Will the Turkish Flotilla Group Be Named as Terrorists?

It's not every day that House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ed Royce (R-CA), the ranking member of terrorism subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, agree on anything. But, when it comes to the terrorist connections of one particular Turkish charity, there's no daylight between them. These legislators recently sent a letter to Stuart Levey, the under secretary for terror finance at the Treasury Department, stating that evidence "strongly supports" designating the Turkish charity IHH (Insan Haklari Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi) under Executive Order 13224 for its support of terrorist groups, and urging Levey to take action.

IHH, by way of background, sponsored the ill-fated flotilla designed to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in late May. And though the Israeli military has come under intense fire for a confrontation that led to nine deaths on the high seas, legislators are increasingly convinced, based on a growing body of evidence, that IHH could meet the Treasury's legal criteria for terrorist designation.

Other influential members of Congress are getting in the act, too. Representative Ron Klein, a Democrat from Florida, has also asked the government to scrutinize IHH. He sent a letter to the State Department last month asking its counterterrorism department to consider a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) listing. Last week, Richard Verma from State's Office of Legislative Affairs responded with a letter indicating that the Turkish charity may not qualify as an FTO, but that "U.S. government agencies are taking a close look at IHH" for Treasury designation because "serious questions of support to terrorist organizations have been raised."

The congressional demand for a designation of IHH may actually be coming at a bad time. Treasury's terrorism designation team, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, is working overtime. On June 16, Treasury announced the designation of dozens of targets tied to the Iranian nuclear program, as part of the Obama administration's larger Iran sanctions strategy. Treasury followed up again on Aug. 3 with a new tranche of targets tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Indeed, Levey and his team have been forced to take analysts off of their regular portfolios to produce these Iran designations, which often entail months of research, not to mention bureaucratic navigation.

This is not to say that IHH isn't worthy of a Treasury designation. Indeed, it is puzzling that IHH has not already been designated. The group advertises the fact that it is a participating member of the Saudi-based umbrella organization Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). On November 12, 2008, Treasury listed the Union as a terrorist entity, stating that the group was "created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization."

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GUYVER

1:53 PM ET

August 19, 2010

The Israeli lobby is amazing

“No daylight” between the Dem and Repub over IHH. Complete bipartisan agreement!

A BALANCED VIEW

9:26 PM ET

Here's why it is very

Here's why it is very difficult to make a one to one connection between AIPAC and the actions that they take; they deal in graft, blackmail, espionage, and a type of money laundering in order to get things done.

Two of their top officials are arrested for espionage against the US. Another Israeli spy the FBI is wiretapping calls rep Jane Harman and says 'try to get my two guys off somehow, and I will have Haim Saban blackmail Nancy pelosi into putting you back into a key position of an influential security panel".Harman agrees, and ends the conversation with "this conversation never happened. Saban calls Pelosi, and threatens to withhold millions in democratic party contributions if she does not put Harman into the key seat. The FBI has already tipped off Pelosi about the wire tap, and she goes theatrically ballistic about being blackmailed.

Harman is to be arrested by the FBI for a completed crime, but Alberto Gonzalez lets her off completely in return for her defense of the illegal wire tapping program, and she walks.

So, Graft, blackmail, espionage, and money laundering (sabans and others money used by AIPAC under the table). I doubt that is even the tip of the iceberg.

CARDENAS697

2:19 PM ET

Let's make sure

I am a strong supporter of Israel because they have assisted many countries including Colombia with fighting terrorist organizations. I am little hesitant to name an organization like the IHH as a strong supporter of terrorism unless there is substantial documentation that links this organization to terrorist organizations. We as a country may not agree with the politics and policies of the IHH or any other humanitarian group giving humanitarian assistance to a geographic area under a terrorist control. They are classified as a humanitarian group and until further proof is presented should be treated as such. More importantly these seams to have started just because of the incident of the Gaza Flotilla Raid Howard Berman and Ed Royce should be more concern with how to work with countries like Venezuela that openly support and protect the FARC.

AVILLA

5:06 PM ET

No.

I am puzzled by your first sentence. "It's not every day that House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ed Royce (R-CA)... agree on anything." Since when has this been the case? Berman may be a Democrat, but he is firmly a hawk; you will recall that he supported invading Iraq (both times), and has said on record that "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." Royce and Berman agree with each other fairly often, actually. Why are you pretending that Berman is a liberal?

Also, The German IHH and the Turkish IHH are not related. The German one is Internationale Humanitare Hilfsorganisation, the Turkish is ?nsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri. Although the media attempted to conflate them, both groups said that they had nothing to do with each other. Their names aren't even in the same language, for god's sake. They just have the same initials.

