American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us

by Steven Emerson

  The IAP claims it does no fundraising for activities outside the United States. However, internal materials, videos and documents show that it operates an extensive network carefully designed to reach different audiences, from Hamas believers to secular Americans. With offices and affiliates in more than a dozen cities, IAP is a public-relations machine. In addition to publishing newspapers, it has produced terrorist training and recruitment videos that show actual terrorists boasting of their “kills” plus grisly interrogations of “collaborators” just before their executions. IAP also disseminates “moderate” videos for American audiences. It has sponsored a traveling Hamas musical troupe that has penned, among many original lyrics, a song with the refrain, “We buy Paradise with the blood of the Jews.” IAP also has operated jihad summer retreats for adults and children.

  Fundraising, on the other hand, has been relegated to the Holy Land Foundation.

  Ronni Shaked, a former official in the Israeli General Security Service, commented on Hamas fundraising in a book he wrote (published in 1994 in Hebrew) based on his interviews with operatives while they were imprisoned:

  The major channel for fundraising for the Hamas organization in the United States is the Occupied Land Fund that was established in Los Angeles, California. In 1992, the organization changed its name to the Holy Land Foundation and moved to Richardson, Texas.14

  In December 2001, the assets of HLF in America were frozen by presidential order. According to a memo dated November 5 by FBI Assistant Director Dale L. Watson, the FBI had been gathering evidence of HLF’s ties to Hamas since 1993, and “a majority of the funds collected by the HLFRD are used to support HAMAS activities in the Middle East.” It was all carefully planned. At a meeting in October 1993 at a Marriott hotel in Philadelphia that the FBI secretly recorded, five Hamas leaders met with the top three executives of HLF: Shukri Abu Baker, the chief executive, Haitham Maghawri, the executive director, and Ghassan Elashi, the chairman. As Watson summarized, “It was decided that most or almost all of the funds collected in the future should be directed to enhance the Islamic Resistance Movement and to weaken the self-rule government,” i.e., what later became the Palestinian Authority. “Holy War efforts should be supported by increasing spending on the injured, the prisoners and their families.” According to the FBI, the participants agreed that “In the United States, they could raise funds, propagate their political goals, affect public opinion, and influence decision-making of the U.S. government.”15 One reliable FBI source reported that at a 1994 IAP conference in California, the HLF’s CEO, Shukri Abu Baker, was introduced to the audience as a senior vice president of Hamas.16

  At a 1994 meeting in Oxford, Mississippi, recorded by the FBI, the role of HLF was affirmed when Hamas members met with a competitor, Abdelhaleem Hasan Ashqar, head of the al-Aqsa Educational Fund, to explain that “Mousa Abu Marzook designated the HLFRD as the primary fundraising entity [for Hamas].”17

  The offices of the HLF in Israel were closed by the Israeli authorities in May 1997 and again in December 1997, based on the connection between HLF fundraising and support for Hamas. When the office in Jerusalem was closed, an orphan support form was seized for a child named Bar’a Ayyash. This child’s father, Yahya Ayyash, was best known for his exploits on behalf of the Hamas movement as its primary bombmaker and strategist. Nicknamed “the Engineer,” Ayyash was killed in early 1996 when his cellular telephone was booby-trapped with a bomb. His funeral was attended by thousands, and the support provided by HLF to Ayyash’s family is indicative of the type of support that HLF provides to Hamas. By giving money to the family after the Hamas terrorist’s demise, HLF encourages others to engage in similar terrorist conduct by ensuring that the terrorists need not fear for the well-being of their families after they have died for their cause.

