reflect a measure of paranoia?  Can anyone imagine the leaders of a Jewish humanitarian organization being charged with aiding the building of illegal settlements on the West Bank?

There is a critical difference of course: Hamas is a terrorist organization even when it is relieving suffering; the Israelis are strong American allies even when they reduce Gaza to rubble killing hundreds of innocents in the process. 

 The real crime perpetrated by the Holy Land Foundation was viewing the Israelis are terrorists and the Palestinians as noble freedom fighters. 

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are proud peoples fighting for survival.  Tactical differences are largely a function of the immense power differential between the two sides.  From the perspective of the British, the American colonists were terrorists in 1776. 

I am not trying to defend Hamas.  I am not a Palestinian and, like most Westerners, I have been raised to view Islam in a negative light.  Moreover, I have always been inspired by the Israeli struggle for national survival. 

On the other hand, Palestinians too are creatures of God.  Perspective in these matters is largely driven by the circumstances of birth. 

The moral ambiguities of the case explain the marked difference between the 2007 and 2008 verdicts.  Linda Moron, one of the defense attorneys representing the defendants made this statement yesterday: “Twelve good American citizens in the first trial didn’t convict anyone of anything; and 12 good American citizens in the second trial convicted everyone of everything. If you can make sense of that … explain it to me.”

  LULAC (The League of Latin American Citizens) has published a statement decrying yesterday’s harsh sentences and a number of African American opinion leaders in the DFW region have also been critical of the government’s handling of this case.

Meanwhile, the American Muslim community has been divided over the Holy Land prosecution; some see the government’s aggressive stance as evidence of anti-Muslim bigotry, others suspect that Holy Land should have been more circumspect.  Nationwide, Muslims who wish to provide aid to the Middle East have been unsure where to send their donations.  As a result, all Muslim charities have been suffering.

Laurie Goodstein’s article in the New York Times places yesterday’s events in wider perspective:

“Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the government designated dozens of Muslim charities, mostly international relief agencies, as financiers of terrorism. Muslim groups struggled for years to persuade the Treasury Department to produce some kind of seal of approval for legitimate charities that adhered strictly to humanitarian work. For Muslims, giving to charity is a religious obligation.”

These verdicts may hold up, but I would be very surprised if the unspeakably harsh sentences handed down yesterday will stand.  Ten years from now this incident will be viewed as an embarrassing overreaction to a morally complex situation.