Tag: IHH

  • IHH Calls People Around the World for Help for Palestinians

    IHH Calls People Around the World for Help for Palestinians

    It is time for the world to stand up for what is right.

    Gaza murders protest

    gaza protest350

    People from all walks of life protesting Israel’s war crimes against Palestine in Downtown Chicago. 11/15/12 Protests took place in front of Obama’s headquarters and the Israeli Consulate. Photo by Exposing The Truth team member Dana S Hamed

    (Istanbul, TR) – Gaza is under Israeli attack since last Wednesday. As death toll rises hour by hour the humanitarian crisis is also increasing in Gaza Strip.

    The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH) makes a call for people around the world to urgently take action against Israeli attacks targeting civilians and to supply humanitarian aid for Gazan people.

    Israeli Occupation Forces has escalated military attacks on the Gaza since Wednesday evening, 14 November 2012.

    They first extra-judicially executed the leader of the Izziddin alQassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas) and his bodyguard. This attack was followed by a series of aerial, ground and sea attacks on civilian and paramilitary targets throughout the Gaza Strip.

    As a result of these attacks, so far 39 Palestinians including 9 children have been killed and more than 345 injured. Beside, a number of houses and schools have been extensively damaged and the rest of the schools closed for days.

    Gazan people are now living without electricity and deprived of right to communication.

    The people of Gaza who have already been facing tremendous hardship now need more help. With the increasing number of wounded, hospitals which already have inadequate resources are in drastic need of emergency medical supplies including antibiotics, anesthetics and disposable sterile supplies such as tubing, surgical gloves, needles and syringes.

    IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation which has been carrying out relief efforts for Palestinians for 20 years caring more than ten thousands Palestinian orphans primarily sends a team to Gaza with relief items which include mainly drastic need of emergency medical supplies and food (1 million Turkish Lira in value).

    IHH calls upon people around the world urgently to take action to prevent Israeli attacks targeting civilians and to supply humanitarian aid for Gazan people.

    via IHH Calls People Around the World for Help for Palestinians – Salem-News.Com.

  • Protected: ‘Turkey investigating IHH head for funding al-Qaida’

    Protected: ‘Turkey investigating IHH head for funding al-Qaida’

    Dikkat

    Yasaklanan, sansürlenen, hakkında bazı ülke yasalarına göre soruşturma açılan ve herkese açık olmasının propaganda niteliği taşıması ihtimali olan içerikler genel izleyiciye açık değildir. Sadece üyelerimiz içindir. Üyelik ücretsizdir ve dilediğiniz zaman ayrılabilirsiniz. Üyeler:

    • Bulundukları ülkenin kanunlarına uygun içerikleri görebilir
    • Yönetime katılabilir
    • Oy verebilir
    • Diğerleri ile arkadaş olabilirler

    Üye olmak için lütfen buraya tıklayın

    Üyeliğiniz onaylandıktan sonra devam edebilirsiniz


  • Turkey turning back to the West?

    Turkey turning back to the West?

    mavi marmaraAll kinds of excuses have been given for the cancellation of the Mavi Marmara’s participation in the upcoming flotilla of fools. But this Turkish analyst believes that what’s really going on is something much bigger – a redirection of Turkey toward the West out of fear of the consequences of the recent events in Syria.

    However political analysts have now widely dismissed the IHH explanations. Following the wave of unrest affecting the region, especially with Syrian refugees who have ties with the Kurdish communities crossing the borders, the government, the government, fearing a clash back, has decided it should recalibrate its foreign policy to fall more in step with Western allies and pro-democracy movements.

    “Of course the IHH will put forth some excuse … because they cannot come out and say ‘the government told us to’,” said Ilter Turan, professor of political science at Istanbul’s Bilgi University.

    “Unpredictability in the Middle East is making Turkey feel the need to get closer to the [Western] allies, as it has done in Libya and now in Syria. So I would not be surprised if Turkey tones down its conflict with Israel.” he added.

    Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently agrees. On Tuesday evening, Netanyahu issued a call to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to improve relations.

    Government sources on Tuesday confirmed that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan a letter calling for a restoration of friendship between the two countries.

    Netanyahu sent the letter after the Turkish elections, as is common practice.

    In excerpts of the letter published by the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman, Netanyahu wrote, “My government will be happy to work with the new Turkish government on finding a resolution to all outstanding issues between our countries, in the hope of re-establishing our cooperation and renewing the spirit of friendship which has characterized the relations between our peoples for many generations.”

    The letter is seen in Jerusalem as a signal of efforts to try and improve relations between Turkey and Israel.

    Government sources have said that Israel’s position is that it regrets the deterioration in its relations with Turkey, and believes that a positive bilateral relationship between Jerusalem and Ankara serves both countries.

