Update on Murky Waters of Gaza

So... interestingly enough, this morning I was doing my daily reading of the NYtimes and I found an article that confirmed the suspicions I raised in the Murky Waters of Gaza post (see previous post).

see article: NYtimes: Turkish Funds Helped Group Test Blockade of Gaza

The article gives you a glimpse of the murkiness of the organizations, how some can be only humanitarian, and how others are much more politically oriented.  Guess which one turned out to be the militant one!?? you guessed it, the Turkish one.  More telling is the following quote from the article:

"The organization is funded entirely on donations, its members said, money that comes from Turkey’s religious merchant class, an affluent section of Turkish society that has brought the party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to power"

Ouch... that's not something that Israel would want to hear.

In college, I spent two long semesters studying the abstract concept of Orientalism, one semester in Islam and Globalization, and another semester looking a the history of terrorism (in it a long section on Islamic terrorism).  These three topics overlap severely in the current issues we face.  In particular, I got two distinct views.  One one side, in my Islam and Globalization class, our professor wanted us to understand that charity organizations were really important and necessary in Muslim countries because they filled the void that inefficient governments left and it helped the poor.  On the other hand, in the terrorism class, I was given a different point of view, where the authors alleged that it was IN THESE charity organizations that militancy grows and that a lot of terrorism hides behind a banner of humanitarianism and charity.  Moreover, some of these charities, like the ones funded by Saudi Arabia, are ALREADY meant to provide aid but with a second helping of really conservative (Wahhabist) ideology.  Would we not expect that if people are receiving charity ALONG WITH conservative ideology, that our charity recipients would turn militant?? of course they would!  It is no coincidence that America began to target the charities (the Muslim Brotherhood as a prominent example) during the war on terror.  When I went back to my Islam and Globalization professor and asked him about the terrorism links in the charity organizations, he told me this was much more of a neo-con myth than anything really true.

So what is the truth?? are these organizations helping radical causes or not??  I believe the answer is much murkier than either side would like to believe.

Unfortunately, I somehow didn't keep any books from the globalization class (where there even any books? haha).  But I did keep the one that is linked to below.  If you're interested in reading about the history and origins or Islamic terrorism, this is a great book!! take it with a grain of salt of course, it is most helpful in providing the basic history.  It was written by the two guys that worked on counter-terrorism in the Clinton Administration who, essentially, lay out all their research here.  For me, this book changed my perception on Islamic terrorism and it also led me to a greater understanding of the conflict we face today.  I feel like so many people out there talk BS (ummm, fox news) without really having ANY clue how these radical groups formed and why.  America would be a much better place if people were more informed and read their damn facts on a subject that is SO important to our present.

And no... I did not side track! afterall, the murky waters of gaza, 9/11, and the subjects of this book, all sadly go back to one point of origin: the shit show.