The Treasury Department has frozen the funds of two Palestinian banks and a charitable foundation based in Richardson, Texas that they allege provide financial support to Hamas. The charity, called the Holy Land Foundation, supports Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, Jordan, and Lebanon. On their Web site, they don’t mention support for terrorists among the many charitable activities that they are involved in. A bit more digging reveals that the complaint against the HLF is that they provide monthly stipends to the families of suicide bombers (as part of a larger program of providing monthly stipends to Palestinian families in general).

Is that a justifiable reason to stop the activities of a large charitable organization altogether? Should they allow the families of suicide bombers to starve instead? I’m not in favor of terrorism of any kind, but it seems to me that we need better justification for putting what seems to be a reputable charity out of business altogether. Maybe there’s more to the story I don’t know about, but with the information that I have, it seems excessive to freeze their assets.