Federal News Service, MARCH 19,
1996
HEADLINE: PREPARED TESTIMONY OF
STEVEN EMERSON
BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS
COMMITTEE,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EAST AND SOUTH ASIA
RE: TERRORISM AND THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE
PROCESS
Introduction: Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the
U.S.
Last July, Musa Abu Marzuk, the head of the
Hamas political bureau and chief operating officer responsible for orchestrating
the group's terrorist attacks, was arrested at Kennedy Airport upon his return
to the States. He had been living on and off in the U.S. for some 15
years--where he had set up an elaborate Hamas military and financial
infrastructure. In his possession at the time of his arrest was paperwork
showing his business companies to be worth more than $10 million which law
enforcement officials believe to have been part of a massive money laundering
operation for Hamas in the U.S. Equally significant was the discovery of
Marzuk's personal telephone directory which contained the telephone numbers of
nearly every top terrorist and liberation leader in the world today.
Interestingly, more than 20 percent of the phone numbers are those of Marzuk's
contacts and senior terrorist collaborators in the United States. At least ten
of these close contacts currently live in the northern Virginia area. At the end
of October, 1995, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah declared in Damascus that he was the
new head of Islamic Jihad. Since 1991, Shallah had lived in the United States
where he served as a Professor at the University of South Florida at Tampa and
also directed a "research facility" affiliated with the University of South
Florida. He worked closely with Sami Al-Arian, another professor who was not
only the corporate founder of Mr. Shallah's research facility but the head of a
non-profit "charitable organization." FBI searches of both Abdullah's and
al-Arian's premises have produced a voluminous amount of raw intelligence and
primary source material on the vast radical Islamic connections that were
established from Tampa. At this time, the FBI is operating a task force with
representatives from the INS, Customs, andTreasury. The investigation may
ultimately become the larger counter-terrorist investigation in the United
States.
The very fact that the top terrorist leaders
of both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad radical groups were found in 1995 to have
been living in the United States should disabuse anyone of the notion that
militant Islamic organizations are not using the United States for safehaven.
Although FBI director Louis Freeh recently testified for the first time on the
record that Hamas raises funds in the United States, the fact is that both Hamas
and Islamic Jihad have not only raised considerable amounts of funds in the
United States but have also set up operational headquarters in the U.S. where
terrorist attacks and military strategies have been orchestrated. In turn, both
Islamic Jihad and Hamas have succeeded, in large part, in establishing their
support infrastructure because both groups have networked together with other
militant Islamic groups.
The culmination of this pan-Islamic militant
partnership may have been seen in the World Trade Center bombing--as evidence
now shows that rather than being an attack dominated by the militant Islamic
Jama from Egypt, the bombing was the product of collaboration from five
different radical Islamic organizations, including the Gama Islamiya, Islamic
Jihad, al-Fuqra, Sudanese National Islamic Front and Hamas. The scope and
breadth of these militant Islamic groups should demonstrate unambiguous y that
while not coordinated formally on an operational level, the militant Islamic
groups network with one another in a terrorist Internet. At virtually every
place in the globe today--be it Paris, Rome, Dallas, New York or Manila,
Peshawar, Gaza, Beirut and Khartoum--militant Islamic groups can network with
one another in receiving or providing assistance, obtaining safehaven and
generating mutual support for all of their activities. No evidence exists at all
to suggest the existence any formal Politburo-like board of directors; rather
the evidence suggests that many of these groups are united firmly only one
common denominator--theirIslamic forces over the established Muslim community
that would, for reason that are quite understandable, prefer to keep the lid on
the militant Islamic paradise they have neatly set up in the United States.
The vast majority of Muslims do not support
in any way the politics of the extremists. Nevertheless, to deny the existence
of radical Islam-- as some Islamic groups have asserted recently in the United
States--or to pretend it does not exist is tantamount to defending the militants
as one and the same with peaceful seeking moderates. Rather than protect the
moderates from being tarred with the extremist brush, it only paints them
further. For the militants, of course, the deliberate blurring of the
distinction between militant and moderate Islam is designed to hide under the
protection of mainstream Islam.
In the same manner, a denial that a militant
White supremacist movement exists in the United States would be tantamount to
defending their existence. For the Muslim world, the stakes may be higher. The
battle for the heart and soul of Islam in recent years is really at the core of
the violence that continues to spiral upwards: As militant Islamic groups
attempt to impose the Sha'aria--the Islamic code of law--by force, attempt to
destroy regimes they have deemed heretical, or assassinate those who are
considered enemies of their interpretation of Islam, violence once contained in
the Middle East has proliferated throughout the world. The bombing in Buenos
Aries in 1994, the bombings in Paris in 1995, the attempted bombings in Denmark
in 1993, and the series of bombings and assassinations in Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan all point to the irreconcilable anger of militant fundamentalists whose
agenda is not subject to compromise or rational dialogue.
Yes, the hearing today was prompted by the
deadly series of llamas suicide bombings in Israel. But it is precisely that
same ideology, the same type of fanatical assassins, and the very organizers of
such horrific violence that are here in the United States.The larger question of
how Hamas and other radical terrorist movements obtain their financial, material
and political wherewithal to sustain their groups is one of the most vexing
issues facing American foreign policy. Because Hamas and its precursor Islamist
organizations have successful used the United States as a major haven of support
for at lea, the issue of how to curb Hamas has become intertwined with the
growing influence of radical Islamic groups in the United States. To the extent
that militant groups are able to dictate the agenda when dealing with this
issue--either at universities or even at the White House--moderate Muslims get
tragically shortchanged, American allies are continued to be subjected to
terrorist attacks, and ultimately American citizens themselves and this society
are rendered more vulnerable and insecure to terrorism and extremism.
The Roots of Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian offspring of the
Muslim Brotherhood, a pan- Muslim movement, the precursor to Hamas as an
organization Al-Mujama Al-Islamia (The Islamic Association), an Islamic
social-welfare body. When the intifidah erupted in December 1987, the Mujama
became Hamas-- which means in Arabic, the Islamic Resistance Movement.
When the Mujama was created in 1975 in Gaza,
it dealt with only social, welfare and religious issues--primarily dedicated
toward deep Islamic indoctrination of society. Because it did not engage in any
violence, the Israeli military government recognized as an official welfare
association and treated like other non-violent religious charitable
establishments.
But in the early 1980's, the Mujama began
acquiring weapons, in preparation of their initiation of their military phase.
Immediately thereafter, the Israeli Defense Forces cracked down on the Mujama,
resulting in the imprisonment of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the Mujama
and later the Hamas in 1981. Four years alter, Yassin was released in the
infamous and ill-advised prisoner swap between Ahmed Jabril and Israel.From the
inception of Hamas to the present, Hamas primarily depended funds from the
Persian Gulf, in particular Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates. This
money at first came directly and officially from the Persian Gulf regime to the
Mujama organization--a non-violent group. As the Mujama underwent a
transformation into Hamas, dedicated to carrying out jihad or violent holy war,
it still continued to receive Persian Gulf funds--which was only temporarily
interrupted during the Gulf War as anger developed and soon subsided among the
Gulf nations for the antiAmerican position adopted by the radical Islamic
groups. On average, the Gulf states provide about 50 or so percent of the Hamas
budget, which is estimated at 70 to 90 million dollars a year. Funds generated
in the United States, together from other western countries, provide the other
half of Hamas' funding.