  HLF’s Jerusalem office chairman, Muhammad Anati, was arrested and indicted on charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. Exactly whom HLF supported was addressed in statements made to Israeli authorities by Anati. As he explained:

  I remember I used to send to the United States—pictures of orphans, photos of projects that we did, photos of refugee camps and also videos that used to arrive to videotape projects, refugee camps, and photos of historical places, such as the Machpelah Caves in Hebron, Jerusalem, etc…. They used to present the movies and the photos in front of the people in the United States—invited them to conferences to show these movies. During these conferences, they used to describe the organization—The Holy Land Foundation, about the charity, they used to describe it as an Islamic organization which helps people. They did not say directly that the organization supported Hamas, they told the people that the institute—The Holy Land Foundation—is an Islamic institute, which was connected and was supporting Hamas.18

  Donations to the HLF were transferred not just to HLF Jerusalem (prior to its closure) but to a variety of organizations in the occupied territories and Palestinian Authority–controlled areas either affiliated with or sympathetic to Hamas.19 For example, the Israelis found a master list of payments made by the “Muslim Youth Society” in Hebron, one of the HLF’s charities. The list is divided into six columns: the name of the “martyr” (a Hamas operative who was killed), the “martyr’s” chief benefactor, the benefactor’s identity number, his/her relationship to the “martyr,” the amount paid, and the signature of a Muslim Youth Society official. The list is extensive, illustrating the reach of HLF funds. By using the Muslim Youth Society as an intermediary, the funds did not appear to go directly from the HLF to Hamas operatives, or Hamas-affiliated persons.

  Among the “martyrs” on the list:

  Eiyad Hasin Abdal Aziz Hadid: Involved in the murder of the Lapid family on December 6, 1993. He was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces on March 24, 1994.

  Marwan Muhammad Halil abu Ramila: Involved in the attack on Ephraim Zrviv in November 1993. He was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces on March 24, 1994.

  Khatem Kader Ya‘akov Makhtaseb: An activist with the Izz al-Din al-Qassem brigades of Hamas (the units responsible for the suicide bombings carried out by Hamas) who was involved in a shooting against the Israeli Defense Forces.

  Similarly, when the FBI analyzed documents seized by the Israeli government during a May 7, 1995, search of the HLF office in the village of Beit Haucha, the Bureau found lists of over fifty recipients of the HLF and with Hamas corrections parents, wives, and siblings of terrorists. FBI assistant Watson notes that “It is the FBI’s analysis that the documents seized demonstrate the control the HLFRD Headquarters in Richardson, Texas, had over the HLFRD Jerusalem office.”

  *

  The Israeli court documents describe how the HLF prioritized its funding. The Israeli General Security Services found one particular list of recipients of HLF aid (via the Islamic Relief Agency) on which families received much larger sums “than the amounts allocated by [HLF and the Islamic Relief Agency] to families included on other lists.” Twenty-five of the twenty-eight families on the list “were families of Hamas activists who were killed, arrested or deported.” The Court concluded that “[HLF], through the help of [the Islamic Relief Agency], is supporting with significant amounts of money especially those families of Hamas activists…. From this the conclusion was established that the main purpose of [the HLF] and of [the Islamic Relief Agency] is to provide massive support to Hamas.”21

  *

  Equally important to HLF’s fundraising, however, is IAP’s political work and organizing. The Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) was founded in 1981 in Chicago, Illinois. Ever since Hamas was formed, six years later in 1987, IAP has served as its primary voice within the United States. It was at an IAP conference in 1989 that this book’s opening vignette occurred, with the veiled Hamas commander lauding the terrorist acts of Hamas and praising the history of armed resistance against the Jews and the Israelis in the Middle East.22

  At that conference, a prominent sign on the dais read “Islamic Resistance M
ovement—Hamas: The Pioneer in the Jihad Path in Palestine.” Speaker after speaker came to the podium and spread the word of Hamas. Finally, Sheikh Muharram al-Aarifi led the gathering in a chant whose basic premise was to exalt Hamas as the movement of everyone in the room and as the voice of jihad “against the monkeys,” i.e., the Jews and the Israelis.

