◼ In his letter to Holder, the governor specifies the U. S. laws which he thinks are being violated by the American individual and corporate participants in the flotilla: - Roger L. Simon at Pajamas
The acts of funding, supporting, organizing and engaging in these efforts appears to constitute participation in a naval expedition against a people with whom the United States is at peace, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 960; the furnishing of a vessel with the intent that it be employed to commit hostilities against a people with whom the United States is at peace, in violation 18 U. S. C. 962; and the provision of material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2339. See, e.g., Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 130 S. Ct. 2705 (2010).◼ Last whimper from the Gaza flotilla? - HotAir Greenroom
(Texas Governor Rick Perry wrote on Thursday to urge the Obama administration to intercept and/or prosecute the American flotilla participants, citing Title 18 Section 962 of the US Code.)
These creative efforts get an A+ for ingenuity and determination, but they should not have been necessary. Nor should the US or any of our allies be working through covert, undeclared pressure on Greece or Turkey to prevent the ships under our flags from departing their ports to mount the flotilla operation. We should state our purpose overtly as a matter of policy. Merely warning our citizens that this is a bad idea is insufficient; out governments should be denying them the ships.
We should do so especially because of the evidence of participation in the flotilla by Hamas and IHH. Dutch media have reported this week that all the embarked Dutch journalists have pulled out of the flotilla (here and here), in large part because of the presence of a Hamas leader. One of the chief organizers of the flotilla is Mohammed Sawalha, who has extensive Hamas connections.
But the participation of IHH members, widely reported in Turkish media, is in one way even more significant. It was IHH participants who attacked Israeli soldiers during the 2010 flotilla incident, and their presence this year lends special credence to the Israeli report earlier this week that flotilla participants from the terror groups were planning another attack on the IDF. In line with this purpose, one of the American flotilla planners has forthrightly announced that the flotilla is part of
… a larger strategy, to transform this conflict from one between Israel and the Palestinians, or Israel and the Arab world…to one between the rest of the world and Israel…
