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June 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union report on how the government's actions have created a climate of fear that chills American Muslims' free and full exercise of their religion through charitable giving, or zakat, one of the "five pillars" of Islam and a religious obligation for all observant Muslims.
On September 24, 2001, President George W. Bush announced in the White House Rose Garden that, in "a strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network," he had taken executive action, without consulting Congress, to expand the Treasury Department's unilateral authority to freeze the assets of organizations it considered terrorist organizations. He declared, "Just to show you how insidious these terrorists are, they oftentimes use nice-sounding, non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities. We have targeted three such NGOs. We intend to deal with them, just like we intend to deal with others who aid and abet terrorist organizations." Federal authorities announced they were investigating over 30 Muslim
charities.
Within the space of ten days in December 2001, the federal government froze the assets of the three largest Muslim charities in the United States-the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Global Relief Foundation, and Benevolence International Foundation-effectively shutting each of them down. The government seized these charities' assets during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, at the height of annual Muslim charitable giving. These charities, which had been operating without incident for years-and for over a decade in the case of the Holy Land Foundation-were not on any government watch list before their assets were frozen. Indeed, before it was shut down the Holy Land Foundation had made repeated requests to government officials for assistance in complying with the law, only to be rebuffed.
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Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
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