Lawsuit Proceeds: Prominent Anti-Israel Org Accused of Being Cog in Hamas’ U.S. Machine

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is one of the most prominent groups in the United States advocating for the Palestinian jihad and spreading propaganda against Israel. While this makes it the darling of some Leftist circles, it has a predictably sinister pedigree. The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) on Thursday reported that a federal judge has “allowed a lawsuit to proceed that claims the anti-Israel group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is really a continuation of a defunct cog in a Hamas-support network.” This is a just decision, although it will certainly draw the predictable charges of “Islamophobia.”

The reality is different, and based on the grief of genuine victims, not the crocodile tears of aggressors pretending to be victims in order to manipulate an unwary public and deflect attention from their misdeeds. “In 2004,” IPT explains, “Joyce and Stanley Boim were awarded $156 million in damages from the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and the American Muslim Society (AMS) for providing material support to Hamas. The Boims’ 17-year-old-son David was killed in a 1996 Hamas terrorist attack.” But they never collected a penny: “the defendants shut themselves down before paying, citing ‘the burden of the Boim Judgment and associated litigation costs.’” The Boims have contented that all this was “part of a shell game, with AMP and its financial arm, Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation (AJP), emerging and picking up where IAP and AMS left off. If true, the $156 million judgment should apply to them. The Boims have shown strong enough connections for the case to proceed, the court ruled.”

Bravo. If justice prevails, the Boims’ lawsuit will lead to the shutdown of the AMP, which has has been spreading its poisonous propaganda with impunity for years. As far back as 2014, Pamela Geller noted that “a new and viciously anti-Israel ad” was running on Washington, DC buses, “reading ‘We’re Sweating April 15 So Israelis Don’t Have To! Stop US Aid to Israel’s Occupation’ and featuring a grim-looking Uncle Sam waving an Israeli flag.” Geller reported that the AMP was “the sponsor of this Jew-hating ad, which evokes the ugly anti-Semitic stereotypes in which Jew-haters have long trafficked.” She stated that the ad was “part of a systematic campaign by many different Islamic and leftist groups to dehumanize and demonize the Jewish state. This vicious propaganda is running in various forms across the country, unchallenged even by pro-Israel groups that ought to be at the forefront of this battle.”

Geller also pointed that the AMP was “run by Dr. Hatem Bazian, a University of California-Berkeley professor who equated the Boston jihad bombings with ‘Islamophobia.’” Bazian taught a course “entitled ‘De-Constructing Islamophobia and History of Otherness.’ One requirement of this class is for students to collect reactions from ‘people of color’ to [Geller’s] ads criticizing jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism.” Nor was Bazian “the only Islamic supremacist associated with the AMP. Others include Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi, who has called Israel a ‘racist’ state that is ‘basically an apartheid system in creation’; Imam Ziad Shakir, who has praised the jihad terror group Hamas; Rafeeq Jaber, a strong supporter of the jihad terror group Hizballah; Norman Finkelstein, who has called Zionists ‘basically Nazis with beards and black hats’; and Max Blumenthal, who has recently published a book-length screed defaming Israel and retailing Palestinian jihad propaganda.”

The AMP’s relentless demonization of Israel and support for the Palestinian jihad was no surprise; IPT reports that “IAP/AMS were propaganda arms of a now-defunct network called the ‘Palestine Committee.’  The committee was created by the Muslim Brotherhood to help Hamas politically and financially in the United States….IAP/AMS’s closing in 2005, the year after the Boim judgment, was followed by ‘a short quiet period,’ the amended complaint states. Then ‘a purportedly new organization emerged under a new name, “American Muslims for Palestine,” or “AMP,” but with the same fundamental mission and purpose of IAP/AMS.’ AMP had “largely the same core leadership as IAP/AMS; it serves the same function and purpose; it holds nearly identical conventions and events with many of the same roster of speakers; it operates a similar ‘chapter’ structure in similar geographic locations; it continues to espouse Hamas’ ideology and political positions; and it continues to facilitate fundraising for groups that funnel money to Hamas.”

Authorities have allowed these transparent games to go on for so long because all too many of them see Israel and the Palestinian jihad the same way the AMP does, and so they have been reluctant to draw the ire of their fellow Leftists by taking action against this unsavory group. But this manipulation has gone on for far too long now. May the Boims, and justice, prevail.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

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