al Haq
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Terror smear against IHH springs from a familiar source
by Marsha B. Cohen on June 4, 2010
The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) has backed down from the claim that forty activists in the Gaza flotilla, who had resisted the ship's interception by Israeli commandos in international waters on Monday, are "al Qaeda mercenaries."
Some participants in the Gaza convoy are members of Insan Hak ve Hürriyetleri İnsani Yardım Vakfı --the Foundation for Human Rights, Liberties, and Humanitarian Relief-- IHH, a Turkish non-governmental organizaion (NGO) established in the early 1990s. Its mission is to provide humanitarian relief in regions of conflict or that have experienced natural disasters. For the past six years, IHH has held Special Consultative status as an NGO (non-governmental organization) in the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
According to Max Blumenthal, when he and Lia Tarachansky, an Israel-based freelance journalist fluent in Hebrew, called the IDF requesting more conclusive evidence of al Qaeda affiliation than possession of bullet-proof vests and night vision goggles, they were each told, "We don't have any evidence." The IDF press release had been based on information emanating from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's National Security Council.
The next day, Blumenthal notes with satisfaction, the IDF's press office changed the headline to Attackers of the IDF Soldiers Found Without Identification Papers, although the browser retains the original accusation of a link with al Qaeda. The rewritten story, which still bears yesterday's date and the original time it was posted, omits any mention of a connection of the group with al Qaeda.
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Whatever a French anti-terrorism judge may have testified about IHH, the French government doesn't consider it a terrorist group. Despite rumblings in the right wing blosgosphere that the CIA is hinting at members of Gaza flotilla's terrorist ties, it's not on the US State Dept.'s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations either, nor on Great Britain's. As Athanasiadis points out in the Christian Science Monitor, Israel is the only country in the world to ban the IHH as a terrorist organization--and only since 2008-- primarily because of its sympathy for the Palestinian cause and Hamas. Athanasiadis also notes that "The current Turkish government has publicly supported the organization and hinted that it might send an armed escort with the next ship or ships running the Israeli blockade of Gaza."
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Terror smear against IHH springs from a familiar source