US Congresswoman Speaks at Chicago Palestine Rally Organized by US Hamas Support Organizations

On 18 April 2022, Demo­c­ra­t­ic US Con­gress­woman Marie New­man (Illi­nois) spoke at a Chica­go pro-Pales­tine ral­ly orga­nized by a coali­tion of Pales­tine advo­ca­cy groups that includ­ed Hamas sup­port orga­ni­za­tions. Accord­ing to an Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP) Face­book post: 

Hun­dreds of sup­port­ers took it to the streets of Down­town Chica­go today in protest of the bru­tal Israeli attacks on Masjid Al-Aqsa and the Pales­tin­ian worshippers.

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In a short speech, Rep. New­man said Israel endan­gered itself with “unpro­voked attacks” of its mil­i­tary, adding that it was “not okay” to use US funds or US weapons to hurt Pales­tini­ans. New­man is known to be a vocal crit­ic of Israeli pol­i­cy towards Pales­tini­ans, and in Sep­tem­ber 2021, she was one of only eight Demo­c­ra­t­ic Mem­bers of Con­gress to vote against a bill to pro­vide fund­ing to Israel’s Iron Dome mis­sile defense system.

The Chica­go ral­ly, titled “Hands Off Jerusalem,” protest­ed the esca­la­tion of vio­lence across the occu­pied Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries and was orga­nized by the Chica­go Coali­tion for Jus­tice in Pales­tine. The coali­tion is com­prised of Chica­go-area Arab and Pales­tin­ian groups and includes region­al chap­ters of orga­ni­za­tions part of the US Hamas sup­port infrastructure:

• Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP), a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) and the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US

• Stu­dents for Jus­tice in Pales­tine (SJP), a net­work of pro-Pales­tin­ian stu­dent groups across the US found­ed by AMP founder and Board Chair Hatem Baz­ian. AMP places a heavy empha­sis on sup­port­ing and help­ing coor­di­nate SJP activities

The Hamas char­ter says that it is “one of the wings of the Mus­lim Broth­ers in Pales­tine,” and soon after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood rep­re­sen­ta­tives trav­eled to Gaza from Egypt through the new­ly-opened bor­der to review Hamas mil­i­tary for­ma­tions.  A Hamas jour­nal­ist has acknowl­edged the role that the “inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” has played in pro­vid­ing funds for pur­chas­ing weapons, and Hamas is known to be sup­port­ed finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly by the GMB.