Congresswoman’s alleged links go back to Hamas

Rashida-Tlaib-Hamas-connection

Important Takeaways:

  • Rashida Tlaib’s alleged links to the Hamas terror organization – report
  • Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has been an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause. However, her alleged connections to the Hamas terrorist group have only recently been uncovered, according to the Canary Mission.
  • In an article it published on October 25, the mission, a group dedicated to fighting antisemitism in the United States, claims that Tlaib has extensive funds tied to the Hamas terrorist group.
  • The group states that Tlaib used the Facebook group PAC-USA (Palestinian American Congress-USA), for her congressional campaign. This group, Canary said, shared pro-terrorism, antisemitic, and Nazi propaganda content. The group no longer exists but had over 12,000 members in June 2020.
  • Moreover, Tlaib allegedly hired the founder of the group as the chairman of her campaign’s Finance Committee. This position is said to have enabled the founder to promote 12 fundraisers across eight different states. The nature of these fundraisers was not described.
  • Additionally, the mission claims that Tlaib founded the group Black4Palestine, an organization that they describe as an “anti-American, anti-Israel and pro-terror hate group.” The group allegedly works alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in the United States
  • The group Tlaib founded has apparently posted in support of registered terrorist organizations more than 100 times.
  • Canary Mission claimed that Tlaib has links to at least three Hamas-linked activists, whom she employed to fundraise for her 2018 election campaign. One of the three known employees has spent eight months in prison for his connections to the terrorist organization, the group claimed.
  • The three fundraisers named were Salah Sarsour, Rafiq Jaber, and Abdelbaset Hamayel.
  • Sarsour, who was jailed for being connected with Hamas in 1995, co-hosted an event with Tlaib in 2018. The group shared an archived link showing Sarsour’s name appearing on an event flyer.
  • Speaking with the Canary Mission: Why does Tlaib’s connections with Hamas hold significance?
  • “Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed the worst atrocity on Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas has the same genocidal goal as Adolf Hitler – the annihilation of the Jewish people. Failure to condemn Hamas is no different than a failure to condemn Nazi Germany,” the Mission told The Jerusalem Post.

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Israel bars visit by U.S. Democratic lawmakers

FILE PHOTO: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) holds a news conference to discuss legislation creating "a federal grant program to help local governments invest in waste reduction initiatives", at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., July 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mary F. Calvert/File Photo

By Rami Ayyub and Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel will bar a visit by two of its sharpest critics in the U.S. Congress, Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who planned to tour the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the country’s deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.

“The decision has been made, the decision is not to allow them to enter,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Reshet Bet Radio.

U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier urged Israel on Thursday not to allow the visit by Tlaib and Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress and members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing.

FILE PHOTO: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) questions Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan as he testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on "Trump Administration's Child Separation Policy" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 18, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) questions Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan as he testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on “Trump Administration’s Child Separation Policy” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 18, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

The pair have voiced support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Under Israeli law, backers of the BDS movement can be denied entry to Israel.

Trump has vented in recent months against Omar, Tlaib and two other Democratic congresswomen of color, accusing them of hostility to Israel in what has widely been seen as a drumming up of Republican votes for his 2020 reelection bid.

“It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit,” he tweeted on Thursday. “They are a disgrace!”

No date had been formally announced for the congresswomen’s trip, but sources familiar with the planned visit said it could begin at the weekend.

Israel’s ambassador in the United States, Ron Dermer, said last month Tlaib and Omar would be let in, out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Political commentators said a reversal of Israel’s original intention to approve the legislators’ entry likely stemmed from a desire to mirror Trump’s hard line against them.

An Israeli official said earlier on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior members of his cabinet held consultations on Wednesday on a “final decision” about the visit.

Denying entry to elected U.S. officials could further strain relations between Netanyahu, who has highlighted his close ties with Trump in his current re-election campaign, and the Democratic leadership in Congress.

HOLY SITE

A planned tour by the two lawmakers of the holy compound in Jerusalem that houses al-Aqsa mosque, and which is revered by Jews as the site of two biblical Jewish temples, turned into an issue of contention, according to sources familiar with preparations for the visit.

The flashpoint site is in an area of Jerusalem that Israel captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally.

An official in Israel’s internal security ministry said any visit by Tlaib and Omar to the complex, revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, would require Israeli security protection.

Violence erupted there on Sunday between Israeli police and Palestinians amid tensions over visits by Jewish pilgrims on a day when the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av overlapped.

Tlaib, 43, who was born in the United States, draws her roots to the Palestinian village of Beit Ur Al-Fauqa in the West Bank. Her grandmother and extended family live in the village.

Omar, who immigrated to the United States from Somalia as a child, represents Minnesota’s fifth congressional district.

In February, Omar, 37, apologized after Democratic leaders condemned remarks she made about the pro-Israel lobby in the United States as using anti-Semitic stereotypes.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and Makini Brice in Washington; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Frances Kerry)