Canada is not British, nor European, nor Yankee, and in all the foreign and domestic sniggerings, objections, protests and complaints about the way Canada and its officials have handled the Galloway file, you will have to look very hard before you find one - just one - that does not wholly depend upon an embarassing error of fact, a delusion, a conspiracy theory, or an outright lie.
Terry Glavin gets it absolutely right, here.
Glavin’s criticism’s of Hitchens’ reduction of the affair to an issue of “free speech” is important:
“…Galloway had delivered roughly $2 million (Cdn.) in vehicles, various goods and cash, directly to Hamas boss Ismail Haniyeh. Galloway boasted about this, and openly dared British and European authorities to charge him for breaking the sanctions against Hamas, and he went so far as to stage an event for Al Jazeera television in which he handed over a wad of cash in the equivalent of about $50,000 (Cdn.) directly to Haniyeh. Around the time Orr was composing his letter to Galloway, the British Charity Commission was preparing an investigation into the transactions Galloway was involved with in Gaza.”
Galloway was involved in support of terrorism and was rightly kept out of Canada. He should also be kept out of the US for the same reason. That Hitchens’ refuses to see that may have something to do with his own former championing of the Palestinian cause. He is not the first anti Zionist who acquires a case of temporary stupidity every time they deal with issues pertaining with anti-Zionism/antisemitism.
Galloway appeared on CBC TV’s The Hour, attempting to explain away the direct handover of “ambulances and money” to the “government in power” as this is what all NGOs like the Canadian Red Cross do.
The show’s not overly bright host didn’t challenge his story, and, of course the no-brighter show researchers were not aware that GG’s latest charitable activities are the subject of yet another Charities Commission investigation, this time for contravening a ban as opposed to misuse of the Miryam Fund’s monies.