While no hard core figures exist--insofar as
Hamas does not file a 1040--these figures are based on known Hamas charitable
transfers, intelligence assessments on covert transfers, and detailed
examinations at the major Hamas institutions in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
The critical roles of the free flow of funds
generated in the United States coupled with the safe protection the U.S. offered
to the radicals cannot be underestimated. As the very same time that Hamas was
reconstituting itself into a violent organization in the mid- 1980's, its
dependence on an outside support base became manifestly clear. As a militant
force that engaged Israeli military forces, Hamas became increasingly
constrained and besieged, its on the ground leaders either arrested or deported,
its freedom of maneuverability increasingly restrained by the Israeli Defense
Forces and other security services.
The U.S. became the natural selection. Why?
2. The Jihad in Afghanistan created a vast
fundraising and political mobilization network in the West to support the
mujahideen. The anti- Soviet jihad not only mobilized a new generation of
Islamic militants but created a terrorist infrastructure through which Hamas and
other radical Islamic movements could simultaneously use for their own battles.
Thus, when the confrontation with Israelbegan to escalate militarily, Humus
desperately needed an external haven to direct operations, raise funds,
coordinate political activities and disseminate propaganda. While Jordan
provided some outlet for the Hamas diaspora leadership, Hamas found that the U.S--with
its already pre-existing militant anti-Soviet infrastrucure--provided a virtual
paradise for the emerging Hamas leadership to raise funds and develop the
external networks needed to coordinate attacks back in their homeland.
As a veritable greenhouse for new recruits,
the United States provided Hamas with the opportunity to carry out dawa
(missionary work, propaganda and proselytizing work), recruit operatives, serve
as a safehaven for Hamas fugitives and leaders, enable Hamas to raise tens of
millions of dollars (tax-free) for their infrastructure on their warfront.
Mousa Abu Marzuk and the Islamic Association
for Palestine
The first manifestation of llamas' precursor
group in the United States was the creation of the Islamic Association for
Palestine for North America in 1981, which was soon followed by the replication
of this organization in various cities. And among the early founders of the
Islamic Association for Palestine was Mousa Abu Marzuk--the Hamas leader now
held under detention in New York following his apprehension last July--and
Ghassan el-Ashey and his brother Bassam al-Ashey. Marzuk and the elAshey
developed extensive business holdings and corporate entities worth tens of
millions of dollars.1
An examination of Mr. Marzuk's achievements
is instructive in understanding how Hamas has been able to develop a widespread
network on American soil without scrutiny or any restrictions.
Although the primary source of Hamas funds
no longer comes from the U.S., there continues to exist an interlocking network
of cover organizations and businesses operating in the U.S. that launder Hamas
money, provide cover for Hamas officials and finance other groups in the world
wide militant Islamic network.
Born in 1951 in the town of Rafiah in the
Gaza Strip, Marzuk got a college degree in engineering in Cairo in 1975 and soon
moved to Louisiana to get his doctorate. By the early 1980's, Marzuk had become
involved increasingly with a growing community of militant Muslims in the U.S.
whose worldwide ideological fundamentalist fervor was unleashed by the Iranian
revolution, the assassination of Anwar Sadat and the jihad against the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. Together with several colleagues, Marzuk helped
create an umbrella organization called the Islamic Association for Palestine;
Marzuk would be elected head of the group's "Majlis al-Shura" or consultative
council that oversaw all of the group's activities. By the mid-1980's-several
years before Hamas came into formal existence in December 1987, the IAP had
established offices in Indiana, Arizona, Illinois and California and published a
militant magazine called I!a Falistin (which routinely called for the death of
"infidels and Jews"). Moreover, internal Hamas documents strongly suggest that
the 1988 Hamas charter--a virulent anti-Semitic conspiratorial tract that
incorporates elements of both Nazi dogma and the notorious turn-of-the-century
Protocols of the Elders of Zion--was first written by members of the lAP in the
United States in the early to mid1980's.
As Hamas began demonstrating its special
violent trademarks--stabbings and mutilations of its victims--in Israel, Gaza
and the West Bank, it was from United States where Hamas was controlled and
funded. Marzuk, according to the confessions of several captured Hamas
terrorists, appointed the military commanders and dispatched couriers to the
territories with specific instructions to carry out terror attacks and the money
to do so. Although some cash would be directly given to Hamas death squad
leaders, other monies-co!lectively totaling tens of millions of dollars-would be
channeled through Islamic charities known as "zakats" that would serve as
indoctrination greenhouses for Hamas operatives, provide a conduit to fund
terrorism and serve as a powerful social-religious magnet to the population. In
the meantime, Marzuk was busy in further establishing the Hamas network under
the guise of seemingly innocent religious and research institutions and
investment companies. According to federal documents, in 1989 Marzuk became the
founding president of the United Association of Studies and Research (UASR) a
selfdescribed Islamic "think-tank" which in reality served as a covert branch
for planning Hamas operations and for disseminating Hamas propaganda. In an
interview with the Washington Post last year, Ahmed bin Yousef, the current head
of the Virginia-based UASR denied any affiliation with Hamas and claimed that
Mr. Marzuk was only a "businessman" who briefly served on UASR's board of
directors.2
In June 1991, the largest international
gathering of Islamist leaders ever held in the United States held in outskirts
of Washington D.C. Sponsored by the United Association for Studies and Research,
the extraordinary conference--which focused on the need to respond to the
Western "crusades" against Iraq, the need to destroy the "Jewish state" and the
threat of American-Crusader imperialism--was represented by nearly every major
radical fundamentalist organization, including Islamic Jihad, Hizba Tahrir,
Hizzbollah, Al-Jihad, Jamat Muslimeen and others. Representatives--to pick at
random--at this extraordinary conference included Marzuk, Ahmed bin Yousef,
Abdulrahman Al-Amoudi (now director of the American Muslim Council), Sami
Al-Arian (head of the Tampa-based Islamic Jihad front group known as the Islamic
Committee for Palestine), Ramadan Abdullah (now head of the Islamic Jihad and
former head of the Tampa-based Islamic Jihad front known as the World Islamic
Studies Enterprise) and senior terrorist chieftains from overseas.
At the time this conference was held-as with
other conferences as weLL--U.S. law enforcement and intelligence were totally
unaware of its existence. These conferences would provide opportunities for the
world-wide militant Islamic network to coalesce and establish new linkages.
As for planning specific operations, Marzuk--according
to the confession of Mohammed Saleh, an American Palestinian arrested by Israel
on smuggling funds to Hamas terrorists and confirmed independently by the
statements of other Hamas operatives--told Saleh and others Hamas operatives
which terrorists to meet and how much money each was to be given. On another
occasion, Marzuk gave Saleh, prior to his departure from the U.S. the location
of the body of an Israeli soldier kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in order to
negotiate for the release of imprisoned Hamas leaders. On still another
occasion, Marzuk send Saleh to the territories in 1990 to create a
military-security apparatus for Hamas and a means of coded communication for
Hamas operatives to communicate to their commanders in the United States and
London. Marzuk secretly visited the West Bank and Gaza in 1989 and 1990 to
provide firsthand instructions to his troop son the ground. Although Hamas
supporters deny that Saleh worked for Marzuk3--the Marzuk bank records tell a
different story. The records show that Marzuk deposited hundreds of thousands of
dollars into Saleh's Chicago bank accounts. The Islamic Association for
Palestine: The Real Hamas
lAP is presently headquartered in a
non-descript strip shopping mall in Richardson, Texas. IAP has set up an
elaborate publications and video operation to promote Hamas, in both Arabic and
English. While the Arabic brazenly supports Hamas, IAP's English-language
publications and videos -- clearly intended for nonMuslim Western audiences--
are relatively tame, refraining, for the most part, from advocating terrorism
and hatred against Jews and Christians.
