December 9, 2004 | Read Time: 6 minutes
Last month, 13 nonprofit groups sued the federal government over a controversial rule that required charities to check that their employees weren’t on any terrorist watch lists or risk ejection from the government’s annual charity drive. While the federal rule may impose hardships on nonprofit groups, it nonetheless highlights the fact that nonprofit groups have a role to play in the war on terror. But aside from policing their own personnel and activities to ensure that they are not used as terrorist fronts (intentionally or inadvertently), nonprofit groups, as well as grant makers and philanthropists, can play far more active and creative roles to take on projects that the government has been unable to tackle.
Here are some ways in which nonprofit groups could make significant contributions:
Language and cultural training. The United States has a dearth of people who can speak Arabic and are knowledgeable about Middle Eastern cultures. Intelligence agencies have had so much trouble finding Arab speakers that they can’t even get translations of the mounds of information they have been collecting, according to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Most major universities offer a course or two in Arabic, as well as more substantive political-science courses on the Middle East. But in reality, aside from the few students with dreams of joining the State Department, not many Americans use their college years to become experts on Islamic culture. And even fewer of them bother to become fluent in Arabic.
The most obvious reason is that until recently, except possibly in the oil industry, few job opportunities have been available to people who have a strong understanding of Islamic culture or customs. In addition, because Arabic does not bear a resemblance to either Germanic or Latin-based languages (which in turn appear to be closer to English) and because it has a written language that is very different from English, Arabic is perceived as a far greater difficult language to learn than, say, Spanish or French. Also, unlike Spanish, French, or German, Arabic has not traditionally been offered in the public schools. Thus, a native English-speaking university student who has the desire to learn Arabic must start with the very basics rather than with a foundation from which to build fluency.
The easiest action that nonprofit groups can take would be to offer scholarship money to students who plan to pursue Arabic and Islamic studies, as well as to sponsor professorships in those academic areas.
To make it even more likely that large numbers of young people would apply for such scholarships, however, nonprofit groups should sponsor Arabic-language programs at the elementary- and secondary-school levels. Given local fiscal pressures and the demands imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind law, local school districts are not likely to adopt new language-instruction programs without support from private groups.
Education-oriented grant makers and nonprofit groups should think about ways to provide long-term funds for such efforts and to provide other help to local school districts that want to expand instruction in Arabic language.
Enlisting retired people. Many adults, including the elderly, thirst for educational opportunities and ways to protect their nation. Nonprofit groups could provide training and scholarships to people who promise to use their knowledge to enhance national security.
Retired people may be best suited to take on this challenge with the help of nonprofit organizations.
My father, an executive in the electronics-distribution industry, was forced into involuntary retirement. To keep busy and earn a little money, he and other retired executives and professionals joined a program run by the Internal Revenue Service. They received extensive training on the tax laws (some would argue that learning tax law is at least as difficult as learning a foreign language), and, for a small salary, became non-civil-service employees in an IRS customer-service call center.
Similar programs for qualified retired people can be run by charities. They can provide training and then funnel these trained people into useful positions either in the government or at nonprofit groups.
Gathering information. Nonprofit organizations can provide a valuable role in the gathering and analysis of intelligence.
The Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute, led by Rita Katz, already does such work. As described in her book, Terrorist Hunter, Ms. Katz had previously used her language skills and familiarity with Arab culture to infiltrate and disrupt Islamic terrorist organizations operating in the United States. Her organization keeps a close eye on Web sites run by terrorist organizations, and gets information from its contacts abroad to provide analysis and monitoring.
Another nonprofit organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute, monitors and translates the Arab news media, both print and electronic, and distributes articles that have appeared in the Arab world.
Such efforts help provide insights to the United States government and to American citizens on what Arab governments are telling their people about America and about terrorism. The translated articles provide insights on which governments support terrorism, their rationales for doing so, and the voices of terrorism that must be reckoned with.
Identification of terrorists. A riskier role that nonprofit groups can play is infiltration and identification of terrorists and their cells for the government. Shannen Rossmiller, a Montana judge, used her spare time to discover the identity of a jihadist who was looking to engage in terrorist acts in Iraq against Americans. The person she located and identified to the authorities was an American soldier. She was able to do that by using translation software and trolling the Internet for discussion groups with terrorist sympathizers.
Judge Rossmiller and six other people who engage in similar activities have formed 7 Seas Global Intelligence, an organization whose approach other nonprofit groups can emulate.
With tight controls on membership — perhaps limiting participants to people who have received nonprofit scholarships to study Arabic — grant makers can establish and support expansive networks of part- and full-time terror hunters.
Helping intelligence agencies. Nonprofit groups could also work in conjunction with American intelligence agencies. Articles appearing in Israel and elsewhere have suggested that the Federal Bureau of Intelligence at one time considered recruiting Sephardic Jews — those who come from Arab countries as well as other nations outside of Europe — as Arabic translators, but abandoned the idea because of concerns that the American Jews would have divided loyalties between the United States and Israel.
While that seems like a minor concern given the alliance between the United States and Israel to fight terror, one way to overcome any concerns would be for nonprofit groups to recruit Arabic-speaking Sephardic Jews to interpret small pieces of information. Interpreters could be given small bits of information to translate and then wouldn’t be able to put anything significant into context; analysts could then put the piecemeal translations together to make sense of them.
The nonprofit world can play a significant role in curbing the terrorist threat to free societies. Major foundations and donors must recognize the need to develop new approaches and dedicate their creative talents and resources toward a war that we cannot afford to lose.
Michael S. Kutzin is a New York lawyer and an adjunct faculty member of the George H. Heyman Jr. Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University.
