By Ilan Weinglass

The U.S. Treasury department has finally designated the Union of Good as a Specially Designated National, meaning it is effectively recognized as a terrorist entity.  This is certainly a welcome development, but I have no idea why it did not take place years ago.  A cursory look at the group’s web site, for those who can read Arabic, shows it to be an umbrella group for 50-odd islamic charities, of which around 10 were already SDNs.  All this was true years ago, as shown (among other places) by research that I conducted along with Olivier Guitta.

Treasury’s information sheet on the designation is not up yet so it’s hard to determine what new information led to this step, though it is certainly a welcome development.