Washington Post Fails to Properly I.D. Terrorist ‘Charity’

Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey

Twice in the same week, The Washington Post has failed to fully identify a Turkish “charity” that has ties to terrorist groups.

A Feb. 12, 2016 Post article (“Turkey won’t open border to refugees”) on Ankara rejecting demands to open its borders to Syrian refugees, noted efforts by a “Turkish relief agency IHH, which has been shipping tents and meals across the [Syrian] border.”

Three days previously, an online article (“Merkel ‘horrified’ by Russian air attacks in Syria”) referred to IHH as a “nongovernmental Islamic charity group.” The Post quoted Burak Karacaoglu, the group’s spokesman, expressing concern over “opening the gates” to refugees. Karacaoglu said he was “concerned about the [Syrian] airstrikes, which are increasingly targeting civilian areas.”

Yet, The Post fails to mention that IHH is more than just a “nongovernmental Islamic charity group.” In fact, IHH has close ties to both the current Turkish regime and terrorist organizations.

According to a 2011 report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli think tank that studies Islamic terrorism, “the Turkish IHH…has a record of supporting terrorist groups” and “has close relations with Turkey’s AKP government.”

In its Jan. 24, 2011 report on IHH, the center says that collaboration between IHH and ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) party in Turkey is based on a “common Islamic worldview” and “the concept that IHH can be used as a tool to implement Turkish foreign policy.” According to the center, approximately one-quarter of senior IHH members have been appointed to government positions by the AKP.

The center reports:

“IHH has its roots in the conservative Islamic Mili Görüş movement, the parent of the Islamic Welfare Party which the AKP and the extremist Islamist Saadet party splintered from in 2001. Given its provenance, IHH is a clearly Islamist movement, which in the past was considered suspect and investigated by the Turkish authorities because of its involvement in providing support for Islamist groups (including those with ties to the global jihad) in combat zones such as Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Ideologically IHH is or was originally based on the worldview of a central order of the Sufi tradition of Islam. The order, called Naqshbandiyya, has millions of adherents, including senior figures of the Turkish government.”

Cooperation between IHH and Turkey’s leaders was made plain in the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident.

As CAMERA has noted (“Radical, Pro-Hamas “Flotilla” Seeks Media Win,” May 31, 2010), IHH participated in—with the blessing of the Turkish government—a flotilla including armed activists sailing for the Gaza Strip under the guise of bringing aid to Palestinian Arabs. No aid was found aboard the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, and video showed armed passengers attacking IDF forces who boarded the ship once it violated Israel’s blockade. The U.N. Palmer Report later upheld the blockade as legal.

The stated goal of flotilla organizers was to spark an international incident and use the confrontation over “humanitarian aid” to slander Israel. Passengers included members of the extremist group ISM (International Solidarity Movement) which supports violence against Israel, as well as sympathizers and financiers of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that IHH in Germany has been designated a terrorist group and that the United States also has examined the possibility of making a similar designation due to the organization’s “past support for global jihad,” its involvement in the foiled terrorist attack on Los Angeles International Airport in 2000, its extremist anti-Western anti-Israeli Islamist character “and the support it gives Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.”

For towing the Turkish government’s line and actively working for its frequently pro-Islamist, anti-Israel agenda, IHH has received awards from the AKP. In 2005 and 2007 it received awards from the Turkish vice prime minister’s office.

The Washington Post failed to report that IHH is much more than a “nongovernmental charity” or “relief agency.”