HOLY LAND FOUNDATION scholarly articles

For anyone willing to take time to read peer-reviewed scholarship on the case of the Holy Land Foundation (as opposed to offering up their ability to discern truth to the Washington Post or the Dallas Morning News) I suggest beginning with two law review articles. The second I quote at length (sorry, “sound bites” won't help in understanding the complexities of the case). The first I post the only bibliographical information.

William & Mary Law Review (March 2004) 45 Wm and Mary L. Rev. 1341
“High Alert: The Government's War on the Financing of Terrorism and its Implications for Donors, Domestic Charitable Organizations, and Global Philanthropy.”
by NINA J. CRIMM – Professor of Law, St. John's University School of Law; LL.M. in Taxation, Georgetown University (1982); J.D. and M.B.A., Tulane University (1979); A.B., Washington University (1972).

Michigan Journal of International Law vol. 27, 4 (2006)
“Anti-Terrorist Finance In The United Kingdom And United States”
by LAURA K. DONOHUE — Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. This Article forms part of a book-length project on counterterrorist law in the United States and United Kingdom, which will be coming out next year with Cambridge University Press.

....On December 1, 2001, Hamas orchestrated two suicide bombings in Israel that left 25 people dead. The following day, Prime Minister Sharon asked President Bush to act against Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLFRD), [emphasis added] a California corporation headquartered in Texas which, according to its annual report, distributed approximately $6 million per year to refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel. 553 (It also raised money for non-Islamic causes, such as the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing and, in 2001, the attacks on the World Trade Center.) By December 4, 2001, the United States had frozen the organization’s assets and raided its offices in Texas, California, New Jersey, and Illinois.

President Bush said the money went to Hamas to “support schools and indoctrinate children to grow up into suicide bombers.”554 (Ironically, one supposedly Hamas-controlled institution financed by HLFRD, the al Razi hospital in the West Bank, also received support from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the UAE Red Crescent.)555

On March 7, 2002, HLFRD sued the DOJ, the Department of State, and the Department of the Treasury. The organization claimed a violation of its First Amendment right to religious freedom, Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and Fifth Amendment right to due process. Court documents revealed that the decision to freeze the organization’s assets came from a November 5, 2001, 49-page memo written by Dale L. Watson, assistant director of the counterterrorist division of the FBI, claiming that HLFRD was the “primary fund-raising entity for Hamas.” The complaint noted that the group conducted extensive charitable and humanitarian work with the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, NATO, the UNHCR, Turkey, the UN World Food Program, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, and the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund.

The state never brought criminal charges against HLFRD. Nor, as was earlier noted, did it manage to prosecute BFI, or a host of other charities whose assets it froze, for terrorist contributions.556 The United States’ failure to substantiate such claims, [emphasis added] the introduction of measures that allowed for freezing assets on the basis of mere association, and the state’s disproportionate focus on Muslim charities created an environment hostile to legitimate Islamic businesses and charities. Admittedly, the alienation of Arabs and Muslims is also the product of other official policies, such as indefinite detention, and informal practices, such as planning commissions’ reluctance to approve the building of mosques in the aftermath of September 11. But the cumulative impact is borne in the economic affect on families, as well as a larger strain on social services. At a broader level, minority groups may develop a lack of confidence in the political process, preventing social cohesion and political participation.....

553. Mike Allen & Steven Mufson, U.S. Seizes Assets of Three Islamic Groups, Wash. Post, Dec. 5, 2001, at A1; Lee, supra note 252, at 5.
554. White House News Releases, President George W. Bush, Remarks by the President on the Financial Fight Against Terror (Dec. 4, 2001), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-8.html
555. UAE Red Crescent Donates “Huge Chunk” of Aid to Palestinians in Jenin, BBC News, Oct. 29, 2002; Press Release, USAID, USAID Delivers Humanitarian Relief to People of Jenin, Apr. 16, 2002; available at http://www.usaid.gov/wbglpress .
556. In the case of Benevolence International Foundation, DOJ never brought criminal charges alleging that the organization assisted al Qaeda. Instead, the government brought suit only after the entities with their assets frozen had submitted court documents that claimed BIF had not provided aid to organizations known to be engaged in violence. When the organization later attempted to amend the statement, DOJ counter-sued, saying that BIF donated X-rays and hand and toe warmers to Chechen fighters and that it had misled its donors in this regard. BIF and Enaam Arnaout entered a plea bargain in response. Grand Jury Charges, United States of America v. Enaam M. Arnaout, No. 02 CR 892 (N.D. Ill. 2002); Criminal Comp., U.S. v. Benevolence International Foundation, Inc., and Enaam M. Arnaout, Case No. 02 CR 414 (N.D. Ill. 2002). See also U.S. v. Enaam M. Arnaout, No. 02 CR 892 (N.D. Ill. 2002) (laying out the violations); Plea Agreement, U.S. v. Enaam M. Arnaout, No. 02 CR 892 (N.D. Ill. 2002). But see Press Release, United States Dep’t of the Treasury, Treasury Designates Benevolence International Foundation and Related Entities as Financiers of Terrorism, http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/po3632.htm (saying that links to bin Laden and al Qaeda extend beyond activity carried out in the 1980s).