US Palestinian Group Faces Potential DOJ Terror Investigation

A Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group has come under scruti­ny for Anti-Ter­ror­ism Act vio­la­tions after host­ing a mem­ber of the Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist group Pop­u­lar Front for the Lib­er­a­tion of Pales­tine (PFLP). On 8 April 2025, The Alge­mein­er report­ed that Rep. Josh Got­theimer (D‑NJ) had request­ed a Jus­tice Depart­ment probe into the Pales­tin­ian Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter (PACC) for host­ing Wisam Rafeed­ie as part of an event that also fea­tured Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep. Rashi­da Tlaib. The arti­cle begins:

US Rep. Josh Got­theimer (D‑NJ) wrote a let­ter on Sun­day to Attor­ney Gen­er­al Pam Bon­di request­ing a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the New Jer­sey-based Pales­tin­ian Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter (PACC) for poten­tial­ly vio­lat­ing US anti-ter­ror­ism laws, cit­ing the group’s sources of finan­cial sup­port and deci­sion to recent­ly host a mem­ber of an inter­na­tion­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion… PACC last week held its annu­al con­fer­ence, titled “Ground­ed in Action: Explor­ing the Pow­er of the Pales­tin­ian Dias­po­ra,” which fea­tured Wisam Rafeed­ie as a sched­uled guest. Rafeed­ie, a self-admit­ted mem­ber of the Pop­u­lar Front for the Lib­er­a­tion of Pales­tine (PFLP), report­ed­ly addressed the con­fer­ence vir­tu­al­ly on the 4th day of the event.

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Key Points

• Rep. Josh Got­theimer wrote a let­ter to the Attor­ney Gen­er­al request­ing a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the PACC for poten­tial­ly vio­lat­ing US anti-ter­ror­ism laws.

• He cit­ed Sec­tion 2339B of the Anti-Ter­ror­ism Act, which crim­i­nal­izes mate­r­i­al sup­port to ter­ror groups, includ­ing conspiracies.

• Wisam Rafeed­ie, a PFLP affil­i­ate, vir­tu­al­ly spoke at PACC’s con­fer­ence and defend­ed Hamas’ 7 Octo­ber 2023 attacks, dis­miss­ing Israeli accounts as “lies.”

• Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep. Rashi­da Tlaib head­lined the group’s “Youth Day,” as part of which she host­ed a read­ing and sign­ing for her new children’s book.

Tlaib’s Involvement in US Palestinian Advocacy Networks: Congresswoman’s Islamist Ties Under Scrutiny

Tlaub is a mem­ber of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party’s left wing and part of the “Squad” of pro­gres­sive law­mak­ers known for their anti-Israel orga­niz­ing. Mul­ti­ple reports from the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) doc­u­ment Rep. Rashi­da Tlaib’s exten­sive engage­ment with Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy groups and US Islamist net­works, par­tic­u­lar­ly those tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and pro-Hamas infra­struc­ture. Dur­ing the 2022 “Vir­tu­al Pales­tine Advo­ca­cy Day” orga­nized by Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP), Tlaib assert­ed that one can­not be pro­gres­sive and sup­port Israel. Tlaib has repeat­ed­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in high-pro­file con­fer­ences and advo­ca­cy cam­paigns with these groups, includ­ing the Unit­ed States Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO), where she deliv­ered clos­ing remarks at a Capi­tol Hill advo­ca­cy event. Addi­tion­al cov­er­age high­lights Tlaib’s involve­ment in events host­ed by CAIR. These inter­con­nec­tions are under­scored by the for­ma­tion of new polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy groups such as Amer­i­cans for Jus­tice in Pales­tine Action (AJPA), designed to expand the influ­ence of Islamist-aligned Pales­tin­ian lob­by­ing in Wash­ing­ton. Tlaib’s alliances reflect a broad­er trend of US law­mak­ers engag­ing with advo­ca­cy groups linked to pro-Pales­tin­ian activism, strate­gi­cal­ly embed­ding them­selves with­in Amer­i­can uni­ver­si­ties by exploit­ing aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom to pro­mote their agenda.

Exter­nal References:

• Hamas’s Influ­ence on US Cam­pus­es (PDF)
• The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the West: Evo­lu­tion and West­ern Poli­cies (PDF)
• Jew­ish groups con­demn Rashi­da Tlaib over ties to rad­i­cal pro-Hezbol­lah, anti-Israel activist

Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.