    The government official said that Israel hopes it will be possible to “turn this thing around,” and “create positive momentum in the relationship.”

    via Israel Matzav: Turkey turning back to the West?.

  • Three Iranian spies arrested in Istanbul

    Three Iranian spies arrested in Istanbul

    IHHLogoThree Iranian spies who had planned to board the Mavi Marmara have been arrested in Istanbul for forging passports and travel documents.

    Iran’s suspected connection to the Turkish IHH flotilla has been at risk of being revealed, the German daily Bild reported on Saturday, citing intelligence sources.

    Following the Iranian government’s concern over the revelation, three Iranian spies have reportedly been place on house arrest after they falsified passports and travel documents in Istanbul for organizers of the IHH flotilla.

    According to the Bild report, the spies’ cover names are “The Broker,” “Bit Taxim” and “Hot Chai” and they reportedly have been in contact with al-Qaida and the Iranian al-Quds Brigade.

    via Israel Matzav: Three Iranian spies arrested in Istanbul.

  • Which Turks hate Israel most

    Which Turks hate Israel most

    There was an interesting story in the Daily News last week, about the cancelling of a Yuval Ron concert in Istanbul. Mr. Ron, an award-wining Israeli musician, was supposed to play his tunes in a Sultanahmet hall, but the event was cancelled at the last minute due to protests, and, allegedly, some “threats.” The organization holding the protest – but denied any threat – was the famous Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, that organized last year’s controversial Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, which was lethally raided by Israeli commandos.

    The İHH, of course, is an Islamic-minded organization. Therefore, I received a few emails from Western friends complaining how Islam and its ascendant role in public life are making Turks fanatically anti-Semitic. If Turkey had been dominated by more-secular minded Turks, these friends added, it would have been a tolerant and loving, and particularly Israel-loving, society.

    The missing piece

    But there was an interesting detail in the Yuval Ron story that my Islamo-sceptic friends, and probably most others, were missing: The organization that helped organize the concert of the Israeli musician was quite Islamic-minded as well. It was the Intercultural Dialogue Platform, founded by none other than the followers of Fethullah Gülen, Turkey’s most influential Muslim religious leader.

    In fact, the Gülen Movement, as it is called, has probably been the most active force against anti-Semitism in Turkey in the past two decades. Until his departure from Turkey in 1998, one of Gülen’s best friends was Turkey’s chief rabbi and the two men routinely appeared in front cameras for joint “Abrahamic” prayers. To date, Gülen’s followers have held dozens of interfaith meetings in Turkey and elsewhere, and their media outlets have persistently promoted understanding between Muslims and Jews.

    Even on the flotilla incident, Gülen took a different line than that of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government he supports, and said it would have been better if the flotilla sought a deal with Israeli authorities to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    Of course, there are also anti-Semitic strains in the Islamic camp. The daily Vakit, and the marginal Saadet Party, which got one percent of the votes in last weekend’s elections, are unabashedly anti-Israel and use rhetoric that often turns outright anti-Jewish. But similar rhetoric exists also among Atatürk-venerating secular nationalists “ulusalcılar,” who believe in crazy conspiracy theories about how Jews are supposedly buying Turkish land in the southeast to incorporate into “greater Israel.” One of these lunatics even wrote a bestselling book in 2007, which argued that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was a crypto-Jew who was “selling” Turkey to “Jewish capitalists.”

    Grey area

    The Turkish picture about Israel, in other words, is not black-and-white. We are not divided between Israel-hating Islamics and Israel-loving seculars.

    Erdoğan’s party, for that matter, is somewhere between the Saadet and the Gülen Movement, if we put these in a spectrum and closer to the latter rather than the former. Most Israelis, who really are not in a love affair with Erdoğan, might find that hard to believe, but they should recall that the AKP leader had pretty good relations with the Jewish State until the end of 2008, when “Operation Cast Lead” began killing hundreds of innocents in Gaza. Erdoğan and his team passionately care for their Muslim brethren in Palestine, just like many American Jews care for theirs in Israel. Besides, they can not just sleep over the killing of nine Turks in international waters by Israeli soldiers, which has become a matter of national pride. But they ultimately support a two-state solution, and can be quite helpful in building it.