But not entirely. One lAP publication,
called "America's Greatest Enemy: The Jew and an Unholy Alliance," has been
routinely distributed at Islamist conventions. Another IAP brochure, authored by
Yusef Islam, formerly known as the singer Cat Stevens before he converted to
Islam, contains plain old antiSemitism: "The Jews seem neither to respect God
nor his creation. Their own holy books contain the curse of God brought upon
them by their prophets on account of their disobedience to Him and mischief in
the earth. We have seen the disrespect for religion displayed by those who
consider themselves to be 'God's chosen people.' ... There will be no justice
until all the land is given back to its rightful owners ... Only Islam can bring
peace back to the Holy Land ...."From his home in Great Britain, Islam/Stevens
has also raised tens of thousands of dollars for Hamas, in cooperation with the
British fundraising arm of Hamas, known as the Relief Fund for Lebanon and
Palestine.
lAP also publishes and translates Hamas
communiques from the territories. A spokesperson for lAP explained that this was
no different than any news organizations. Moreover, an official of lAP insisted
that lAP had no connection at all to Hamas.
One Hamas communique disseminated by lAP
urged the "killing of Jews ... the bloodsuckers ... and killers of prophets.
" Another condemned the "American enemy" as
a "full participant in the conspiracy" to wipe out the Palestinians,
specifically blaming the US for participating in the Sabra and Chatilia
massacres. And following the dispatch of US forces to Saudi Arabia after Iraq's
invasion ofKuwait in 1990, IAP published another Hamas communique: "History
repeats itself. Once more the Ummah is exposed to a fierce crusade, an
imperialist attack, an oppressive Western alliance, to target its dignity, break
its power and unity ... The only justification for a crusading alliance is
another anti-Islamic war to complete the deficient Zionist actions, so thousands
of Jews are smuggled to
Palestine in pitch darkness ... Burn Israeli
and American flags ..."
In late August 1990, lAP held a special
one-and-a-half day conference in Kansas City, with more than 100 representatives
from militant Islamist groups from the Middle East and Persian Gulf. The group
issued a resolution which "regret(ted) the state of affairs between Iraq and
Kuwait for using force to resolve disputes. But its primary rage was directed at
the United States. The IAP "condemn(s) the American crusades leading arrogant
international forces."
During this conference, one of the speakers
was Khalil al-Qawqaa, a Hamas leader from the territories: "Dear brothers and
sisters, we used to cross swords with America and with imperialism in a sportive
way, by means of culture clash, by critique and writing in newspapers and
journals and in debates. But the confrontation has reached a point of no return
... All veils have fallen. All barriers have broken down. And 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? Is there an Abu Bakr, an Ummah, for this neo-Ba'al? 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 pervert nation ..." lAP issued its own resolution, by
President Yasir Salih, a.k.a. Yasir Bushnaq; at a special rally hosted by lAP in
the US, Hamas leader Khalil al-Qawqaa, from the territories, declared,
"America's fall is a decided matter."
In the same rally, a choir of children who
appeared to be no more than about nine years old, sang revolutionary Islamist
songs in praise of Hamas, and appeared to imitate Hamas dagger stabbings in a
syncopated rhythm."Ila Falastin" was a monthly lAP Arabic-language publication,
no longer published. Many of the articles routinely called for terrorism against
Jews and exhorted Muslims to attack the "world-wide Jewish enemy." Its articles
routinely referred to Jews in the same language as the Protocols of the Elders
of Zion and praised the leaders of Hamas, such as Sheikh Ahmed Yasin. One cover
showed a Hamas fighter cloaked in a Keffiyeh and wielding an ax. At the time of
its publication, I!a Falastin served as one of the two primary Hamas magazines
in the world, including the West Bank and Gaza. The other, Falastin al-Muslimah,
is still published out of London.
lAP also operated a once-a-year training
camp and retreat for six years out of Arizona. In advertisements in Ila Falastin,
the camp was promoted as a (Intilaaqah) "jump-start" in preparation for waging
"jihad." Hamas recruits in the Tucson area conducted military training, similar
to the training carried out in the northeastern United States by members of the
Jihad organization led by Sheikh Umar Abd al-Rahman.
More recently, lAP has produced and
distributed terrorist recruitment videos. One such production is called "Iz
ad-Din a!-Qassam Brigades." It opens with dramatic shots of bearded Palestinian
men armed with Kalashnikovs jumping out of trees and aiming their rifles. Hamas
fighters are featured arming and preparing weapons, machine guns, and molotov
cocktails. Interspersed with the operational video, fighters are interviewed,
and boast of their heroic killings of Jews and Palestinian "collaborators."
There are even chilling interviews of blindfolded Palestinians "confessing" to
their "crimes" moments before their execution. The end of the video says, "To
order your copy, call Aqsa Vision," and gives the Texas phone number of lAP.
(The Aqsa Vision office and address are the same as that of lAP. The labels of
other publicly available tapes state, "lAP Aqsa Vision." Although Aqsa Vision is
Hamas's audio-visual arm, it is operated under a separate corporate entity known
as the American Media Group.)
The Extraordinary 1989 Conference: The
Islamic Association for Palestine
In recent years, lAP has organized several
extraordinary conferences of militant leaders. Even though the central theme is
Hamas and the Jihad in Palestine, the conferences are like MAYA conferences in
that they serve as an umbrella for the core members of the most militant
Islamist groups. As the case of Muhammad Salah and Naser Hidmi shows, these
conferences serve as covers for recruitment, training, and fundraising of
terrorist organizations, beyond their overt function of introducing new groups
to one another, so they can network with one another from their indigenous
bases.
One extraordinary lAP conference attended by
1200 people was held in Kansas City in 1989. A videotape, made by the lAP,
captured the highlights of the conference, which featured the core of militant
Islamist leaders. Behind a long table at the head of a large auditorium was a
30-foot sign with the Arabic worlds "Palestine is Islamic from the River to the
Sea" superimposed over a blood-red map of Israel.
One of the first speakers was Yusef al-Qaradhawi,
an Egyptian-born Islamist scholar who is touted by Islamists in the West such as
CAIR -- the Council on American Islamic Relations -- as a "moderate" who "has
written and lectured for many years against extremism in religion."
Qaradhawi's stem-winding speech was anything
but moderate, and is instructive, because it shows the duplicity of Islamist
spokespeople, who seek to legitimize militant Islam in the West by
misrepresenting their leaders as moderate: "Palestine cannot be liberated except
by Islam! And the Mujahideen will not be victorious except by Islam ... Islam
has been the way to victory in our history. And it is the way to victory in the
present. Especially in the case of Palestine 'especially! Because the enemy that
is fighting us is fighting us with religion! ..."
