Congress should reprimand three of its members for participating with financiers of Islamic terrorism in a conference sponsored by an anti-Semitic group with deep ties to Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group that calls for eradicating the state of Israel. The legislators who joined forces with the extremists over the Thanksgiving weekend include Ilhan Omar and Betty McCollum of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. All are Democrats with a history of supporting anti-Semitism. Omar and Tlaib are the first two Muslim women in Congress and their tenure as elected officials has been marred with tremendous controversy.
The powwow they recently starred in was bankrolled by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a Virginia-based group that advocates for Palestinian rights and claims to educate the public about the just cause of Palestine. The lineup at the recent event read like a “who’s who for the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to a nonprofit dedicated to exposing the threat of radical Islam and other extremist ideologies. The respected Washington D.C.-based group, Clarion Project, published a poster advertising the conference which featured an array of terror financiers and anti-Semites. They include Tarek Hammoud, who has well-documented connections to Hamas and Kifah Mustapha, a prolific fundraiser for radical Islamist groups with deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hamoud is the executive director of the Palestinian Return Center (PRC), a Hamas front in the United Kingdom. PRC regularly hosts Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, a former prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Mustapha is the chairman of Muslim American Society Institute of Chicago (MAS) and was embroiled in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case, according to court documents. An imam at a Chicago-area mosque, Mustapha is a member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and was a Holy Land Foundation officer. The Holy Land Foundation is a Hamas front group prosecuted by the U.S. for funding terrorism. In 2008 five of the group’s leaders were convicted in Texas on 108 counts for funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. The government considered it the largest victory against terrorist financing since the 9/11 attacks. A year before the verdicts Judicial Watch published a special report on Muslim charities that includes alarming information about the Holy Land Foundation.
At the Thanksgiving weekend event, the three federal lawmakers rubbed elbows with an assortment of terrorist supporters and funders. AMP was founded in 2006 by a University of California, Berkeley professor, Hatem Bazian, who is an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activist. He also founded a group called Students for Justice in Palestine, whose members are notorious for intimidating and harassing Jewish and pro-Israel students on college campuses around the U.S. Bazian, who still operates AMP, has employed an array of terrorist financiers to help run his group, according to congressional documents obtained by the Clarion Project. At least five AMP officials previously served with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s pro-Hamas Palestine Committee. The Palestine Committee was a secret body set up to advance the Brotherhood/Hamas agenda in America. Bazian has proclaimed that Muslim-Americans must follow in the footsteps of the “uprising in Iraq,” which was against American soldiers, and the “intifada in Palestine” by starting an intifada in the U.S. that changes the country’s political dynamics.
After hobnobbing with allies of Islamic terrorists, one of the congresswomen took to social media to advance their cause. On the last day of the AMP conference Tlaib, who easily won reelection last month, promoted a message on her twitter account that has long been reiterated by those calling for the complete destruction of the state of Israel and its Jewish citizens. It reads: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.”
Author: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. Visit Judicial Watch at https://www.judicialwatch.org/
