Factbox: Turkish charity group behind Gaza-bound convoy (Reuters)

[Recursion]

-- The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) is an Islamic charity group that was formed to provide aid to Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s. It has been involved in aid missions in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Indonesia, Iraq, Palestinian territories and other places, according to Turkish media.

-- Turkey's Islamist-leaning AK Party government publicly supported the flotilla, urging Israel to let it pass and saying the initiative was purely humanitarian. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc denied Ankara gave any instructions to the IHH. The IHH has been involved in sending previous aid convoys to the Gaza Strip, which has been under an intensified blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas Islamists seized control in 2007.

-- Izzet Sahin, who according to his website works for the IHH's foreign affairs department, was arrested by Israeli security forces in April on suspicion of aiding Palestinian organizations banned by Israel, Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service said earlier this month. He was arrested while traveling from Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Jerusalem. Sahin had been living in the West Bank since November and was enrolled as a student at Israel's Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

...

-- Serkan Nergis, a spokesman for IHH, told Reuters: "We don't have anything against Israel. Our only aim was to carry aid to the people of Gaza. But for Israel, regardless of your religion or your nationality, if you help the people of Gaza you will be declared a terrorist."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64U4SO20100601

I think Nergis has a good point. Since Hamas are the only ones providing social services in Gaza, anybody doing any work in/for Gaza is essentially by default "linked to a terrorist organization" (similar complaints can be made about Hizbullah and southern Lebanon).

Criminalizing war was a bad Cold War habit we should all get out of. If we could just get everybody to admit a state of war exists between Israel and Gaza this might actually be simpler to solve.

[grassfed]

1. Flotilla links

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/05/my-flotilla-newslist-complete-with-henning-mankell-azmi-bishara-norman-finkelstein.html

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fozzledick]

3. Look out, the paranoids are coming to get you!!

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

4. Free Gaza organized this flotilla as it has numerous others, not this organization.

They participated as did others.

Fingering this organization is an IDF scam.