Al-Qaradhawi continued: "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 Qur'an. ... If they say their temple, we have the
Masjid al-Aqsa. Because our religion is stronger than theirs ... On the Hour of
Judgment, the Muslims will fight the Jewsand 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 and they will only be liberated
by Islam!"
Another speaker was Sheikh Rashid al-Ghannoushi,
leader of the militant Islamist party in Tunis, an-Nahdhah. Shortly thereafter,
the Tunisian government found him guilty of masterminding numerous lethal
terrorist operations, including the killing of Western tourists and plots to
assassinate high-ranking government officials. Britain later granted him
political sanctuary. Islamist groups in Washington, including the American
Muslim Council and CAIR, have been lobbying for the past year to grant him
another visa to visit the United States, portraying him as a leading moderate
"who has not been linked to any violent acts."
In his Kansas City speech to IAP, Ghannoushi
said, "0 brother and sister Mujahideen, I salute you and transmit to you
greetings from your brothers in Tunis, including those who are behind bars,
imprisoned in the past few days following a tempestuous march of solidarity with
the triumphant march of the people of the Intifadhah, in its second
commemoration, and peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah, and his blessing.
"The Islamic Ummah: Once again it embarks
upon the salvation of humanity, confronting the Zionist project in Palestine,
seeking to save the civilization of mankind, the salvation of the Islamic Ummah.
Humanity has surrendered to the Zionist project today, and there is no hope for
the civilization of man, there is no hope for goodness and mercy and justice
except that the vanguards of the Islamic Ummah lift away the damage (?) forever.
"What you are embarking on is not just a
regional project. It is not merely the liberation of one !and of the many
well-known lands. Rather, you are embarking on the salvation of man, by the
salvation of Islam -- the salvation of the civilization of humanity -- because
the Zionist project is a danger to all goodness in the entire world."Leaders
from the Middle East were not the only ones to speak. A mainstream Muslim
organization known as the Islamic Circle of North America sent a representative,
Sayid Thaqib, to express their solidarity with Humus. Based in Queens, ICNA is
one of the largest Muslim organizations in the United States; its constituency
is primarily Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi immigrants.
"We say to the enemies of Islam wherever
they may be that their days are limited, and they will have no refuge after we
show them true Islam, and there is no peace without Islam. And this message we
send to all Muslims, and especially the Mujahideen in Palestine, and if we are
not with you in our bodies, then we are with you in our hearts, through our
material and activist support, praised be to Allah. And we assert to you that
the Dawn of Islam is coming in Palestine, and we will see it In Sha Ullah in
Palestine, and all the Islamic countries, and Allah bless them with true Islam
In Sha Ullah."
Perhaps the most incendiary speech at the
convention was delivered by Ahmed a!-Qattan, a militant 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 o Jews; Muhammad's Army will return! ...
"
After al-Qatan surrendered the podium, a
veiled Humus commander stood up to take his place, a Humus flag in one hand and
a Qur'an in the other. The crowd roared, "AllahuAkbar walillahi'l-Hamd!" ("Allah
is the greatest and to Allah the praise!") -- the slogan of the international
Muslim Brotherhood movement. "Allahu Akbar!" This was the moment everyone seemed
to have been waiting for.
His face still cloaked in a red-and-white
checkered keffiyeh, the Humus commander then spoke: "Greetings ... from the
occupied land ... I extend thanks to all those who stood on our side at times
when our allies were few. By this I mean the Islamic Association for Palestine,
the Occupied Land Fund (renamed as the HolyLand Fund for Relief and
Development)." For the next 20 minutes, the commander gave a report describing
in methodical detail Hamas terrorist attacks against Jews, reveling in the
bloody nature of each assault. "... Naturally, the war moved into Israel's '48
boundaries. One day in Tel-Aviv, one of the brothers entered a building and
began stabbing all the people ... The last operation I am going to tell you
about is the operation of the bus --"
Shouts of "Allahu Akbar" erupted from the
crowd, which seemed to know what he was going to discuss. The Hamas commander
continued: "Abd al- Hadi Salim Ighneim was on the bus to Jerusalem, Bus 405 and
he steered it off the road ... And the bus plunged into the water -- 16 Jewish
soldiers were killed!" (In fact, 17 civilians, including one American, were
killed when a fundamentalist steered bus 405 into a ravine.) ... I call upon my
brothers to take up arms with us ... to take up arms and arms alone!" The crowd
responded with thunderous ovation and chanting of Allahu Akbar.
Hamas Publications
Since 1989, IAP's influence has blossomed in
the American Muslim community. Its flagship publication is al-Zaitonah. Their
flagship U.S. publication, az-Zaitonah is one of the largest indigenous Arabic-
language publications in the United States. Although dedicated to promoting
Hamas, the newspaper also supports other Islamist militant liberation movements,
including those in Kashmir, the Phillipines, Egypt, and Algeria. Az-Zaitonah
frequently celebrates successful Hamas attacks. In its October 27, 1994 issue,
az-Zaitonah's headline was: "In its greatest operation, Hamas takes credit for
the bombing of an Israeli bus in the center of Tel Aviv." Articles routinely
warn of international "Mossad plots" and other Jewish and American-lead world-
wide anti-Muslim conspiracies.
But Az-Zaitonah does not limit its venom to
Jews. An article in az- Zaitonah in 1993 discussed the role of gays and lesbians
in the Clinton Administration under the title, "Perverts in the American Centers
of Decisionmaking:" "The active movement of those perverts has led many of those
who previously used to hide their perversity to declare openly that they are
perverts. Amongst them, Congressmember Barney Frank, a Democrat from
Massachusetts ... In a related development, the appointment of Julia Pell was
confirmed. She is the daughter of Senator Claiborne Pell ... Julia is known to
be from amongst the perverts."
IAP also publishes an English-language
newspaper called the Muslim World Monitor. Following the convictions of four men
in the World Trade Center bombing, the Muslim World Monitor published an
editorial claiming that the guilty verdicts represented "The degree to which
anti-Muslim venom had penetrated society" and that the US government suppressed
evidence showing that the Mossad, Egyptian intelligence and FBI were all
involved in the bombing. Frequently the Muslim World Monitor publishes articles
alleging diabolical conspiracies perpetrated by Jews and other "enemies of
Islam." Articles routinely glorify Islamic terrorist attacks, praise the
policies of radical Islamic regimes such as Sudan, vilify Jews jointly with the
likes of Louis Farakhan, and brazenly exhort their readers to support militant
Islamic movements wherever they may be found. One article---to pick at random
from the hundreds of published articles in the last few years in the Muslim
World Monitor-- asserted that Jews ritually slaughter non-Jews during the
holiday of Purim, thus "explaining" the actions of the Jewish terrorist Baruch
Goldstein in his massacre in Hebron.
IAP's Roots, UASR, and the Pivotal Role in
Terrorist Operations
IAP's roots in the United States go back to
1981, when it was formally created in Plainfield, Indiana in the same site as
MAYA, by radical Islamisis in the United States. Its early development mirrors
the radicalization of the Palestinian Islamic movement in the occupied
territories. Evidence indicates that Hamas owes its ideological inception in
large part to the work of radical Palestinians who were already living in the
United States.
