The news that British MP George Galloway was the planned guest speaker at a February 1 Hamas fundraiser at Boston’s Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace would, in a morally coherent world, be alarming for those in the West who wonder why elected officials should be gathering support for a group of jihadist thugs whose principal efforts are dedicated to the extirpation of Israel and the murder of Jews.
Here again is yet another instance of the dangerous unholy alliance between Islamists, with a specific agenda to dilute Western institutions and destroy Israel, and leftists, who, in accommodating radical Islam, not only enable what Robert Spencer has called a “stealth jihad,” but help facilitate it.
Galloway, whom the wry commentator Christopher Hitchens once described as “being 100 percent consistent in support for thugs and criminals,” has been actively raising funds for his current pet project, Viva Palestina – including from those attendees at the Boston event. Palestina has as its purported goal to shuttle in “aid” to Gaza, but that assistance has been in the form of cash given directly to Hamas – designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department, Canada, and the EU.
Galloway’s pernicious fundraising road show has also included visits to American universities. In October 2009, for instance, in an action that seemed to give credence to notion that there was, and remains, a sinister and dangerous side to anti-Israel activism on college campuses, the U.S. Justice Department initiated an investigation into possible illegal fundraising on behalf of Hamas participated in by UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU). Based on a formal complaint by the Zionist Organization of America, the investigation centers on allegations that Galloway had raised funds for the Viva Palestina project.
Galloway, who has referred Hamas “as heroes [who] are opening the eyes of the world to the siege in the Strip,” and who elevates the Palestinian cause as a sacred mission against the tyranny of Western imperialism, had attended a May 2009 event on the Irvine campus sponsored by the University’s MSU, “Israel: The Politics of Genocide,” and used the opportunity not only to condemn Israel for its many alleged transgressions, but also to raise money to assist its enemies in arming themselves to further their ambition of extirpating the Jewish state.
His real intention, and the spurious purpose of Viva Palestina’s fundraising, was on full display in 2009 when Galloway presented a satchel of cash to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. At that meeting, Galloway was very clear about his true intentions and the purpose of his charitable activities: “This is not charity,” he said as he defiantly passed the money to Haniyeh, “this is politics.”
What is more, he said at that meeting that he was fully intent on “break[ing] the sanctions on the elected government of Palestine.”
While Galloway’s current obsession seems to be his visceral hatred for the Jewish state and adulation for its jihadist foes, his loathing of the imperialist West in general has been evident for some time now. In a 2005 interview on Iraq News Network, for instance, he was asked if it was feasible, or even productive, for the radical left and Islamists to have common goals in their assault against Western democracies and Israel.
For Galloway, whose fatuous theories about Western hegemony and Third-World victimhood animate his venomous worldview, this unholy alliance is precisely what he is after.
“Not only do I think it’s possible,” he told the interviewer, “but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries, mainly Muslim countries. They have the same interest in opposing savage capitalist globalization which is intent upon homogenizing the entire world . So it’s necessary to unite these two great forces.”
This morally imbecilic fawning over despots and murderers has been part of Galloway’s repertoire for years. In 1994, for example, he told the lovely Saddam Hussein, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” What was more, Galloway was completely willing to cheer on the Islamist madman in his apocalyptic scourge against mankind, and specifically against one small democracy in the Middle East.