The claim that the Furkan Foundation is indifferent to the Palestinian cause
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
The accusation belongs to August 2014. Orhan Göktaş, head of the Adana branch of Mazlumder, wrote an article after the Furkan Foundation did not take part as an institution in the joint press statement held for Gaza, and in it he asked: "You have no time to pray for Palestine together with the ummah, so what do you have time for?"
Not taking part in a programme is not indifference to a cause. The foundation's record on Palestine begins long before 2014, and all of it is open to the public:
- the rallies held after the martyrdom of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, and then of the Hamas leader Rantisi (2004),
- the rally held over Israel's attack on Gaza in 2009,
- the rally held after the attack on the Mavi Marmara in 2010,
- the rally in 2013 protesting against the attack on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
- the press release condemning the July 2014 attack on Gaza and the campaign run on social media to keep it on the agenda,
- the lesson entitled "The Jews in the Qur'an", given to hundreds of people in the foundation's conference hall and broadcast live.
To these are added appearances on television programmes and the prayer said every Friday after the exegesis lesson. On the question of prayer the claim is unsound in itself as well: whether a person prays or not cannot be made to depend on whether they are seen at the programme of the one making the accusation.
What there is here is not indifference, but not taking part in a single programme.
The question of non-participation is dealt with in detail under a separate heading: the claim that they did not join the joint Gaza action.
What is the accusation, and what does it rest on?
In July 2014, while Israel's attack on Gaza was continuing, a joint press statement was planned in Adana. The Furkan Foundation did not take part in this programme as an institution. Orhan Göktaş, head of the Adana branch of Mazlumder, then wrote an article in which he argued that the foundation had remained indifferent to the Palestinian cause, and asked: "You have no time to pray for Palestine together with the ummah, so what do you have time for?"
The whole of the accusation rests on a single day. A claim of indifference, by contrast, is tested by looking at a long stretch of time. The record over that stretch is there to be seen.
A record spread over ten years
| Year | Event | What was done |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | The martyrdom of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and then of Rantisi | Rally |
| 2009 | Israel's attack on Gaza | Rally |
| 2010 | The attack on the Mavi Marmara | Rally |
| 2013 | The attack on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt | Rally |
| 2014 | Israel's attack on Gaza | Press release, campaign to keep it on the agenda, lesson |
Thousands of people attended these rallies, and the recordings of them remain on the foundation's own publication channels. The claim therefore stands in an area where confirming it or refuting it requires no one to take anyone's word for anything: the footage, the dates and the posters are in place.
The table has one further feature. None of the activities in it was carried out against the possibility that an accusation might be written about it; all of them took place years before the accusation, at a time when no one expected such a dispute. This is the difference between a defence that can be produced afterwards and an activity that was carried out beforehand.
What was done in July 2014?
What the foundation did during the attack that is the subject of the accusation is also on record:
- a press release condemning the attack was published,
- a campaign was run on social media to keep it on the agenda,
- Alparslan Kuytul gave a lesson entitled "The Jews in the Qur'an" to hundreds of people in the foundation's conference hall; the lesson was broadcast live and reached tens of thousands of people,
- he spoke about the attack on the television programmes he took part in.
None of these was done after the date on which the claim came up. All of them were over and done with before the accusation was written.
The "you have no time to pray" accusation
This is the weakest side of the claim. Prayer does not have to be a visible activity; whether a person prays or not cannot be made to depend on their being seen at the programme organised by the one making the accusation.
Even on this matter there is a record: after the exegesis lesson he gives every Friday, Kuytul prays, and these prayers are published. Nor is the scope of the prayer limited to Palestine alone; at every programme the people suffering oppression in different parts of the world are remembered.
Is Palestine being put in second place?
A sentence in the foundation's reply is sometimes read this way, so let us write it plainly. Palestine is within the foundation's cause, and the ten-year record shows it. What is being said is not that Palestine is taken off the list, but that the list is longer: Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Arakan, East Turkestan, Bosnia and Africa are part of the same agenda too.
That a structure which takes up one oppression on its agenda also takes up other oppressions cannot be counted as indifference to the first.
What should the criterion be?
An institution's sensitivity to a matter is read not from the attendance list of a single programme, but from its record spread over years. Here we have rallies, press releases, lessons and broadcasts spread over ten years.
To ignore all of this and to pass the judgement "indifferent" by looking at a single day is not to test a claim, but to choose the conclusion in advance.
The non-participation itself and its reasons are under a separate heading: the claim that they did not join the joint Gaza action.