Parts of the Hamas charter and many early
Hamas communiques, according to documentary evidence, were penned by
Palestinians living in the United States, including Ahmed bin Yusef, whose real
name is Ahmed Mahmoud MuhammadSalah, a Gazan immigrant to the United States. His
brother, Khalid Mahmoud Salah who would later become one of the most wanted
Islamic Jihad terrorists, broke out of a Gaza prison cell in 1987 and killed a
senior Israeli officer. After fleeing to Egypt, he became an operative for the
Ahmed Mahana faction of Islamic Jihad.
While maintaining a base of operations in
the United States, Ahmed Bin Yusef became the chief of the Hamas publications
wing. He now resides in the Washington area, where he heads an American Islamist
"think tank" called UASR. Despite the organization's repeated denial that it is
a Hamas organ, overwhelming evidence indicates that UASR has served as a meeting
place for high-ranking Hamas operatives and a contact point for the transfer of
communiques between those operatives and their comrades in the occupied
territories.
In May 1992, according to intelligence
information, a meeting of seven Hamas leaders took place at UASR. Among the
participants were Mahmoud Rumhi, a key Hamas operative, Muhammad Salah a.k.a.
Abu Ahmad, the international commander of Qassam brigades now serving a prison
term in Israel, and Musa Abu Marzuq, the chief of Hamas's international
political bureau now based in Damascus, who also served on UASR's board of
directors. Participants discussed Hamas activities in the territories and the
allocation of moneys. They debated whether to participate in elections in the
impending self-governing authority in the territories. And they tried to work
out strategies toward the resolution of disputes between Hamas and other
factions.
High-ranking Hamas operatives in the West
Bank and Gaza have been in telephone contact with UASR. Among them is Adil
Jineedi, the Hamas operative in charge of the Hebron region, who transferred
numerous faxes to UASR. Telephone records obtained by federal prosecutors in the
World Trade Center show that Mohamed Saleh--the Yonkers gas station owner who
had provided fuel to build the second set of bombs designed to blow up New York
City tunnels and landmarks-was in contact with UASR officials in the period
before the bombing.The organization's publications -- some of which are in
English but most of which are in Arabic -- are advertised as academic-standard
analyses of situations in the Middle East. In fact they are brazen propaganda
for Hamas and the world Islamist movement by bin Yusef and others, that serve in
effect as a glossy paperback extension of the work bin Yusef had been doing as
official scripter of Hamas communiques. In the UASR monograph, "Hamas: Between
Pains of the Present and Hopes for the Future," for example, the author comes to
the following conclusion: "Islam will be the rock on which Israel's small and
bigger dream will shatter. The Muhammedan prophecy that the tree and the stone
will speak shall come true, and that the Muslim will fight the Jew and be
victorious over him, this is near at hand. And the blessed Jihad Intifadhah is
the first indications and glad tidings for this." Other UASR Arabic publications
not only call for the destruction of Israel but also call for the annihilation
of all Jews.
The largest international gathering of
radical lslamist leaders ever held in the United States was cosponsored by UASR
and another Virginia group called the International Institute of Islamic Thought
in the wake of the Gulf War. Held in the Washington area from June 19 to 21,
1991, the conference included representatives from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran,
Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,
Syria, Tunis, Yemen, and elsewhere. Leaders representing nearly every radical
fundamentalist group in the world attended-making the gathering the all-time
All-Star terrorist conference in U.S. history. Scores of papers and resolutions
were presented that condemned tile United States and Jews as part of a
diabolical world plot to destroy Islant; those present also decided to support
one another in their respective 'Islamic confrontations with their non-lslamic
hosts. In attendance at this spectacular meeting was Hamas chieftain Musa Abu
Marzuk, Islamic Jihad leaders Ramadan Abdullah and Sami AI-Arian (the latter is
still ensconced as a professor at the University of South Florida while the
former now runs Islamic Jihad from Damascus), Al-Amoudi, now head of the
American Muslim Council and a chief spokesperson for imprisoned Hamas chief
Marzuk.Among the Jordanians was the radical parliamentarian Ishaq al- Farhan,
who only a few months before gave a pep talk to Naser Hidmi and the 25 other
Hamas rising stars, and a few years earlier collaborated with Yusuf al-Azm on
gunrunning for Hamas leader Ahmed Yasin in its pre-Intifadhah armament phase.
Leith Shbeilat, another Jordanian parliamentarian present at the conference, was
later caught with Ya'aqub Qarash maintaining a cache of weapons paid for by
Iran, and implicated in a plot to assassinate King Hussein.
The Story of a Young Hamas Recruit
Nasser Isa Jalal Hidmi was a history student
at Bir Zeit University. Recruited to join Hamas in the late '80s, Hidmi enjoyed
a training tour of duty that took him from his preparatory college in Abu Dis
outside Jerusalem to Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.
He was born into a middle class family.
While studying in Abu Dis, he joined an Islamic student club called al-Kutla al-Islamiya
(the Islamic guild), and befriended a student leader named Marwan Hawajah.
Besides his student responsibilities, Hawajah was also involved in other
activities. He had risen through the ranks of Hamas, to its military wing.
He transferred sensitive high-level
communiques from one military leader to another, and also disbursed moneys for
the acquisition of weapons to be used against Jews and Palestinian
"collaborators" - those deemed political and personal enemies of Hamas.
Al-Kutla is known as one of many religious
organizations in the West Bank and Gaza that serves as a greenhouse for the
development and indoctrination of Hamas operatives. Though many people
mistakenly believe that Hamas is only military, Hamas is a vast social movement.
In fact, its far larger appeal is derived from the fact that it is an
all-encompassing social religious movement that tends to the needs of its
adherents from cradle to grave. The organization operates everything from youth
leagues to hospitals, educational systems, Zakat (religious charity); programs
that not only cater to the specific physical needs of thepopulation, but at the
same time serve to indoctrinate, recruit, and perpetuate the radical Hamas
ideology. These above-board groups serve as a means of collecting funds and
recruiting operatives for the clandestine terrorist wing of Hamas known as the
Iz ad-Din a!-Qassam Brigades.
In August 1989, a friend introduced Hidmi to
Muhammad Kazm Suwalha, whose nom de guerre is Abu 'Ubaada. Abu 'Ubaada was the
Imam of a mosque in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, and simultaneously whose
Hamas responsibilities included connecting one Hamas operative to another, as
part of Hamas's decentralized system to avoid detection. On the local level,
Hamas organizes itself in triangles, thus limiting its vulnerability in the case
of penetration by the "enemy". After chatting awhile and striking up a
friendship, Abu Ubaada asked Hidmi if he would like to join Hamas.
"I agreed," Hidmi told Israeli authorities,
"and subsequently we had several more meetings together. Abu 'Ubaada would give
me religious instruction, so that I would have a basis to conduct Hamas
activities." As the trust between the operatives increased, instructions became
more specific and operational. At one point Hidmi was asked to deliver a package
to the lbrahimi mosque in Hebron, but was not told or allowed to ask what was in
it. On another occasion, he delivered packages to a Hamas operative working at
the Hadassah hospital in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. Another time, Hidmi drove two
Palestinian Americans to the Tulkarem area in the West Bank, where they
transferred to a cab to go to a nearby village for a clandestine meeting with
Hamas military commanders.
Hidmi was both a promising student and a
rising star in the Hamas infrastructure. Hamas would now send him to America,
and pay for his study and travel.
