How Christian Charities—Sometimes Unwittingly—Collaborate with Hamas and Other Islamist Groups

A number of Christian philanthropies cooperate with other groups through larger, ecumenical umbrella organizations. As Cliff Smith points out, this sometimes makes for unintentional, but dangerous, bedfellows:

The enormous Christian charity World Vision, for example, has been called out multiple times for funding and working with terrorists in Gaza, Sudan, and Lebanon. In recent years, this problem has been widely exposed; one would hope that renewed efforts on the part of Christian charities would ensure these kinds of mistakes didn’t happen again.

[Another problem], that has received very little attention, is Christian charities’ collaboration with domestic aid organizations that have radical, Islamist ideologies. . . . InterAction, which bills itself as the largest alliance of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the world, was founded in 1984 and represents over 180 different charities. A significant proportion of InterAction members are faith-based organizations, including at least 30 self-identified Christian charities, alongside various Islamic, Buddhist, and Jewish charities. . . .

[I]n 2017, InterAction created the “Together Project,” a sub-umbrella specifically aimed at stifling criticism of five specific Islamist charities that are InterAction members. These five charities have been called out by various scholars and researchers, members of Congress, and journalists for being franchises of radical networks, with several involved in terror finance. . . . [N]ot a single Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist charity is the beneficiary of the Together Project’s efforts.

Another core Together Project member is Islamic Relief. Designated as a terror-financing organization in the United Arab Emirates and Israel, it also works closely with multiple Hamas front groups.

Read more at Providence

More about: Charity, Hamas, Islamism, Muslim-Christian relations

 

How to Save the Universities

To Peter Berkowitz, the rot in American institutions of higher learning exposed by Tuesday’s hearings resembles a disease that in its early stages was easy to cure but difficult to diagnose, and now is so advanced that it is easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. Recent analyses of these problems have now at last made it to the pages of the New York Times but are, he writes, “tardy by several decades,” and their suggested remedies woefully inadequate:

They fail to identify the chief problem. They ignore the principal obstacles to reform. They propose reforms that provide the equivalent of band-aids for gaping wounds and shattered limbs. And they overlook the mainstream media’s complicity in largely ignoring, downplaying, or dismissing repeated warnings extending back a quarter century and more—largely, but not exclusively, from conservatives—that our universities undermine the public interest by attacking free speech, eviscerating due process, and hollowing out and politicizing the curriculum.

The remedy, Berkowitz argues, would be turning universities into places that cultivate, encourage, and teach freedom of thought and speech. But doing so seems unlikely:

Having undermined respect for others and the art of listening by presiding over—or silently acquiescing in—the curtailment of dissenting speech for more than a generation, the current crop of administrators and professors seems ill-suited to fashion and implement free-speech training. Moreover, free speech is best learned not by didactic lectures and seminars but by practicing it in the reasoned consideration of competing ideas with those capable of challenging one’s assumptions and arguments. But where are the professors who can lead such conversations? Which faculty members remain capable of understanding their side of the argument because they understand the other side?

Read more at RealClearPolitics

More about: Academia, Anti-Semitism, Freedom of Speech, Israel on campus