  The IAP has consistently denied that it has supported Hamas in any form. In an interview that I conducted with Mohammad al-Hassan at the IAP’s headquarters in Richardson, Texas, in preparation for the airing of “Jihad in America” in 1994, I asked Mr. al-Hassan whether IAP supported the Hamas point of view. He responded, “Not as, the Hamas point of view, no. [IAP] supports liberation of Palestine, [IAP] supports informing the public about the Palestinian issue, [IAP] supports informing the public about the different groups, the different activities which are going on in Palestine. But [IAP] doesn’t take a position in support of any one group per se.”23 Today little has changed. The IAP routinely issues denials that the organization is in any way affiliated with or supportive of Hamas.

  Yet the IAP has printed and disseminated the Hamas charter in its original Arabic ever since 1988. An address that appears on many copies is that of a post office in Tucson, Arizona, where the IAP Information Office was located before it moved to the suburbs of Dallas. Furthermore, IAP has printed many communiqués and other announcements by Hamas. In the November/December 1989 issue of the IAP’s Arabic-language magazine Ila Filistin, a full-page advertisement featured the following proclamation: “The only way to liberate Palestine, all Palestine, is by way of Jihad, and any other way except Jihad will only lead to strengthen [sic] the Zionist occupation.” This claim was closely followed by the declaration that “the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is the conscience of the Palestinian people, and it is the hope against all those who betrayed and those who are against the Palestinian issue.” At the end were instructions to send donations for jihad for the sake of Allah to the Occupied Land Fund.24

  In the years since the founding of Hamas, the IAP’s audiovisual arm, Aqsa Vision, has distributed numerous videotapes lauding the activities of Hamas and even portraying training exercises for actual Hamas terrorists. One such video, entitled “Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades,” subtitled “Gaza, September 1992,” includes footage of Hamas terrorists carrying automatic weapons and jumping out of trees. In addition, it includes interviews with Hamas terrorists who are preparing to be martyred for their cause. At the end the screen shows the Aqsa Vision name and phone number. The latter is that of the Islamic Association for Palestine’s office in Richardson, Texas. Other videos have been distributed showing the conditions of the deportation of over 400 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders from Israel and the Occupied Territories to Lebanon in 1992. All of these videos are intended to evoke sympathy for Hamas members, despite the fact that Hamas’s agenda includes the destruction of the State of Israel through terrorist acts.

  The IAP’s primary activity has been its annual conferences. At the Kansas City conference in 1989, in addition to the Hamas commander, one speaker was Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born religious scholar based in Qatar who created a stir in France with the publication of his book The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam. (In it, al-Qaradawi wrote that a husband is entitled to beat his wife if she does not oblige him with “obedience and cooperation.”)25 “Palestine cannot be liberated except by Islam!” al-Qaradawi told his IAP audience. “So, if they fight us with Judaism, we will fight them with Islam! If they fight with the Torah, we will fight them with the Koran…. If they say their temple, we have the Masjid al-Aqsa…. On the Hour of Judgment, the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews will hide behind the stone, and the stone and the tree will say, O Servant of Allah, O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him…. Muslims will not be victorious by nationalism, and not by monarchy, and not by democracy, and not by Marxism—they will only be victorious by Islam.”26

  Another incendiary speech was given by Sheikh Ahmed al-Qattan, a Palestinian cleric based in Kuwait: “Greetings to those who shoot at the Jews with the catapult, and to those who poke out the eyes of the Jews with the slingshot…. In 1967…the Jews sang, “Muhammad is dead and he gave birth to girls…[and we answer,] “O sons of pigs and monkeys, Muhammad is not dead and he did not give birth to girls. Rather, khaybar, khaybar [death] to Jews; Muhammad’s Army will return!”27

  During the Gulf War, the IAP organized an emergency conference in response to the American troop buildup in Saudi Arabia. The participants issued a resolution condemning “the American crusades.” Khalil al-Qawka, a Hamas leader from Palestine, wanted to go further:

  Today, America is right here at your doorstep, in everybody’s house. Ba‘al, the idol, is back and stands erect in the Arabian Peninsula. Is there a Muhammad to slay the Ba‘al of our times?…The Marines, dear brothers, are stealing the doors of your houses, and the doors of your mosques, in obstinate and open provocation. They are at our doors. Their plan is to penetrate the flesh of our girls. And our honor, and our values, in order to turn our society into a perverted nation.28

  Later, a choir of eight-and nine-year-old children sang revolutionary Islamic songs praising Hamas. In syncopated rhythm, they imitated Hamas knife-stabbings.