On the eve of his flight to the United
States in November '89, Abu 'Ubaada dropped by his place to say good-bye. "When
you reach the United States," Abu 'Ubaada told him, "give this letter to Abu
Ahmad." He handed Hidmi a sealed, addressed envelope, and they parted.Who was
Abu Ahmad? A distant relative? A friend of a friend? Sort of His real name was
Muhammad Salah -- officially in the United States, he was nothing more than a
Chicago-area used car salesman. In fact, this was used as a cover to disguise
his upper echelon in the Hamas network: international commander of the Iz ad-Din
al-Qassam brigades. In this capacity he controlled the deployment of cells,
allocation of weapons to the territories, policies on whom to target, arms
deals, and transfer of moneys to on-the-field military commanders.
After arriving in the United States in
November, 1989, he soon met up with his brother Hisham, already living in
Manhattan, Kansas. In radical Islamist circles, Kansas was already on the map.
Throughout the 1980s, large funds were raised there for the anti-Soviet Afghan
Mujahideen(holy warriors), and also for numerous Islamist militant movements all
over the Middle East, including Hamas. In 1989, al- Bunyan al-Marsus, a radical
anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti- Christian, pro-Afghan Jihad publication was
distributed in the United States from Kansas. Numerous Hamas militant leaders
visited Kansas frequently to raise money and recruit volunteers for the Jihad.
For example, in 1988 and 1989, the Palestinian Islamic leader and founder of the
Arab anti-Soviet Jihad movement and his top lieutenant, Tamim al-Adnani, both
made several stops in Kansas to raise money, recruit holy warriors, and even
produce bilingual recruitment videos for distribution throughout the United
States.
Having moved into his brother's apartment in
Manhattan, Hidmi enrolled at the local university branch. He promptly mailed the
letter to Abu Ahmad according to the instructions of his handlers in the
territories.
A few months later, Hidmi got a call from
Mohammad Salah, the Chicago used-car salesman. Salah instructed him to come to
Chicago for a short trip in June.
When Hidmi arrived at the airport in Chicago
in June, 1990, he was one of twenty-five other youths like him, all originally
from the occupied territories, and all being recruited into the Hamas military
wing.
"In three cars we drove to the camp," Hidmi
later confessed, "which was near a forest by a lake. And the camp went on three
days, from Friday to Sunday."He remembers that there were about five "camp
counselors," including Salah and a Kuwaiti named Tariq Ahmad. The twenty-five
campers were asked to fill out personal data forms. Subsequently, everyone got a
personal identification code. While training, they were not to go by their real
names; strictly by the code. "My code was H3," Hidmi said. The counselors gave
lectures and led discussion panels all weekend. At first, the topics were
general Islamic religious issues. By the end of the weekend, the subject matter
was Hamas and its role in the escalation of the Intifadhah.
On the second day of the camp, Hidmi
recalls, "by chance I entered one of the barracks, and there was Abu Ahmad, and
three youths." There was also a Libyan American man in his thirties, who had
served in the Marines and was married to an American woman. "He saw me, and
invited me to sit down with my friends. The Libyan drew diagrams on a
blackboard, showing how to plant a car bomb."
Campers left Chicago that weekend with the
understanding that they had merely attended an introductory session. Serious
military training would begin in subsequent sessions.
Hidmi went back to school in Kansas. But he
stayed in close touch with Salah, who sent him Hamas literature and
publications, much of it published in the United States.
In December 1990, Hidmi, as instructed by
Salah, traveled to Kansas City, Missouri to attend the annual convention of MAYA
(Muslim Arab Youth Association).
Held in the Kansas City Convention Center,
which normally hosts trade exhibitions and other public events, this convention
had an altogether different character. Booked with convention authorities as an
innocent religious meeting, it was, in fact, unbeknownst to US law enforcement
or to the general public, actually a get-together of the most radical militant
Islamist leaders in the world. And like all its annual conventions, it was
attended by proponents and would-be recruits ofextremist Islamic militants and
the speakers in the main auditorium included some of the Muslim world's most
radical militant leaders.
A triumvirate of high-ranking Hamas leaders
also gave presentations. Musa Abu Marzuq, the international political chief of
Hamas who was living in the United States at the time he gave his lecture, was
one of the most popular speakers. In his speech he said, "Every Muslim should be
very clear in his mind that in the heart of the Muslim world, the Jewish state
was born with the purpose of being a spearhead in the heart of the Muslim world.
And this spearhead needs to be confronted with a counter-spearhead to destroy
it, and it should be the embodiment of the Islamic project, that shall find
expression in the )recreation of) the caliphate, and ultimately will lead to the
liberation of Palestine." Marzuq's speech focused on reinforcing the central
tenet of the Hamas principle: that Palestine is the central issue confronting
the Islamic movement. "The nature of the confrontation is also determined by a
resuscitation of that spirit in the Muslim youth. And the future will belong to
this Islamic project ... The factors of the struggle are presently )weighted) in
favor of the West ... There is no force presently able to withstand this
powerful Western project except the Islamic project, built on divine law." Jamii
Hamami, the articulate young Hamas on-the-field spokesman described to the
audience how Hamas has successfully killed collaborators, and those that would
penetrate their movement. He also pressed the Muslim "hot button" by describing
the "atrocities" that Israel has committed to the al-Aqsa mosque, the holy
shrine in Jerusalem. He told of an incident: Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Goren,
immediately following the six-day war, told Israeli General Moshe Dayan, 'Now
that we have liberated Jerusalem, why don't we build the temple?' Dayan said,
'The time has not yet come. But one day we will no longer lack the means of
destroying al-Aqsa."' Hamami continued recounting Jewish "crimes:" "They (the
Jews) tried to hit it (al-Aqsa mosque) and destroy it from the air ... the
border guard forces drank wine in the al-Aqsa mosque. They committed adultery in
the al-Aqsa mosque. Muslim girls were chased in the al-Aqa mosque. Muslims were
killed in the al-Aqsa mosque." Today, Hamami is a senior
Palestinianrepresentative of the Dallas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief
and Development--a "charitable" organization that funds Hamas charities.
Muhammad Abu Faris, of the Jordanian Muslim
brotherhood, recounted the great victories of the original founders of the
Muslim Brotherhood movement -- the leader of the Palestinian Jihad in the '20s,
Iz ad-Din al-Qassam, and the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood party in Egypt,
Hassan al-Banna. "The causes of nations do not live except by blood, and the
more blood the more the nation rises. The Intifadhah brought life into the soul
of others, and it made the Muslim youth cross into the borders of Palestine,
from Jordan and from Egypt ... And they will cross the borders (again) and bring
an end to Camp David. And it (the Intifadhah) will kill those who signed the
Camp David Agreement. And it will kill the Jews in Palestine.
"
Another speaker, Rajib Najib, gave a history
lesson: "Benjamin Franklin, one of the founders of the United States of America,
said at the Constitutional Convention when the Constitution was being drafted,
said, 'O Americans, don't let the Jews enter America. You have to get rid of the
Jews. And if the Jews remain in America a hundred years, they will be dominating
the economy. They spoil public life, they spoil your morals. And if you stay two
hundred years, you will find yourselves working the fields of the Jews ... They
will be sitting in their palaces happily ... If only the American people would
read these words of this American leader from two hundred years ago ... ? ...
