Don't Donate to HLF Yet

In case you missed this, update on the Holy Land Foundation trial from The American Thinker:

A major development last week, along with the Department of Justice's vow to press forward with retrying the case, does not bode well for the defendants.

Last week, the Palestinian Authority closed down all of the zakat committees because of their ties to HAMAS. The decision, announced last Thursday by Jamal Bawattna, PA Minister of Religious Endowments, strikes at the key contention of the defense in the Holy Land case - that the zakat committees who received funds from the Holy Land Foundation had no known ties to HAMAS. While this angle hasn't been reported in the Western press, the English-language jihadist forums have been abuzz with the news (CAUTION: link is to the HAMAS al-Qassam website). The cash value of this decision is that now all sides, including the Palestinian Authority (who closed the zakat committees to rid them of their HAMAS control) and HAMAS itself (who publicly decry the PA's decision because they admit that the committees were under their control), immediately contradict the cardinal claim of the HLF's defense.

Also this:

But the prosecution of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian ended with his guilty plea to providing goods and services to a designated terrorist group. Al-Arian acknowledged what he long denied, that he was part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He is a convicted felon and is still in prison, his term lengthened because of his refusal to testify in front of a grand jury investigation of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked think tank in Northern Virginia. In Chicago, Mohammed Salah was cleared of Hamas-support charges but convicted of lying in a Hamas-related civil case and sentenced to nearly 2 years in prison, which he will begin serving later this year. Salah's co-defendant, Abdulhaleem al-Ashqar, was convicted of obstruction of justice, and is expected to be sentenced next month. .

"We didn't get Gotti the first time we tried," noted one veteran prosecutor. "We had to go at him again and again."

One Muslim-American who opposes Islamist political efforts said a second trial is important to stem the ability of people to deceive well intentioned donors by routing funds to a terrorist organization.

UPDATE: And this stunner. Is it PBS? No, it's the BBC. (Might as well be.) LGF:

On June 12, 2005, before the 7/7 London bombings, but after the September 11 attacks, the BBC aired this documentary titled “Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic” — a stunning whitewash of radical Islam in Britain. This amazing documentary features the five Muslim “paintballers” currently on trial for setting up terror training camps.

It shows how the BBC helped keep the British public fast asleep, a few weeks before the bombs went off in London subways and buses. (From the mysterious Kasper. Video.

UPDATE: Terrorist expert Stephen Emerson sums up the HLF trial. Evil Exposed.

Previous posts: Muslim Brotherhood Terror Takeover, Homegrown Terror