The Free Gaza flotilla incident seems to have pushed Israel and its supporters, including those in the US government, over the edge of reason (Original reporting Here). And you thought our neoconservative psychotic episodes had subsided once BushCo left office.
A Democratic member of the US House of Representatives says he wants to see US citizens aboard the Gaza flotilla prosecuted for providing aid to terrorists.
In a conference call organized by The Israel Project, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) told reporters that activists participating in the flotilla were aiding Hamas and therefore breaking US law.“The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 makes it absolutely illegal for any American to give food, money, school supplies, paper clips, concrete or weapons to Hamas or any of its officials,” Sherman said, as quoted at Jim Lobe’s foreign policy blog. “And so I will be asking the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what was clearly an effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization.”
Sherman also said that he plans on working with the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that any non-U.S. citizen involved with or aboard the Flotilla are excluded from entering the U.S.
Now, before I tee off on Brad Sherman or any other member of Congress contemplating the use of demented and Orwellian “anti-terrorism” laws to coerce free-thinking Americans into silence, or to bring them in line with crazy and criminal policies of Israel’s ever-worsening bunker mentality, over at TPM, M. J. Rosenberg makes an appropriate distinction worth acknowledging:
Brad Sherman (D-CA) is probably (possible exception Shelley Berkley of Nevada) the most pro-Likud Democratic member of Congress. (No, not pro-Israel. You can’t support policies that cause the whole world to turn against Israel and use that label).
But this is crazy even for Sherman.
Okay, caveat made. We’re not talking pro- or anti-Israel. We’re talking about insane pro-Likudnik policies. Now, cue the outrage.