The corrupted nature of the Jews has been explained by almighty Allah in his
revelation ... in the Qur'an ... (and the Jews began) to kill the prophets
unjustly. There is injustice in their hearts ...
This bad character is clear, since the day
they left Egypt together with Moses, into the land of Palestine. And from that
time on to this day, their character has never changed. And in Israel, we see
the present day Jewish strategy is built upon a corrupt religious foundation."'
Kamil Hilbawi, the radical Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood leader based in Pakistan who has financial and operational ties with
Hamas and Afghan militants, rose from the floor in an open panel discussion, and
he called on Jordan's KingHussein to "open the borders of Jordan to the Muslim (Mujahideen)
youth, so that they may confront the Jews and the Americans at once."
Other speakers at the conference included
Ibrahim Ghushah, chief spokesman for Hamas in Jordan; Sheikh Mustapha Mash'hur,
the deputy supreme guide for the International Muslim Brotherhood movement. But
the most rabble rousing speech was given by Ahmad a!-Qattan, who had stirred
Islamists to war through his incendiary sermons at al-Aqsa mosque but now lives
much of the time in Kuwait: "You students, you foreigners, you should be at home
... Who sent you to the !and of the infidels? Who dispersed you, here and there,
without a fatherland?"
Qattan raised his voice dramatically. "On
this panel, we proclaim In the Name of Allah the Beneficent the Merciful. And
what do we see there hanging from the ceiling?" He pointed to a portrait on the
wall of the convention center. "The President of the White House has been put up
there. Yet there is no honor except the honor of Islam!" He also offered his
idea for a resolution of the then-brewing Gulf conflict. "0 Saddam," he said,
"If you are ready to withdraw your forces from Kuwait, then we are all ready to
join your forces in the struggle against the Jews -- side by side with every
Muslim who raises the flag of La Illaha Ilullah!" Another prominent Palestinian
leader was Ibrahim Mahmoud Muzayyin, director of the Holy Land Foundation for
Relief and Development, the main fund raising arm for Hamas in the United
States.
While the speakers were giving their
lectures, there were other smaller meetings also going on simultaneously and at
night. Muhammad Salah was the organizer of the sub-clandestine meetings. Salah
collected Hidmi and other Palestinian youths with whom Hidmi had spent a weekend
in Chicago the previous June, and brought them to a quiet room in the nearby
Ramada Inn.
Mahmoud Muzayyin greeted the young trainees.
Also present was Ishaq alFarhaan, a member of Jordan's radical Islamist
parliamentary opposition. A younger man of Lebanese origin introduced himself as
Najib al-Ghosh. TheAmerican Muslim community today knows al-Ghosh as the
editor-in-chief of MAYA's flagship magazine, al-Amal, published out of
Plainfield, Indiana, and as an author of publications distributed by the Hamas
US-based propaganda wing, UASR. But Hidmi and his friends met him for the first
time here.
Muzayyin spoke first: "You have been
assembled here because you are all residents of the occupied territories, and
you have been chosen to carry out operations to escalate the Intifadhah on
behalf of the Hamas movement."
Another Palestinian who looked about 30
years old divided the trainees into groups. He explained that everyone would go
through training in improvised explosives, hand grenades, and the engineering of
car bombs. But the youths would also be divided into areas of specialized
training in the realms of military, security (interrogation and execution of
collaborators), "culture and education" (propaganda and indoctrination(, and
political. Hidmi was tapped for the last.
The Jordanian parliamentarian Ishaq al-Farhan
gave attendants a pep talk. He discussed the activities of al-Kutla al-Islamiya
in Jordan. Al-Kutla al-Islamiya is the same youth movement that serves as a
greenhouse for Hamas indoctrination in Palestine, which Hidmi initially joined.
Salah summed up the meeting and gave
everyone passcodes.
The following March they met again at the
Kansas City Ramada Inn. This time, different lectures were given to the future
Hamas commandos. Salah introduced Najib al-Ghosh again, who lectured on methods
of interrogation of Israeli intelligence, then about different types of hand
grenades and bombs. "The purpose of all this," Salah interjected, "is so that
everyone will go home and plant explosives in the area where he lives."
Throughout his stay in the United States, Hidmi had a pen pal in Gaza who was
also a Hamas operative. Their correspondence continued, even after the friend
was thrown in prison by the Israelis. Prison monitors learned of Hidmi through
these letters. Upon his return to Israel in March 1993, he was arrested and
ultimately convicted. His five year prison sentence was commuted as part of a
massive prisoner release.The training sessions Hidmi attended were part of only
one of many American-based Hamas military activities Salah was engaged in.
According to Israeli military papers, he made several surreptitious trips in
1991 and 1992 to the territories unbeknownst to Israeli authorities, during
which he transferred moneys from abroad directly to Hamas military operatives
and gave operational instructions. En route to Israel, he stopped in LondOn, as
instructed by Bridgeview Imam Jamal Sa'id, to meet with Abu Ubaada. (As a lark,
Abu Ubaada had recruited Hidmi.) He now enjoys the freedom of operation in
London, where he is a high-ranking international Hamas leader still dispensing
couriers to smuggle cash into Israel as well as directing operations.
Hamas in Charge
American law enforcement confirms
Palestinian Hamas testimony that a principal leader of Hamas in the United
States -- who has activated, for example, operatives like Salah and Jarad -- is
the Imam of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, Sheikh Jamal Sa'id.
He regularly represents the Palestinian community in Chicago at conferences,
conventions, and rallies.
One rally at which Sheikh Sa'id spoke was
the Jerusalem Festival 1994, held at the Bogan High School on West 79th Street,
Chicago on October 30, 1994. The event was sponsored by the Islamic Association
for Palestine (lAP). Billed as a celebration of the "eighth year of Intifadhah,"
the Jerusalem Festival drew a largely local Palestinian American crowd of at
least 700 people. Besides a bazaar, where merchants sold radical pro-Hamas
publications, food, and religious ornaments, the main auditorium featured songs
of revolution and speeches by Hamas leadership both in the United States and
abroad.
Brother Sa'eed Abdur-Raheem opened
festivities with a traditional "tajweed," a chanting from the Qur'an. The verse
fittingly chosen was, "O you who believe, what is the matter with you that when
you are asked to go forth and fight in the cause of Allah, you cling so heavily
to the earth. Do you prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? How little
is the comfort of this world compared to thehereafter ... And you shall wage
Jihad for the sake of Allah with your wealth and your lives."
The Master of Ceremonies was a slim bearded
man who appeared to be in his early 30s named Sabri Ibrahim, a board member of
the IAP Chicago branch, which operates under the name American Muslim Society.
"In Chicago," Ibrahim blared, "which we will permit ourselves to call the Muslim
capital of America ... and in the shadows of the memory of the martyrs who gave
their blood for Palestine ... and in the passage of six years' imprisonment of
the Sheikh of the Intifadhah, Ahmed Yasin (the founder of Hamas imprisoned for
directing the kidnapping and killing of Israeli solidiers) in almost the second
year following the arrest of a member of our own community, Muhammad Salah ...
we the Islamic Association for Palestine send them a deeply felt greeting, and
to ... the Mujahideen ... all of you have gathered here today." Ibrahim
proceeded to attack the "American Zionist community and media" for its
vilification of Islam. "Surely you will not turn back even now, as we are
subject to scurrilous defamatory attacks in the media and elsewhere ... upon
Islamic foundation and organizations ... brothers and sisters,
in these critical times, at this historic
period through which our Ummah is passing, they do not permit us to help one
another ... until lwe) completely surrender to the project of the American
Zionist organizations."
