Law Enforcement Today was recently sent a video of the Fox News program, “Life, Liberty, & Levin,” the Saturday and Sunday evening show hosted by conservative and former aide to Attorney General Edwin Meese, Mark Levin. In that program, Levin addressed a paper written by George Washington University professor Lorenzo Vidino from October 2023.
That paper, titled, “The Hamas Network in America: A Short History, written for the Program on Extremism at GWU," is a shocking look into how embedded Hamas is in the United States.
In the Executive Summary, Vidino wrote that according to internal Hamas documents and FBI wiretaps, a nationwide Hamas network has been in existence dating back to the 1980s, at which point the group was “engaged in fundraising, lobbying, education, and propaganda dissemination.”
Vidino also wrote in the Executive Summary that Hamas “formalized its existence in 1988, creating the Palestine Committee in the US. Among the Committee’s goals was “increasing the financial and the moral support for Hamas,” “fighting surrendering solutions,” and publicizing the alleged “savagery of the Jews.”
Most of Hamas’s public organizations are based in Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, DC. Those organizations included the “Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), the financial arm represented by the Occupied Land Fund (which later became the Holy Land Foundation, HLF), and the think tank United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).
In 1993, Vidino writes, the FBI was able to conduct a wiretap of Hamas activists in the United States that was held in Philadelphia. The wiretap showed that discussions on “how to improve activities in support of Hamas within the US were conducted, as well as working to prevent Hamas from being designated a terrorist organization."
One way to avoid negative consequences was to hide their affiliation with Hamas. One senior leader said that “war is deception,” advising devotees to “[d]eceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way. Deceive your enemy.”
The leader admonished devotees not to “hoist a large Islamic flag” and to keep violent rhetoric to a minimum.
Vidino noted that US authorities have had some success in undermining the network through deportations and prosecution of Hamas operatives while also shutting down so-called “front organizations.” In 2001, for example, the Holy Land Foundation was designated a terror-supporting organization, and some of its leaders were prosecuted for directing approximately $12.4 million to Hamas. That amounted to the largest and most successful terrorism financing prosecution in American history.
Despite that, “US-based Hamas networks and individuals have displayed a remarkable resilience,” Vidino wrote, “and many of the core activists of the Palestine Committee are still engaged in various forms of support (albeit at times purely political and not material) for Hamas.”
As we have seen over the past several months since the Hamas attack on Israel, American universities have been a breeding ground of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas ideology. In fact, Vidino wrote that small numbers of Palestinians who were members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza and the West Bank started arriving in the US in the 1960s as either students or immigrants or refugees.
After Hamas was organized in 1987, the network in the US continued to organize itself, creating several public-facing organizations that engaged in fundraising, lobbying, education, and dissemination of propaganda,” Vidino wrote.
At about the same time, Muslim Brotherhood branches and affiliates worldwide activated to assist Hamas. Documents released in federal court noted that in 1988, the head of the Palestine section of the Muslim Brotherhood traveled to the US, where he met with fellow members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which resulted in the formation of the Palestine Committee of the group.
Vidino added that in the US, a subgroup of the Muslim Brotherhood contains primarily Palestinian members.
In October 1992, an internal memorandum of the Palestine Committee explained the Muslim Brotherhood’s vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which read, in part, "…Palestine is the one for which Muslim Brotherhood prepared armies–made up from the children of Islam in the Arab and Islamic nations to liberate its land from the abomination and the defilement of the children of the Jews, and they watered its pure soil with their honorable blood which sprouted into a jihad that is continuing until the Day of Resurrection and provided a zeal without relenting making the slogan of its children 'it is a Jihad for victory or martyrdom…'"
The same document also asked the Committee to work to “increase the financial and the moral support for Hamas,” to “fight surrendering solutions,” and to publicize and focus on “the savagery of the Jews.”
The FBI obtained an internal Palestine Committee document which showed the IAP and HLF were the leading entities of the public-facing, pro-Hamas “machinery” put in place by Musa Abu Marzook, head of the Palestine Committee. Marzook was a native of the Gaza Strip who received a doctorate in industrial engineering in Louisiana. During his time in the US, Marzook “developed several personal networks and public organizations” dedicated to supporting Hamas in Palestine.