Bruguière's testimony was thrown out of court in the trial that you mention; the judge declared that his words would "necessarily be based upon hearsay". His claims that the Turks raided the IHH's office and found links between them and al-Qaeda were immediately denied by the Turkish authorities, even before the flotilla existed. The US itself agrees that there is no evidence linking the two.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/06/142591.htm

The Israelis retracted their hysterical claim about Hussein Urosh and others aboard the flotilla when asked for evidence (they had none, alas).

http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/under-scrutiny-idf-retracts-claims-about-flotillas-al-qaeda-links/

So, yeah. Basically your entire article has already been thoroughly debunked, and most of it comes from admitted Israeli propaganda sites. But reviewing your previous works, Jonathan, and your involvement in the confessed pro-war group Foundation for Defense of Democracies, I am not surprised that you wrote this drivel.

9:29 PM ET

Thanks for this, Great post.

Thanks for this, Great post. HORRIBLE article.

11:13 PM ET

Well, Amos, thank you for not reading my post at all.

The Turkish authorities said that the Frenchman's report (who is the "judge" in that "study") was false. And this was before any flotilla. Given the fact that the only evidence of the IHH's involvement with al Qaeda comes from Bruguière, who as I said has such unreliable testimony that it was not allowed in court, I'd say that your attempts to brand it as a terrorist organization are dubious at best and pathetic at worst.

BURNINGCHROME

2:26 AM ET

August 20, 2010

IHH is Islamic Brotherhood in Turkey, nuff said

"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers..."

Tayyip Erdogan 1997
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2270642.stm

ARYABHAT

4:35 AM ET

IHH IS a Terrorist Organisation - Sooner it is banned, better

IHH came into existence in 1992 ostensibly to provide humanitarian assistance to the Muslims of Bosnia. Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the connivance of the Bill Clinton Administration then in power in the US, helped the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.

Many Bosnian Muslims were brought to Pakistan for being trained in the camps of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI) as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET,) was then known and then taken back to Bosnia. There was considerable flow of money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists. Many Pakistanis from Pakistan itself as well as from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK were trained by the JUD and taken to Bosnia for participating in the jihad against the Serbs.

All these activities for the provision of volunteers, money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists were allegedly co-ordinated by the IHH, under the cover of a humanitarian organisation, with the collaboration of the MDI. Amongst the Pakistanis who played an active role in organising assistance for the Bosnians through the IHH and the MDI were Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen (retd). Assad Durrani, former heads of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the then Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI, and Prof.Hafeez Ahmed Sayeed, who was then the Amir of the MDI. Lt.Gen. Assad Durrani, who was posted as the Pakistani Ambassador to Germany by Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, co-ordinated the assistance from the Ummah to the Bosnians.

All these Pakistanis frequently used to visit Bosnia. Mrs.Benazir herself made a joint visit to Bosnia along with Mrs. Tansu Ciller, the then Turkish Prime Minister, in February 1994. Among Pakistani volunteers from the diaspora in the UK who allegedly worked for the IHH in Bosnia was OMAR SHEIKH, who is now in jail in Pakistan after having been sentenced to death for his role in the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in January-February, 2002. He has appealed against the death sentence.

All indications were that the IHH’s role in Bosnia was not solely humanitarian. The humanitarian cover was allegedly used for keeping alive the Bosnian jihad and enabling it to succeed against the Serbs. The IHH allegedly played a similar role in Chechnya by helping the local Muslims in their jihad against the Soviet and then Russian troops. It then turned its attention to helping the Kashmiris by funding refugee camps for Kashmiris set up by the MDI and other Pakistani jihadi organisations in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). These refugee camps also became training centres for training Kashmiri and Pakistani jihadis.

The IHH also played an active role, in collaboration with the JUD, in organising humanitarian relief after the devastating earthquake in the POK in 2005. JUD is designated Terrorist organisation due to its involvment in many terrorist attacks, including 2008 Mumbai attack.

The IHH has also been contributing funds to the International Islamic University in Pakistan, which has been providing ideological motivation to the jihadis fighting in Afghanistan. Amongst other Pakistani organisations with which the IHH has allegedly been collaborating are the Al Rashid Trust, which was designated by the US and the Terrorism Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council after 9/11 as an organisation allegedly funding terrorism, and the Khubaib Foundation, which reportedly runs a network of orphanages. The Foundation frequently organises visits by IHH delegations to the POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Sooner such an organisation that bred terrorists like Omar Sheikh and one that maintains links with JUD and Al-Rashid Trust, Better.

There is nothing Pro or Anti jewish about this ban. It would help world peace.