Following a song by the band, a section of
the audience broke into a popular Hamas chant that glorified the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
military squads--the very same death squads that carried out the series of four
suicide bombings in Israel during the past four weeks.
The next speaker was Rafiq Jaber, head of
the Chicago lAP branch. He railed at the Israeli-PLO accords. "This kind of
conspiracy ... will never succeed until they fight all the Muslims. So with
their help from supporters in Washington and other Arab countries and
governments, they are trying so hard ... to make us submit. They want us to
surrender. We'll have to let them know that it's clear with no mistake about it,
that we will not submit or surrender or kneel except to Allah Subhannahu
Wata'ala.
"Later in the rally, Ibrahim Muzayyin,
Director of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (Hamas's open
charitable arm), took the podium to solicit funds for his organization. He had
flown to Chicago that morning from Newark, where lAP and his group have
developed a large infrastructure among the immigrant Palestinian community.
After pitching the charitable activities of the Holy Land Foundation, he
denounced both CBS News and myself for a broadcast in which his group and the
lAP were identified as supporters of Hamas in the United States. (I was
interviewed in the five minute CBS "Eye on America" story.) Muzayyin said: "Are
we going to let Steve Emerson and the Zionists put an end to
the activities of the Holy Land Foundation?
Yes or no?" The crowd shouted, "No!"
"I can't hear you!" Muzayyin said. "No," the
crowd roared.
Assistants went up and down the aisles
collecting cash, checks, and even jewelry. One of them brought a few gold
bracelets toward the stage, and tossed them up to Jamal Sa'id, who gracefully
caught them, and put them together with the checks. Tens of thousands of dollars
were raised that night.
Sabri Ibrahim, who spoke earlier that
evening, has also led several summer retreats for local Muslim children. In one
such retreat -- filmed on videotape -- the children, several wearing T-shirts
with American basketball team insignias, sat around a campfire singing Arabic
chants praising Hamas leader Ahmed Yasin, Jihad and Armed struggled against the
Jews. The words of one chant: "With daggers in our hands we burst forth to
strike ... (against) our enemies." Another stanza simply listed the names of
Hamas heroes Ahmed Yasin, Abdullah Azzam, and Iz ad-Din al-Qassam. At another
point in the film, a child walked up to the camera, and blurted in Arabic,
"Butcher the Jews."
CONCLUSION
Although Hamas and other extremist movements
have anointed themselves the custodian of Islam, the reality is that they no
more represent mainstream Islam-which does not support violence--than radical
Jewish settlers represent Judaism. Nevertheless, according to Ahmed Said Nasr, a
former Egyptian diplomat and now journalist living in Washington, D.C., "Hamas
and other radical movements justify their terrorism and belief in violence by
wrapping themselves in Islam falsely claiming that their activities are mandated
by their subservience to Islam. In fact, their support of violence proves
exactly what they are trying to deny--that a militant wing of Islamic
fundamentalists exists does exist."
One of the arguments made by Hamas'
defenders is that the great bulk of Hamas activities--as much as 95%--are
concerned with social welfare and religious work while only 5% is terrorist. The
notion that Hamas can be neatly compartmentalized into water-tight divisions
separating its social-charitable-political wings from its terrorist wings is a
blatant fallacy, designed to play upon western naivete. Hamas is a
well-integrated organization--its violent ideology permeates all of its
activities. Pervasive throughout the Hamas system of hospitals, schools and
charities is the ideology of fanaticism and hatred. On the walls of one Hamas
youth league I visited last year were the pictures of young martyrs--i.e.,
suicide bombers--who posters were adorned with Islamic calls to kill all Jews.
Similarly, the hospitals and other social welfare institutions are designed to
indoctrinate and recruit.
As for the supposed separation between Hamas
"charities" and Hamas terrorism, Ghassin Siyyam, a Palestinian Hamas terrorist
arrested last year has revealed how Gaza Hamas charities have been used to
finance terrorism and to recruit new military recruits. Mousa Marzuk's claim
that he had not connection to terrorism is as believable as the head of an
organized crime family saying that he only engages incharitable support for the
local community. Unfortunately all too often gullible American reporters fall
into the trap of separating Hamas ideology from its social activities. One
egregious example of this type of journalism was a story on National Public
Radio in which the reporter and Georgetown University Professor John Esposito
praised the social- communal activities of Hamas as if they operated like the U
United Way but never once mentioned a word of its extremist ideology or its
terrorism or the fact that in the "wonderful" Hamas schools, children are taught
to count by citing dead Jews.
The bottom line is that the different
components of Hamas--from its schools to its death squads--are tied together by
a fanatic ideology that sees Jews, the West and even secular Muslims as engaged
in a diabolical conspiracy to oppress Islam. One of the more dangerous
developments in the evolution of Hamas in the United States is how some of the
radical groups have begun to masquerade under false cover- pretending to be
"civil rights" or "human rights" groups in order to legitimize militant Islam.
The organization that has most brazen in
attempting to falsely define itself is a group called the Council on American
Islamic Relations (known as CAIR.) Although it says it is concerned with
"promoting human rights for American Muslims," CAIR's real agenda is to silence
critics of militant Islam. Why? Because, according to federal law enforcement
sources and internal documents, CAIR is a radical Islamic fundamentalist front
group for Hamas. The executive director of CAIR, Nihad Awad, served for several
years as a senior official of the Hamas support group in Texas called the
Islamic Association for Palestine. CAIR, the stepchild of the Islamic
Association for Palestine, was created in 1993 from radical Islamic
fundamentalist "donations." In Washington, CAIR, besides rationalizing Hamas
terrorist attacks and criticizing negotiations with the "Zionist" entity, has
hosted, sponsored or arranged visits and press conferences ofleading Islamic
fundamentalist militant officials from the Sudan, Malaysia and Jordan, who have
articulated rabidly anti-Semitic and anti-Christian views. One visiting Islamic
fundamentalist leader from Jordan, whom CAIR hosted in Washington is on record
in a speech to fellow fundamentalists here in the U.S. as encouraging Islamic
militants to kill any Jew they see.
------------------------------------
ENDNOTES:
1 When Abu-Marzuk was detained at Kennedy
airport, he was found with wire credit worth up to 10 million dollars. Although
he claims he is only an innocent businessman who advises clients on investments,
law enforcement and intelligence officials-as well an independent analysis of
his financial enterprise-show that his financial empire has been used to launder
for Hamas and to park millions of cash that ordinarily would come under
scrutiny.
2 That claim was apparently good enough for
the Post, which not only accepted Yousef's assertion face value, but also
endorsed Yousef's claim that his institution and Marzuk as well were the unfair
targets of a "public relations" campaign by Israel. Despite the availability of
voluminous material showing Marzuk and UASR to be key members of the Hamas
underground, the Post's uncritical acceptance of the Hamas party line helps
understand why Hamas has been able to operate so long in the U.S. without any
scrutiny.
3 See the Washington Post for the official
Hamas version. END
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