Marzook was eventually kicked out of the US in 1995 and, during his deportation hearing, admitted to heading the Hamas political wing in the US. After being deported from the US, Marzook became one of the terrorist organization’s most senior leaders, serving in Hamas’ political bureau and holding the position of bureau deputy chairman from 1997 to 2014.
Much of Hamas’s US network was founded and operated by a small group of men who were primarily from the same towns in Palestine, had long been associated with each other, and were often related or had business ties. Most importantly, they all adhered to the same MB/Hamas worldview.
Up until the time Hamas was designated a terrorist organization by the US government, the Committee operated legally in the United States, conducting fundraising and pushing Hamas propaganda without breaking the law. That changed in August 1993, when then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Peace Accords. That created great consternation among the Commitee, who vehemently spoke out against the peace treaty while also fearing Hamas could become the target of US actions.
That led to a three-day meeting in Philadelphia, where an estimated twenty top Hamas leaders attended closed-door sessions. However, unknown to the participants, the FBI had placed wiretaps inside the hotel and recorded most of the conversations taking place, transcripts of which were introduced as evidence during the HLF trial.
Representatives of the three organizations that made up the Palestine Committee were among those at the meeting. Most of them were related by blood and lived in tight-knit communities in Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, DC.
The meeting more closely resembled the board meeting of a large corporation, Vidino wrote and opened with instructions to refer to Hamas as Samah (which is Hamas spelled backwards) or simply as “the movement,” both throughout the meeting as well as in phone conversations. Participants then took to slamming the Oslo Accords, which one attendee, Omar Ahmed, head of the Islamic Association for Palestine, called a treaty between “infidels and infidels.”
It was simple to form a consensus among attendees opposing the accords, however, what was difficult was trying to undermine them in the eyes of the American people. Some of the speakers pressed their position that it was necessary to “frame” their opposition to the accords in a manner that would appeal to Americans.
With that in mind, one attendee suggested speaking of “democracy and freedom of expression” to oppose the accord rather than one’s hatred of Arafat or the PLO and attacking them in a direct manner. Another suggested attacking the agreements based on the Palestinian Authority not caring for “people’s interests and the interest of the national rights and the people’s.”
Finally, another suggested “playing a very important tune to the average American, which is the issue of democracy, the issue of representation.” Also, one said to tell Americans that “this person is not elected. He is an oppressor…This is a dictatorial regime…bring up Saddam Hussen’s name.”
Participants were also told to publicly distance themselves from Hamas. They debated on how to convince American Muslims to support Hamas while “maintaining a facade of moderation with American authorities and media.” One said, “If you address the Muslims, it means that you cannot reveal our address to the Americans.”
In addition, they were admonished that “if someone asked you if you want to destroy Israel, what are you going to say on TV? If you give an inconclusive response, which is like you didn’t answer the question, someone will come to you and tell you that you have forsaken your principles.”
Members at the meeting decided to adopt a “two-pronged approach” that showed a divergence between its internal and external strategies. For example, within the Muslim community, the participants agreed the Committee should maintain its support for Hamas, undeterred. One speaker said, “In the coming stage, the most important thing we can provide is to support Jihad in Palestine. I believe it is the only way if we want to bring the goals of the [Oslo peace] accord to fail.”
The newly-created Holy Land Foundation intended to collect funds for Hamas while giving the impression they were donating money for orphans and needy children.
“We give the Islamists $100,000, and we give others 5,000," said a man named Abu Baker. He argued the HLF needed to “maintain a balance” to avoid attracting attention. At the same time “stay[ing] on its legal track as far as charitable projects are concerned without going after a sentiment which could harm the Foundation legally.”
The Committee also suggested educating young Muslims and teaching that Hamas is a “force worth supporting.”
“We don’t want the children of the [American Muslim] community who are raised here in schools and in Islamic schools and non-Islamic schools to grow up surrendering to the issue of peace with Jews,” said one unidentified speaker. “I mean, we don’t see in ten years the growing generation in America surrendering to peace with Jews. Therefore, there must be curricula and teaching materials which spread in Islamic schools and in weekend schools.”
The attendees agreed that it was essential to mobilize the Muslim community to support Hamas. Still, they also understood it was necessary to influence American public opinion and policymakers, with Ahmed saying it was essential to increase the committee’s “influence with Congress.”