EXAVIER126

9:26 AM ET

A Great Message to the Muslim World

Regardless of how you see the ?HH (find it telling that the author misspelled it), you have to deplore the message that this sends to the Muslim world: if your people get killed in a protest against Israel, you will be branded a terrorist organization.

TRICKY DICKY

10:18 AM ET

Let me utter the correct word – RACISM

We can call it racism or I can coin a new term Relgionism:

Religionism

1. The discrimination and irrational belief that followers of different religions have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary and religious factors and that this endows followers of certain other religions with an intrinsic superiority over others, viz. Religion A good vs Religion B Bad; god’s chosen people implying others are god’s rejects.

2. Discrimination, abusive or aggressive behaviour towards followers of another religion on the basis of such an irrational belief.

Let me add a few more to racism to further clarify this discrimination and bias:

anti-Muslim
anti-Islam
anti-Palestinian
anti-Iraq
anti-Syria
anti-Libya
anti-Saudi Arabia
anti-Iran
anti-Afghan
anti-Pakistan
pro-India
pro-Israel

Now ask yourself this question who painted this picture of ugliness or are all of the above naturally so bad that they deserve all the scorn of the world?

Let me also add that 95% of Americans were FOR invading perfectly innocent Iraq and 95% of Israelis are FOR continuing to illegally and immorally continue the occupation of Palestine.

Aurangzeb Khan,
lalqila.wordpress.com

SALI18

12:27 PM ET

oh jeez

Where did Muslims and their human rights records come into this? And people talk about anti-Semitism?

As long as we're on the subject of the human rights records of Muslim countries, may I remind you that the violator of countless UN resolutions and thousands of deaths on its hands, hundreds of thousands of homes and lives destroyed and the continued suffering of thousands of children and helpless is facilitated by a Jewish state, and by extension, the United States, a majority Christian (but not a Christian) nation?

And that the civil rights records so gleefully held up by majority Christian nations in the West and Israel only apply to their citizens, and not to citizens that are unfortunate enough to be from Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Africa where thousands have lost their lives, let alone their rights, as a direct result of the selfish foreign policy of the West?

And don't forget (because I won't let you) that the military dictator in Pakistan that curtailed the free speech rights of the press and the people and disappeared thousands of dissidents was propped up by the paragon of equal rights (only for its own citizens), the United States?

How quickly we forget.

12:14 PM ET

nice try

I know nothing about the IHH. But just reading the article, I thought, huh? So his claim that IHH is a terrorist organization is based on two things: that it supports Hamas and that one French intelligence official said some bad things about it in court?

To clue the author in, the world does not revolve around the US Treasury Department's terrorist designations. Hamas is considered a resistance movement by a large chunk of the world.

Notice how he asserts that the designation of IHH as a terrorist organization comes at a bad time because the Treasury Department's analysts are overworked. They might not even get around to it. Because the debate over whether it's a terrorist organization or not has been definitively, and positively, concluded.

But why even go into all that? The fact that Israel might actually have to face the music for killing nine people in international waters is enough to designate every organization within 15,000 miles a terrorist organization.

As for the Jewish lobby, it does not only consist of AIPAC. The Jewish lobby includes a strategically placed nuclear state with a bloated defense machine.

JOHNWV

8:48 AM ET

August 24, 2010

Twisted news, so what's new?

Jews have always been persecuted. Israel continuously provides evidence of the causal Jewish behavior. Did German Jews acquire disproportionate media, financial and political control as they have in the United States? Did they then collectively act to the detriment of Germany and thereby precipitate the Holocaust? America’s multiple and continuing mid east wars have all been initiated with the urging of AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents, and other Israeli agencies. All have benefited Israel at our expense. American Jews were central to, and grossly enriched by, the Wall Street obscenity. Israel is a Jewish state, a racist apartheid state by, of, and for the chosen people. It feigns and exploits alliance, but an ally Israel will never be.

YELLOWPI

5:58 PM ET

August 27, 2010

TURKEY, AT THE BRIDGE AND Netanyahu

Turkey, Gaza against Israeli blockade applied to the puncture, to mobilize international public opinion is waiting for the results obtained with his moves. But now we go into new and risky game. Each step to be taken now, will be extremely important that every sentence sarfedilecek.

Before the event, what it means to live in a realistic way we were:

1. Turkish convoy of three ships, the first humanitarian aid into Gaza would take, but there was a second goal. It also applied to the Israeli blockade of Gaza was broken from the sea. Cesme
2. Not just from the Turks in the convoy, an international organization comprised. Everyone's goal was to break the embargo on Gaza.
Sinema
3. The Turkish leg of this convoy was organized under the auspices of Ankara. If you could stop in Ankara, but did not do it. In contrast facilitated the work of insurgents. Music Videos