Juan Cole on Abramoff and the settlers

Juan Cole has a lengthy article on the disgraced American lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his links to, in JC's words, "what are essentially terrorist activities by armed land thieves in Palestinian territory". Among his activities are hoodwinking native American tribes into funding "Jabotinskyites" and diverting money from an ostensible inner-city youth charity to purchase weaponry for Israeli settlers.

He compares this to what Sami al-Arian was accused of:

Now here's the thing. If a Palestinian-American had diverted $140,000 from a Muslim charity to "security equipment" and "sniper lessons" for Palestinians on the West Bank, that individual would be in Gitmo so fast that the sonic boom would rattle your windows.
In fact, it seems to me that Sami al-Arian is the mirror image of Abramoff.
But here's a prediction. None of the Jewish extremists, some of them violent, who are invading the West Bank and making the lives of the local Palestinians miserable will ever be branded "terrorists" by the US Government, and Abramoff's foray into providing sniper lessons will be quietly buried.
Terror isn't terror and aggression is not aggression when it has lobbyists in Congress who can provide luxury vacations and illegal campaign funding.

Abramoff and al-Arian: Lobbyist's "Charity" a Front for Terrorism

(I do hope nobody thinks I'm going on a Palestinian posting frenzy to persuade anyone that I'm not a Zionist …)