    So, here is a friendly advice to Israeli policy makers and their advisors: Stop dreaming about the days when Turkey will become hyper-secular again. Those days are gone and Turkey’s Muslim identity is here to stay. But it might not be as bad as you fear, especially if you try to build bridges and reconsider some of your hawkish and intimidating policies.

    via Which Turks hate Israel most – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review. 

    mustafa akyol

     

  • The All-American/European anti-Israel flotilla

    The All-American/European anti-Israel flotilla

    The Turkish Islamist organization IHH has decided not to participate in the upcoming flotilla attempt to break the blockade of Gaza. As reported last week, IHH was under pressure from the Turkish government to drop out of the flotilla, presumably because the timing doesn’t look right for Turkey to precipitate an armed confrontation with Israel. (After the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, Turkey warned that it might provoke just such a confrontation by providing a naval escort for future flotillas.)

    This will mean no Turkish ships in the flotilla. Earlier this week, the French ship pulled out of the flotilla when pressure from French Jewish groups prevented it from docking in Marseilles, where it was to load its activists.

    The ships left in the flotilla are the US and Canadian “Boats to Gaza,” the Irish Boat, the Swiss-German Boat, the Italian Boat, the Greek Boat, the Netherlands Boat, the Norwegian-Swedish Boat, and possibly one or two Spanish Boats. (CrethiPlethi has a very extensive write-up from late May.) That tally squares roughly with the Wednesday statement of activist Adam Shapiro (founder of the International Solidarity Movement, or ISM) that about 10 ships, other than the IHH contingent, would sail in the flotilla, which will reportedly get underway next week.

    Thus, it is ships sailing under the flags of NATO and the EU that will be attempting to break the blockade of Gaza. But not all the flags of NATO; only the flags that fly over the liberal, democratic, traditionally Christian nations. In the surreal progress of events, Islamic Turkey has dropped out.

    As CrethiPlethi’s article reveals, proto-flotilla surges from elsewhere have yielded mixed results. Indonesia reportedly has a flotilla movement, but there has been nothing concrete from it in the way of a boat or any real publicity. Malaysia’s Perdana foundation, brainchild of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, has of course been behind actual flotilla ships, but none are sailing with the All-American/European flotilla this month. Perdana supported M/V Rachel Corrie in the 2010 flotilla, and most recently was behind the antics of M/V Finch, which made a separate attempt to break the blockade in May 2011.

    Also in 2010, activists in Lebanon, Europe, and the US sought to mount the “women’s flotilla” that was to sail from Beirut. Lebanese authorities prevented it from leaving port on the occasion of its highest state of readiness, and it eventually came to nothing.

    So we reach June 2011, and the All-American/European anti-Israel flotilla. It’s worth noting just a couple of the activists who will be participating – as they did last year – in the 2011 flotilla. Dror Feiler, ubiquitous spokesman of the Swedish Free Gaza Movement, is a revolutionary- and musician-about-town who hangs out with IHH, Hamas, and the bloodthirsty terrorists of Colombia’s Marxist FARC insurgency. Douglas Farah reported a year ago that the Swedish-Israeli Feiler was on the board of FARC’s external propaganda agency, ANNCOL. When Paul Reyes, FARC’s chief ideologue, was killed in 2008, Feiler left a comment at the website of a news story – about US activists who were mourning Reyes – recalling his visits to FARC, expressing his sympathy, and posting the link to a music video he had made featuring FARC revolutionary songs.

    Paul Larudee is a San Francisco Bay-area activist and piano tuner who participated in the 2010 flotilla under the aegis of ISM and his own Free Gaza Movement of Northern California. Larudee was photographed in 2008 with other activists receiving medals from Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, long-time terrorist and protégé of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin. Famous for writing up his moving opportunity to stay at the home of a successful suicide bomber, Larudee ran afoul of Israeli officials when he attempted to enter the West Bank in 2006 after years of conducting anti-Israel activity (Larudee’s reported objective: to “tune more than 40 pianos in the Palestinian Authority area”).

    Blogger Lee Kaplan went undercover to attend an ISM training session sponsored by Larudee in San Francisco, at which he learned to deceive Israeli immigration authorities and help Palestinians confound IDF soldiers (see here for the ISM connection with terrorists who participated in the London tube bombing). Larudee is now planning to send an aircraft to break the blockade of Gaza, as discussed in his interview on Iranian television with British nutball politician George Galloway, the former MP who spoke candidly to Arab media of having given cars and cash to Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, and then lied about it to the English-language media.

    So it’s down to the Western fringe leftists, who merit the title “useful idiots” as much as anyone ever has, and Hamas. That’s who is still planning, as of right now, to aim a gaggle of ships flying the flags of our nations at the Gaza coast and try to break the blockade, so that Israel can’t keep weapons from flowing to Hamas. If all the activists wanted to do was deliver humanitarian aid, they have two sound alternatives available: having it trucked in from Israel or having it trucked in from Egypt. But, of course, that’s not what their goal is, as they have already acknowledged.

    J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

    via The All-American/European anti-Israel flotilla « The Greenroom.