“This can be achieved by infiltrating the American media outlets, universities, and research centers. It is also achieved by working with Islamic political organizations and the sympathetic ones such as…the American Muslim Alliance, such as the United Muslims of America, and MPAC [Muslim Public Affairs Council]...if Muslims engage in political activism in America and started to be concerned with Congress and public relations, we will have an entry point to use them to pressure Congress and the decision-makers in America.”
One of the most critical aspects of the Committee’s public relations campaign was developing a “carefully crafted media strategy,” Vidino wrote. Ahmed said it was important to broadcast “the Islamic point of view in U.S. media,” noting that “when Nihad [Awad] appeared on CNN and talked in the way he spoke, this greatly reduces the severity of allegations of radicalism.”
That was in reference to IAP public relations director Awad's appearance a few weeks earlier on CNN’s Crossfire, when he pushed Hamas’s point of view in “words that were palatable to the American public.” Awad later stressed the importance of “training and qualifying individuals in the branches and the communities on media activism through holding special courses on media” while also stressing the importance of writing op-eds in major American newspapers.
That led several prominent members of pro-Hamas organizations to have editorials published in major American newspapers, such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, toned down for the American public.
Participants at the meeting were admonished to mask their unadulterated support for Hamas and use a more toned-down position.
“We can’t, as an American organization, say we represent Samah [Hamas spelled backward],” said Omar Ahmed. “Can we go to the Congressman and tell him,” he asked sarcastically, “‘I am Omare Yehya, Chairman of the Union [IAP]. Yassir Arafat doesn’t represent me, but [Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh] Ahmad Yasin does?’” Other participants agreed that hiding the Committee’s true feelings from the American people was necessary.
“I swear by Allah that war is deception,” said Abu Baker, “we are fighting our enemy with a kind heart…deceive, camouflage, pretend that you’re leaving while you’re walking that way. Deceive your enemy.” Ahmed expanded on Baker’s position using a basketball analogy, referring to a head fake.
“He makes a player believe that he is doing this while he does something else.”
The participants agreed that to continue their activities within the US, a new organization with no apparent ties to Hamas was necessary while operating in ways that “appear” to be moderate. In the 1991 bylaws drafted by the Palestine Committee, they expressed the wish to establish such an organization in the future.
“It is hoped that it will become an official organization for political work, and its headquarters will be in Washington, God's willing,” the document read. “It represents the political aspect to support the cause politically on the American front.”
American authorities believe that a new organization did come to fruition, known as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), founded in Washington, DC, only months after the Philadelphia meeting.
For one, IAP president Omar Ahmed and public relations director Nihad Awad, both members of the Committee, became CAIR’s Chairman Emeritus and Executive Director. Former IAP president Rafeeq Jabar also became a founding director of CAIR. Many of those involved in the previously mentioned organizations attained prominent positions in CAIR.
Vidino closed, noting that the US government has conducted a number of counterterrorism operations against the Hamas support network in the US. As mentioned above, the most sophisticated operation was the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation and its leadership. In 2008, five of those individuals were convicted of collecting approximately $12.4 million in support of a designated terrorist organization (Hamas). They were sentenced for up to 65 years in prison.
Only months after HLF’s designation as a terrorist organization, a new charity was launched by the US-based Hamas network in Toledo, Ohio, Kindhearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development (Kindhearts). In 2006, the Treasury Department froze that charity’s assets after evidence surfaced that it provided material support to foreign terrorist organizations.
Treasury claimed the organization was fundraising for Hamas-affiliated entities in the West Bank and Lebanon “behind the facade of charitable giving.” Treasury also accused Kindhearts of being the “progeny” of HLF, noting “KindHeart’s leaders and fundraisers once held leadership or other positions with HLF.”
Vidino suggests that the HLF-Kindhearts situation is “telling of a larger dynamic,” noting that the US-based Hamas network has been able “to regenerate itself and continue its activities under new guises.”
He also stressed that many original members of the Palestine Committee and participants in the “secret” Philadelphia meeting have created new organizations to support the Hamas terror network. He acknowledged that some have engaged in fundraising, however, others have worked on “more political and educational efforts.”
Vidino notes that such efforts are more difficult to prove as falling under the provision of “material support to a terrorist organization” and lead to criminal charges.
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