[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1532 Introduced in House (IH)]
111th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1532
Urging an investigation into the role of the Insan Hak ve Hurriyetleri
ve Insani Yardim Vakfi in providing financial, logistical, and material
support to terrorists, and into the role of any foreign governments,
including the Republic of Turkey, which may have aided and abetted the
organizers of the recent ``Gaza Flotilla'' mission to breach Israeli
coastal security and assault the naval defense forces of the State of
Israel.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 15, 2010
Ms. Titus (for herself, Ms. Berkley, Mr. Klein of Florida, Mr.
Bilirakis, Mr. Heller, Mr. Weiner, Mr. Franks of Arizona, Mrs.
Bachmann, Mr. Gohmert, Mr. Engel, Mr. Wamp, Mr. Peters, and Mr.
Lamborn) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Urging an investigation into the role of the Insan Hak ve Hurriyetleri
ve Insani Yardim Vakfi in providing financial, logistical, and material
support to terrorists, and into the role of any foreign governments,
including the Republic of Turkey, which may have aided and abetted the
organizers of the recent ``Gaza Flotilla'' mission to breach Israeli
coastal security and assault the naval defense forces of the State of
Israel.
Whereas Insan Hak ve Hurriyetleri ve Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a Turkish
Islamic nongovernmental organization (known in English as the Foundation
for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief), was a leading
member of the coalition that organized the recent ``Gaza Flotilla'' to
breach Israel's coastal security by breaking the lawful and necessary
Israeli blockade of Gaza;
Whereas the IHH is a member of the ``Union of Good'', a Saudi Arabia-based
coalition that was formed to provide material support to Hamas and other
Islamic terror groups and that was named as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO) by the United States Department of the Treasury in
2008;
Whereas a 2006 report by the Danish Institute for International Studies
described the IHH as a front for funding terrorist organizations and
sending Mujahidin (Jihad warriors) to fight in countries such as
Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya;
Whereas in 2001, the IHH was named in a United States Federal court trial as
having played an ``important role'' in Al-Qaeda's failed ``millennium
plot'' to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport in late 1999;
Whereas France's former top antiterrorism magistrate, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who
provided expert testimony in the 2001 ``millennium plot'' trial,
recently stated that IHH has ``clear, long-standing ties to terrorism
and Jihad'', and that the IHH was responsible for moving ``funds,
weapons, and mujahedeen to and from Bosnia and Afghanistan'';
Whereas in 1997, Turkish security forces raided IHH facilities and confiscated
weapons, explosives, instructions for improvised explosive devices
(IEDs), and materials supporting violent Jihad terrorism;
Whereas the United States Department of State and intelligence agencies around
the world have confirmed that representatives of IHH have met with
senior officials of FTOs within the last 3 years;
Whereas the IHH reportedly played a major part in organizing and initiating the
calculated and premeditated violent assault against the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) naval boarding party on board the Turkish Mavi Marmara
vessel, the one ship in the six-ship Gaza Flotilla that refused to
comply with the blockade and that deliberately initiated violence;
Whereas the explicit objective of the Gaza Flotilla organizers was to breach
Israel's coastal security by breaking the lawful and necessary Israeli
blockade of Gaza;
Whereas the breach would aid and abet Hamas, the Palestinian FTO that controls
Gaza, and that has launched thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians in
the course of its ongoing war against the Jewish State of Israel;
Whereas Bulent Yildirim, leader of the IHH and the main organizer of the Gaza
Flotilla, explained at a February 2009 Hamas rally in Gaza that IHH's
Gaza-related operations are part of a global Jihad to overthrow
governments and install Islamist dictatorships, saying: ``Anyone who
does not stand alongside Palestine . . . will be toppled'' and ``If they
kill me--that is martyrdom for the sake of Allah . . . The entire world
must know that if they do not lift the embargo from Gaza, all the
Muslims in the world will march to Gaza.'';
Whereas, according to a June 7, 2010, report by the Intelligence and Terrorism
Information Center (known by its Hebrew acronym MALAM), based on
security interviews of the Gaza Flotilla participants, at least 40 of
the 500 passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara vessel were IHH operatives
who boarded the ship in an Istanbul port prior to the security checks
conducted at the port in Antalya, Turkey, to which the other passengers,
mostly humanitarian volunteers, were subject;
Whereas, according to this Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report,
these IHH activists were equipped with communications equipment, flak
jackets embroidered with flags of the Republic of Turkey, and gas masks;
the group operated with a clear internal hierarchy, with specific
activists nominated as fighting commanders and who turned the upper deck
of the Mavi Marmara into its headquarters, blocking it off to other
passengers;
Whereas, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report,
files found on laptops owned by the IHH members pointed at strong ties
between the IHH and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Republic
of Turkey, and that some of the activists even claimed that Prime
Minister Erdogan was personally involved in the flotilla's preparations;
Whereas a June 5, 2010, editorial in The Washington Post argued that ``the
relationship between Mr. Erdogan's government and the IHH ought to be
one focus of any international investigation into the [Gaza Flotilla]
incident''; and
Whereas Muhammad Kaya, head of the IHH office in Gaza, said on May 21, 2010,
that the IHH planned to send flotillas to Gaza every month: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives urges the Secretary of
State to conduct an investigation into--
(1) the role of the IHH in providing financial, logistical,
and material support to any entity listed as a Foreign
Terrorist Organization by the United States Department of
State; and
(2) the role of any foreign governments, including the
Republic of Turkey, which may have aided and abetted the
organizers of the recent Gaza Flotilla mission to breach
Israeli coastal security and assault the naval defense forces
of the State of Israel.
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