  The IAP’s 1996 and 1997 conferences held in Chicago featured not only militant Islamic leaders and repeated exhortations to support terrorist attacks, but also condemnations of the United States. The former was typified by Mohammad abu Faris, a Jordanian Islamic leader: “We were blamed in writing that we do not comply with what our religion orders us to. It orders us to fight the Jews and we did not kill them, and [by that omission] we did not perform our religion [religious duty]. Therefore, had we claimed that we do perform what our religion orders us and obliges us to do while we are not doing it—then they [those who have blamed us] would have been right. They wrote that our reality contradicts our religion.”29 Furthermore, abu Faris stated, “There is only one way to liberate Palestine and Al-Aqsa, and that is the fighting, that is the Jihad, that is the slaughtering, that is the butchering…call it dialogue.” At the conclusion of his statement, the assembled crowd erupted in laughter at the mention of any type of “dialogue.”

  The latter was typified by Abdulrahman Alamoudi, who at the time of his speech before the 1996 IAP annual convention in Chicago was the executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC) and a politically active member of the Muslim community within the United States. Alamoudi did not advocate violence against the United States, at least not openly: “if we are outside this country we can say O Allah, destroy America, but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it…. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means…to do it. You can be violent anywhere else but in America.”30 His message was surely not lost on his listeners.

  The 1997 IAP Annual Conference attracted several thousand Muslims for three days of militant lectures focused on Palestine, Islam, Israel, and Jews. Featured speakers included an impressive array of Hamas supporters from the Islamic Action Front (IAF) in Jordan, as well as a number of prominent militant American Muslim leaders. Speakers delivered lectures in English and Arabic on panels with titles such as: “Zionism: A Racist and Colonial Ideology,” “Contemporary Movements of Islamic Renewal and the Societal Plan,” “The Settlement Process in the Middle East: Results and Expectations,” “The Dome of the Rock: the First Qibla [Muslim direction of prayer] or the Eternal Capital of the Jews?” Lectures varied in their level of militancy and vitriol toward Jews, with the Arabic lectures being decidedly more militant. One presenter was Jordan’s Ahmed al-Kufahi, a member of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) political party. The IAF serves as the political voice of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Jordan. At the conference, al-Kufahi commented on the obligation of engaging in jihad on behalf of the land of Palestine:

  In Islam, if your enemy occupies a small piece of your land, then you have to declar
e jihad against the enemy. Jihad becomes a must and a religious obligation on all Muslims to go and fight the enemy.…women must go for jihad without taking permission from their husbands…slaves without taking permission from their masters…boys without taking permission from their fathers…. Palestine is occupied by the enemy. The occupation of Palestine shouldn’t be dealt with as a regional one [issue] but as an Islamic obligation, because occupation of any Islamic land is a violation to the Sovereignty of Islamic world.31

  Ali al-Bayanuni, leader of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, added, “The Palestine issue is the most important issue for Muslims and its liberation and confronting the Zionist challenge should be on the top of our priorities as Muslims, and we should prepare ourselves for that task. Jihad is an Islamic obligation and a must on all Muslims.”32

  Year after year, the rhetoric has continued. At the 1999 IAP Annual Conference in Chicago, Salah Sultan, who delivered the Friday prayer sermon, set the tone by indicating that American support of Israel would come back to haunt the United States: “My advice to the American society: See the realities, do not take them from the false media that bank on your credulity and submissiveness. The Zionist regime is a danger to the Jews, a danger to Christians, a danger to Americans.”33 Sultan also encouraged the youth at the conference to strive toward martyrdom for Palestine by saying, “I want every child to sleep on the wound of Palestine and the actions of martyrdom, just like that mother in the country whose son wrote to her that they are to meet in Paradise….”