In a startling revelation, Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause, is facing allegations of ties to the Hamas terrorist organization. The claims have been brought to light by the Canary Mission, a group dedicated to combating anti-Semitism in the United States.
According to an article published by the Canary Mission on October 25, the group asserts that Rashida Tlaib has significant financial links to the Hamas terrorist group. The allegations center around her use of the now-defunct Facebook group PAC-USA (Palestinian American Congress-USA) during her congressional campaign. This group, according to the Canary Mission, disseminated content promoting terrorism, anti-Semitism, and Nazi propaganda. While the group no longer exists, it reportedly had over 12,000 members in June 2020.
Furthermore, Tlaib is alleged to have appointed the founder of PAC-USA as the chairman of her campaign’s Finance Committee. This position purportedly enabled the founder to organize 12 fundraisers in eight different states, although the nature of these fundraisers remains unspecified.
Another contentious claim made by the Canary Mission is that Tlaib established the group Black4Palestine, which they describe as an “anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-terror hate group.” This organization is said to work in conjunction with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in the United States. Black4Palestine is reported to have expressed support for registered terrorist organizations on over 100 occasions.
Kristian Davis Bailey, Tlaib’s co-founder of Black4Palestine, has also reportedly been extensively involved with the PFLP. The group has made social media posts calling for America’s “defeat” and openly endorsed the anti-Semitic BDS movement.
The Canary Mission’s most damning assertion is that Tlaib has connections to at least three fundraisers linked to Hamas, whom she employed during her 2018 election campaign. One of these employees purportedly spent eight months in prison for his ties to the terrorist organization. The three named fundraisers are Salah Sarsour, Rafiq Jaber, and Abdelbaset Hamayel.
Sarsour, who faced imprisonment in 1995 for his association with Hamas, co-hosted an event with Tlaib in 2018. The Canary Mission presented an archived link showing Sarsour’s name on an event flyer. Jaber has allegedly confessed to aiding in the distribution of Hamas propaganda in the U.S. He testified in 2003 that he directed two Hamas front groups to promote the Holy Land Foundation and distributed materials celebrating the killing of Jews. Jaber is also a co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The final fundraiser, Hamayel, is reported to have worked for several Hamas-linked organizations in the United States, all of which are now defunct. He represented the group “KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development,” an organization dissolved in 2011 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for funneling funds to Hamas.
The allegations have stirred controversy and raised questions about Tlaib’s alleged connections with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization responsible for numerous acts of violence and terror. The Canary Mission, which provided these claims, stated, “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.”
These revelations have sparked a debate about the normalization of Hamas in the United States. The Canary Mission argues that “universities are filled with anti-Israel professors and anti-Semitic campus groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine. The streets are filled with highly organized extremist groups that support Hamas. It is being tolerated. If we want this to stop, we have to be intolerant of intolerance.”
The Canary Mission’s goal in bringing this information to light is to hold Congresswoman Tlaib accountable for what they see as a failure to condemn acts of violence and terrorism and a deep-seated animosity towards Israel and Jews. They assert that such attitudes have no place in Congress and must be scrutinized and addressed.