Thursday, June 30, 2011

Who's behind the Gaza Flotilla?

According to Greta Berlin, one of the organizers of the flotilla du jour, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on this venture. Its clear this is not a grass roots effort. Who is spearheading this initiative and why?

From the Website Gaza Flotilla 101:
The three main organizing groups are the Turkish IHH, the European Campaign to End the Seige on Gaza (ECESG) and the Free Gaza Movement.

The Turkish IHH, which organized last year’s Gaza flotilla and is involved in organized this year’s, is affiliated with an officially designated terrorist organization, the Union of Good. Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who has ruled that suicide attacks against Israeli citizens are religiously sanctioned, chairs the Union.

Hamas created the Union, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, which in 2008, stated: “The Union of Good acts as a broker for Hamas by facilitating financial transfers between a web of charitable organizations—including several organizations previously designated… for providing support to Hamas—and Hamas-controlled organizations in the West Bank and Gaza. The primary purpose of this activity is to strengthen Hamas’ political and military position in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Founded in 2007, the ECESG is an umbrella organization that links more than 30 pro- Palestinian and pro-Hamas groups in Europe. These groups organize land and sea convoys that bring equipment and money for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, lead boycotts of Israeli products and call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Free Gaza Movement is a broad coalition of human rights activists and pro- Palestinian groups that has been trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza since 2008. … Israeli intelligence agencies say it has grown to include dangerous Islamic organizations with terrorist links.

Also from the Gaza flotilla 101 website:

The second flotilla is coordinated by Muhammad Sawalha, a senior UK-based Muslim Brotherhood figure connected to Hamas. Many of the participating organizations can be directly linked with the Union of Good (UoG), a coalition of European charities affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which in 2008 was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury for transferring funds to Hamas. The UoG was initiated by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on a global scale, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.

… Other main organizers include the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement (ISM), as well as far-left socialists from Europe and the United States. Many of the flotilla’s main organizers have stated that its prime aim is to create provocations and harm Israel’s image. … the flotilla is far from being a peaceful, humanitarian effort to support the Palestinians in Gaza. It should instead be seen as a major, pro-Hamas effort to delegitimize Israel by a “red-green alliance” of leftists and Islamists.

The participation of Alice Walker and others is simply another case of the naive being led by the malevolent.

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