US Congresswomen Featured At Palestinian Advocacy Conference- Sponsor Tied To US Muslim Brotherhood & Hamas Support Groups

Accord­ing to its pub­lic­i­ty mate­r­i­al, the Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP) held a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence from Novem­ber 27-Novem­ber 29 titled “Against All Odds: Pales­tine Beyond 2020.” The AMP described the con­fer­ence as follows:

This year’s theme is Against All Odds: Pales­tine Beyond 2020. The Pales­tin­ian peo­ple and cause will sur­vive 2020. Despite the major set­backs we’ve faced this year due to more poten­tial for­mal annex­a­tion, Arab nor­mal­iza­tion, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s poli­cies, the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, Israel’s mur­ders of Pales­tini­ans in cold blood at check­points, mas­sive home demo­li­tions in Jerusalem, and ongo­ing suf­fo­cat­ing siege of Gaza, Pales­tine will rise against all odds. I know it’s hard to imag­ine now, but it will hap­pen. Pales­tine will pre­vail AGAINST ALL ODDS. Our nine ses­sions over three days will focus on the tremen­dous work of Pales­tini­ans in the dias­po­ra and on the ground who con­tin­ue work­ing for this just and noble cause. The ses­sions will fea­ture speak­ers from around the coun­try and glob­al­ly, who’ve com­mit­ted them­selves to dif­fer­ent facets of this work from Black-Pales­tin­ian sol­i­dar­i­ty to ana­lyz­ing the impact of the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on Pales­tine. This is sure­ly going to be our most dynam­ic pro­gram yet!

The con­ven­tion pro­gram indi­cates the par­tic­i­pa­tion of three US Con­gress­women and one state representative:

• Con­gress­woman Rashi­da Tlaib: Serv­ing as the U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Michigan’s 13th con­gres­sion­al district

• Con­gress­woman Ilhan Omar: Serv­ing as the U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Minnesota’s 5th con­gres­sion­al district

• Con­gress­woman Bet­ty McCol­lum – Rep­re­sent­ing Minnesota’s Fourth Dis­trict in the Unit­ed States House of Representatives

• Iman Jodeh: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-Elect for House Dis­trict 41 in Col­orado, first Mus­lim and Arab woman elect­ed to the Col­orado State Legislature

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed in Octo­ber that Con­gress­woman Rashi­da Tlaib was one of the speak­ers at the annu­al con­ven­tion of the Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca (ISNA), a part of the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. That con­fer­ence fea­tured Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers and Biden cam­paign offi­cials togeth­er with impor­tant lead­ers in the USMB.

The GIOR report­ed in July that Con­gress­woman Ilhan Omar was one of the par­tic­i­pants in a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence that also include then Pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Joe Biden and two impor­tant lead­ers of the USMB.

Oth­er indi­vid­u­als of inter­est par­tic­i­pat­ing in the AMP con­fer­ence included:

• Wadah Khan­far: Pres­i­dent of Al Sharq Forum, for­mer Direc­tor-Gen­er­al of Al Jazeera Media Network

• Dr. Hatem Baz­ian: Chair­man of Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine, Pro­fes­sor at UC Berkeley

• Dr. Osama Abuir­shaid: Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and a board mem­ber of Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Palestine

Accord­ing to his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Hatem Baz­ian is a co-founder and Pro­fes­sor of Islam­ic Law and The­ol­o­gy at Zay­tu­na Col­lege and a lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. In addi­tion to his aca­d­e­m­ic work, he is also a week­ly colum­nist for the Dai­ly Sabah news­pa­per, a Turk­ish pro-gov­ern­ment pub­li­ca­tion, and a board mem­ber of the Mus­lim Legal Fund of Amer­i­ca, tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the US. Video from an April 2004 anti­war-ral­ly shows Hatem Baz­ian call­ing for an “Intifa­da” in the US. More videos from the same con­fer­ence show Baz­ian talk­ing about the “Arabs who are com­ing to help” in Iraq. Dr. Baz­ian lat­er claimed that his remarks on a US Intifa­da were misunderstood.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has report­ed that Osama Abuir­shaid recent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a con­fer­ence call where Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan deliv­ered hol­i­day greet­ings. The GIOR also report­ed that Abuir­shaid was part of an August meet­ing between a US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood umbrel­la group and Erdoğan that took place at the Turk­ish pres­i­den­tial complex.

In Jan­u­ary 2009, the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch ana­lyzed the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and pos­si­ble Hamas back­ground of Wadah Khan­far (aka Wad­dah Khanfar).

The Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP) is a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to both the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and to the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US. A report by the Anti-Defama­tion League describes the AMP as “the lead­ing orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ing “anti-Zion­ist” train­ing and edu­ca­tion to stu­dents and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions in the coun­try. The ADL also report­ed in 2014 that calls for vio­lence against Israel were heard from speak­ers at the 7th annu­al AMP conference.

For video of the AMP con­fer­ence, go here.