Ties to terrorism

Nowadays I can't even visit a good old conservative blog without hearing about some civil rights group's or public figure's or international charity's ties to terrorism.
It seems that every Muslim or Arab group these days is somehow connected to terrorism.
If you support such a group, watch out, because you're suddenly connected to terrorist groups as well.

These ties are flawed on a number of levels.
Most of them involve long chains of connection between various contacts and groups. If one of them decides to become a bad apple, there goes the whole chain.

A lot of these organizations are accused of ties to Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by only six nations and the European Union. Not to mention Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections (which were supported by the United States and its mission of “spreading democracy in the Middle East,” I might add). Israeli scholar Reuven Paz said that about 90% of Hamas’ work is in cultural, educational, and social services. If one’s main objective is helping as many Palestinians as efficiently as possible, Hamas’ position as one of the only Palestinian organizations that actually does social and welfare-related service makes it an ideal candidate for donations.

With the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations changing constantly, it’s impossible to keep track of who’s still a “good guy.”

Furthermore, some people just don’t seem to watch the news. The federal case against Holy Land Foundation was declared a mistrial based on the inadequate evidence. Yet some continue to cite the foundation as an example of a terrorist organization, and anyone connected to it “has ties to Hamas.” (Jihad Watch, anyone?)

So what was the overwhelming evidence offered by the prosecution?
Holy Land Foundation was accused with supporting Hamas not by supporting acts of terror, but because its dollars went to hospitals and the poor through committees that were influenced by Hamas, and thus HLF assisted in spreading Hamas’ ideology. Right.