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[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.
                                 <all>
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