Bank Accounts Frozen, Summons Threatened: George Galloway Blows A Gasket

(UPDATE: Martin Levin is a good man. To my knowledge, apart from Christopher Hitchens - see the note at the bottom of Hitchens' Slate column, here - Martin is the only big-media journalist to publicly allow that there was something of a hoax to what in another universe I might call the "hegemonic narrative" that held big-media journalists in its thrall during what I like to call the Great Galloway Hoax of 2009. By his correction, Martin redeems an important trust that must exist between newspaper journalists and their readers in order for journalism to work properly, and he did so in a gracious and honest way. Which is to say, Martin Levin can be trusted, and he is a good man.)

Upon his return to Britain from "traveling abroad on high profile political business," Stoppist windbag George Galloway found something rather less welcoming than a red carpet waiting for him over the weekend.

Galloway's unopened mail included a warning from officials with the compliance investigations unit of the UK Charity Commission, advising him that they'd lost their patience with him and unless he showed up right quick and ready to answer their questions he'd be hauled before a High Court judge.

Galloway's 'Viva Palestina' Appeal bank accounts have also been frozen.

In predictable fashion, Galloway has responded with a long-winded and vitriolic soliloquy containing wild allegations of dark conspiracies, complaints that the Zionists get all the breaks, and an accusation that the Charity Commission is really motivated by an "obvious prejudice against the Palestinian cause and against Britain's two million-strong Muslim community."

The trouble with all that is the Charity Commission had already been patiently asking Galloway and his crowd to explain their peculiar fundraising activity for several weeks before it first issued notice, way back on March 23, that it was opening an inquiry under the Charities Act. This was just after Galloway had set off for his speaking engagements in the United States. In launching the inquiry, Commission officials explained that they were forced to do so after having become exasperated in repeatedly trying to get straight answers about whether the 'Viva Palestina' funds were really being held for charitable purposes.

In predictable fashion, Galloway responded back then by muttering insinuations about ulterior motives, and he alluded to the Commission's previous failures to pin anything on him, even during his "campaign against sanctions on Iraq." A fair point, in a way, since even the British Parliament gave Galloway at least a minor suspension after parliamentary sleaze police found him guilty of failing to disclose his "charity" links with Saddam Hussein's regime. Galloway then uttered some more dark warnings about strange coincidences. But Galloway's story didn't exactly stand up very well.

His stories rarely do, but in this case, only a couple of weeks before the March 23 inquiry launch, Galloway had given away the game all by himself. In a flight of hubris, while "traveling abroad on high profile political business," in the course of delivering roughly $2 million (Cdn.) in booty to Hamas boss Ismail Haniyeh, Galloway publicly taunted British and European authorities. He dared them to charge him. While handing over the cash to Haniyeh, Galloway said: "Here is the money. This is not charity. This is politics." The UK Terrorism Act explicitly prohibits fundraising for proscribed terrorist organizations. In the UK, Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization.

Around the time of the March 23 inquiry launch, someone in Galloway's parliamentary staff was in conversation with a Canadian High Commission official in London. It was about Galloway's chances of being able to make the speaking engagements he'd arranged in Canada, in light of everything Galloway had been up to. The High Commission's Immigration Program Manager, Robert J. Orr, followed up the conversation with a polite letter suggesting that Galloway's chances didn't look too good. In Canada, like the UK, it is illegal to raise funds for terrorist organizations, and in Canada, like the UK, Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act contains admissibility requirements for visitors that set a rather high bar for Hamas bagmen.

In predictable fashion, Galloway responded by conjuring up another great conspiracy: Canadian politicians were "seeking to ban" him from the country. After failing to get assurances that he would be put above Canadian law and given an advance exemption from Canada's admissibility requirements, he combined with his Canadian fan base to circulate a fanciful story that he had been singled out and barred from entering Canada because of a secret federal plot to silence critics of Canada’s engagements in Afghanistan. It was an outrage against free-speech, and the culprits behind it all? Starts with 'J.'

By and large, because of the gullibility, political illiteracy and in some cases stark-raving idiocy abroad in certain sections of Canada's national press, the conspiracy theory went viral.

But the facts remain. The evidence remains, and it looks like the curtains are starting to come down. That's why George Galloway is blowing another gasket.

This is not about charity. This is about politics.