Nowadays when he gives to charity in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as his religion dictates, Mohamad Makki says he donates locally, mostly to the Islamic Center of America in Detroit.
Makki’s choice reflects the uncertainty Arab-Americans have faced since September 11, when a number of long-established charities doing work in the Middle East were banned by the U.S. government because of terrorist ties.
Says the Dearborn Heights resident, “We try to make sure we give to charities that are not politically tied to anything.”
It’s a way of playing it safe, and not attracting government attention in this terror-charged world. But it also highlights what is, for most Arab-Americans, a dismaying shift. Before the Twin Towers collapsed, nobody worried about giving to charities doing work in the Middle East.
Still, three years into the war on terror, Makki’s inclined to believe that the government’s ferreted out most groups with unsavory ties. Even if he doesn’t give to international organizations, he adds, “We assume the charities that are left have been combed over by the government, and are OK.”
That may well have been the reasoning behind donations from about 10 Metro Detroit residents to a Missouri-based charity, the Islamic American Relief Agency, whose offices in Columbia, Mo., were raided by federal agents on Oct. 14.
In the weeks following, FBI and Treasury agents appeared on the doorsteps of those local contributors, says Huntington Woods attorney Shereef Akeel, who is representing the agency.
Akeel, who filed a class-action lawsuit last June on behalf of eight prisoners allegedly tortured in the Abu Ghraib scandal, declines to name the individuals involved.
But, he adds, “These are U.S. citizens, many of whom have been here for 20 or 30 years,” and insists they had no other connection to the group other than giving money.
Akeel contends the government has confused the Islamic American Relief Agency with a similarly named Sudanese outfit, which has been banned.
In a statement released Oct. 13, the Treasury Department named the American agency a specially designated terrorist group, freezing its assets and charging that it’s a subset of the Sudan group with a slightly different title, the Islamic African Relief Agency.
Akeel says there is no connection between the two.
William Kowalski, assistant special agent in charge of the Detroit FBI, confirms there were “more than 10” interviews conducted throughout the state in mid-October concerning allegations against the agency.
Most individuals cooperated fully, he says, adding that the FBI “assumes nothing bad” about those who didn’t.
Part of the dilemma for the potential donor, notes University of Michigan political science professor Robert Stockton, is the tangled nature of some charities. Stockton, who specializes in the Middle East cites the example of a friend who, while visiting an orphanage in Lebanon, decided to give the establishment $100.
“That orphanage turned out to be run by a branch of Hezbollah,” the anti-Israeli terrorist organization, Stockton says. “Now, is he giving money to Hezbollah? That’s the problem you encounter. Because all of these groups run a large range of charities.”
Because the U.S. government continues to ban organizations on an ongoing basis, nobody can be sure, says Imad Hamad, what’s safe and what’s not.
Hamad is the director of the local branch of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
“Those groups that are legal today,” he says, “could be illegal tomorrow. People always ask us — and government representatives — ‘Give us a clear direction. We don’t want to be liable. We want to obey the law.’ ”
Arab-American leaders have petitioned the government to develop a list of approved charities, says Laila Al-Qatami at the anti-discrimination committee’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, but so far they have not done so.
“The only thing that Treasury gave us was a list of questions you should put to charities to see if they are OK,” she says.
“We’ve continued to ask if they could provide an acceptable list.”
Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control spokesperson Molly Millerwise says it would be “very reckless” to give a permanent clean bill of health to any charitable entity, especially when many charities are unwittingly manipulated by terrorist financiers. “We’re always receiving new information and new tips on potential suspicious activity and charitable organizations,” she says.
Millerwise also says it would be “inappropriate” for the government to choose one charity or group of charities over another, and that the Treasury Department encourages individual communities to pull together, pool their resources and do their own research to devise a list of charities they believe to be safe from terrorist activity.
If the situation is hard for U.S. citizens such as Makki, it’s far more alarming for immigrants who are here on green cards.
“If the government came after me,” says Arab-American Chamber of Commerce head Nasser Beydoun, “I would at least have the opportunity to fight it. But if they come after an immigrant, they’d most likely be deported.”
Generally speaking, those who have run afoul of the law had substantial ties to suspect organizations, such as Rabih Haddad of Ann Arbor, whom the government deported to Lebanon in 2003. Haddad had cofounded a Chicago-based charity, the Global Relief Foundation, accused of funneling money to al-Qaida.
Still, this is not the first time that mere donors were called on by government agents, says Al-Qatami, “but it’s only happened a handful of times.”
Much the same occurred, she notes, after the Bush administration froze the assets of the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, which was ultimately banned.
It leaves local members of the Arab community in limbo. To be sure, many still support charitable work all across the Middle East and Africa. But a growing minority, such as Makki and Rima Charara, have opted to keep their donations at home.
“I give to whoever I think is needy,” says Charara, who lives in Dearborn Heights. “But it’s really harder now,” she adds, referring to the post-September 11 landscape.
“I don’t know who is a terrorist. If they’re classified by the government as terrorist, no, I wouldn’t give. But I don’t know who is and who isn’t.”
So, as a devout Muslim, her choice is to look for the needy right in her own community.
“I give to churches,” she says. “I give to the Red Cross. I would give to the mosque. My giving is not limited.”