A Visit Inside Turkey's Islamist IHH

A journalist's trip to the headquarters of the extremist group that sponsored the Mavi Marmara.


Claire Berlinski
The Weekly Standard
21 June '10

(Excellent read. Y.)

Istanbul

The street outside the IHH, the Turkish organization that recently dispatched the Mavi Marmara to its sanguinary fate in the eastern Mediterranean, suggests a hopeful world of multi-ethnic and religious harmony. Men and women in various forms of secular and religious dress—beards, clean-shaven, headscarves, burqas—walk in and out of the building in urgent conversation with Africans in dashikis, Swedes in stained proletarian-wear, anti-Zionist rabbis sweating nervously in black suits and payot. A gangly teenager strolls by in a T-shirt that reads, “Virgins required: No experience necessary.” It isn’t clear whether he’s off-message, highly ironic, or yet another Turkish kid who bought a T-shirt he didn’t quite understand.

The flags of the world (not the Israeli one) are flapping gaily above the street. The sign above the door reads, “The Fondation (sic) for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief”—in English only. Very few Turks read English, so this sign is not for their benefit. Inside, everything is climate-controlled and glossy and modern, the décor corporate. If ever you’re in Istanbul and down on your luck, just head over to the IHH and announce you’re a Western journalist. You’ll find the standards of hospitality excellent. You won’t see anything that might make the folks back home uneasy—nothing hinting of grim caves in Waziristan filled with raving bearded warlords screaming unpleasantly about Jews and apes and infidels. The PR flacks express some anxiety when we begin filming in the cafeteria; they worry that if we shoot the Koranic verse near the steam tables, “people will know we’re Islamists.” Does it matter, my colleague asks? They consider it briefly, decide it doesn’t, and let us keep filming.

The IHH is part of the Free Gaza movement, an international association dominated by Europeans and headquartered in Cyprus. Last week, I spoke to IHH officials and European passengers on the Free Gaza flotilla at length. My colleague and I videotaped the interviews and put the complete footage on line. Anyone who wishes may consider their comments in their full context.

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