UK: Hamas-linked Interpal Enjoys Mainstream Support

by Samuel Westrop • December 15, 2014 at 5:00 am

Peter Oborne's claim, that "it is almost impossible not to deal with Hamas... if you're a charity working [in the Gaza Strip]," is demonstrably untrue. First, scores of British charities operate there, but very few of their trustees find themselves starring in Hamas photo-shoots. Second, does having to "deal with Hamas" really include visits to the family homes and shrines of Hamas terrorist leaders?

Interpal partner Ramada Tamboura with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Muslim charities in Britain today, writes journalist and broadcaster Peter Oborne in the Daily Telegraph, "risk being reviled, smeared and branded a terrorist organization."

Oborne, the Telegraph's chief political commentator, believes one charity in particular, London-based Interpal, has bore the brunt of such mistreatment. Interpal, in Oborne's eyes, is a scrupulous humanitarian charity that has been relentlessly and unfairly targeted by Western governments, media outlets and Jewish groups.

In a lengthy puff-piece, Oborne decries "media speculation and a series of unsubstantiated and vicious allegations," which have led to Charity Commission inquiries, libel cases and financial restrictions -- "all of which have cleared [Interpal] of wrongdoing and misuse of funds."

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Ethnic Cleansing of Jews in Turkey
How a Population Dropped to Two

by Uzay Bulut • December 15, 2014 at 4:00 am

The real question is: Now that the ethnic-cleansing campaign of the Turkish regime has been "successfully" completed, and there are only two Jews left in Edirne, why is the governor of the city still so angry?

The sweet little secret in both Turkey and Europe is that anti-Semites do not need the existence of a Jewish state to attack or threaten Jews. Hatred of Jews did not start with the re-establishment of the state of Israel.

The truth is that those who carried out ethnic cleansing of Jews are the last persons who should whine about the non-existent Israeli "occupation." Israelis are not occupiers in Israel. Israel is the home of the Jews; you cannot be an occupier in your own home. Israel has the legal, moral and historical right to exist as a sovereign state.

A view of the Great Synagogue" of Edirne, from 2010. (Image source: Wikipedia Commons/Yabancı)

The latest anti-Semitic statement in Turkey was made on November 21 by Dursun Ali Sahin, the governor of Edirne, a city in Eastern Thrace. Governor Sahin announced that because he was angry at Israel, he would turn the city's synagogue into a museum. "While those bandits [Israeli security forces] blow winds of war inside al-Aqsa and slay Muslims," he said, "we build their synagogues. I say this with a huge hatred inside me. We clean their graveyards, send their projects to boards. But the synagogue here will be registered only as a museum, and there will be no exhibitions inside it."

In response to the uproar that followed, Governor Sahin phoned the Chief Rabbi of Turkey, Ishak Haleva, to apologize and, according to the newspaper, Salom, said his statements had been misunderstood and distorted by the media.

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