The Holy Land Foundation Case: Advocacy, Prosecution & the Limits of Dissent

Conversation In 2008, five leaders of what was then America's largest Muslim charity were convicted in one of the most consequential terrorism-financing prosecutions in U.S. history. Miko Peled and John Cline — an author who spent years investigating the case and the defense attorney who tried it — revisit what unfolded inside that courtroom, and what it reveals about the boundaries between advocacy, dissent, and the machinery of post-9/11 prosecution.

Guest Miko Peled is an Israeli-American author and human rights advocate. The son of Israeli general Matti Peled, he is the author of The General's Son and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five, the latter examining the prosecution and conviction of the Holy Land Foundation's leadership.

Guest John Cline is a nationally recognized criminal defense attorney who represented Ghassan Elashi, the Holy Land Foundation's former chairman, at trial and on appeal. Over a decades-long career in complex federal defense, he has also represented clients including Oliver North, Wen Ho Lee, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Witness To

• The Holy Land Foundation case and its legal legacy
• The boundaries between advocacy, speech, and criminal prosecution
• Civil liberties in the post-9/11 landscape