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June 22, 2001/Tamuz 1, 5761, Vol. 53, No.38
Does Hamas raise funds in Valley?
BARRY COHEN
Editor
Is Hamas raising funds in the Valley?
The "Holy Land Exhibit" - held June 9-10 at the Ramada Inn on West Camelback Road - showcased Palestinian culture, religion, history and nationalism.
The event was sponsored by Friends of Palestine. Among the displays was a table offering pamphlets soliciting donations to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a group based in Richardson, Texas, and founded in 1989 as a 501(c)3 organization.
At issue is an alleged connection between HLFRD and Hamas, an alleged terrorist group in the Middle East.
"In December 1999 the Department of State acknowledged in a filing in the U.S. District Court in Washington that the U.S. government has been investigating the HLFRD for alleged financial ties to Hamas," said a State Department spokesman in an August 2000 statement.
"The Holy Land Foundation is a front group for the Hamas movement," said Steven Emerson, Middle East terrorist specialist and investigator with the Investigative Project, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
Marwan Ahmad, publisher of the Arizona Muslim Voice and Multicultural Yellow Pages and local contact for Friends of Palestine, discounted these claims. Any connection between HLFRD and Hamas is "an allegation that has been thrown at them for years for doing a good job helping the Palestinians," Ahmad told Jewish News.
"If anything had been proven, (the government) would have taken action by now," he added. "Since (the HLFRD) is still operating, they must be clean."
On display at the exhibit were the HLFRD's 1999 annual report and pamphlets requesting contributions to sponsor students, "impoverished families," children "injured from shots being fired to the upper body" and orphans.
Ahmad said he "personally confirmed money has been sent to orphans" when he visited the Ein Heleweh refugee camp in Southern Lebanon. "This is a humanitarian issue, not a political issue," he added.
That the exhibit included a display requesting contributions to a group with alleged connections to Hamas concerns Tami Schultz, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix.
"This is the first time in the four years I have been here that I've heard this happening in our backyard," she said.
Concerning the Holy Land Exhibit, she said, if it is a traveling exhibit, "it is upsetting enough. ... If it is Phoenix-specific, then organizations like the JCRC need to investigate."
According to Ahmad, the exhibit was "not a national exhibit." In addition, Friends of Palestine is a local effort, comprising "people who felt that what is going on in Palestine is saddening. ... (We want) to expose to the public that we are victims, not as we are portrayed, as aggressors," he said.
Members of Friends of Palestine include Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Arab-Americans and South Americans, he added.
"This is a wake-up call for the supporters of peace," said Rabbi Robert Kravitz, area director of the American Jewish Committee. "We need to be more vigilant ... and take seriously exhibits, speakers and monitor the situation more carefully."
Kravitz encouraged members of the Jewish community to notify groups with monitoring capabilities - such as AJC - about pro-Palestinian events.
Emerson cited three groups in the United States as fronts for Hamas: HLFRD, the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Council of American Islamic Relations. The role of HLFRD is raising funds for Hamas activities, he said.
To legitimize itself, HLFRD also funds "other relief causes" in addition to the Palestinians, "but the primary goal is to fund Hamas institutions," such as hospitals and schools, explained Emerson. The other institutions have the same ideology, "that Israel has no right to exist," he added.
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