US Pro-Hamas Organization Sets Up New Political Influence Group In Washington, DC

Mon­doweiss, a self-described inde­pen­dent and pro­gres­sive news site, is report­ing the Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine (AMP) has launched the Amer­i­cans for Jus­tice in Pales­tine Action (AJPA), its own affil­i­at­ed polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy group in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Accord­ing to the arti­cle by :

August 26, 2021 Just a few years ago the idea of a pro-Pales­tine polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy group in Wash­ing­ton D.C. seemed ridicu­lous. But U.S. pol­i­tics around Pales­tine are shift­ing and a num­ber of polit­i­cal advo­ca­cy groups have sprung up recent­ly. The lat­est grows out of the non­prof­it Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Pales­tine who just launched their own affil­i­at­ed 501c4 orga­ni­za­tion, Amer­i­cans for Jus­tice in Pales­tine Action. Ear­li­er this week Mon­doweiss’ U.S. cor­re­spon­dent Michael Arria spoke with Amer­i­can Mus­lims for Palestine’s Dr. Osama Abuir­shaid and Ayah Ziyadeh.

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In the inter­view, AMP Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Osama Abuir­shaid said the deci­sion to set up the orga­ni­za­tion in the nation’s cap­i­tal was made due to the “unlim­it­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties” pro­vid­ed by law there and that reg­is­ter­ing it as a social wel­fare orga­ni­za­tion under Sec­tion 501c4 pro­vid­ed the new body with a “broad­er scope.” He also not­ed that AJPA planned to lob­by for Pales­tine with­out any of the lim­i­ta­tions faced by the AMP, such as a ban on endors­ing polit­i­cal can­di­dates. Abuir­shaid said that the new body’s main objec­tive was to work togeth­er with AMP in influ­enc­ing the polit­i­cal dynam­ics regard­ing Pales­tine in the US. In a Face­book post, AJPA stat­ed it was grate­ful to receive “a gen­er­ous grant from AMP” to orga­nize a late Sep­tem­ber 2021 vir­tu­al Pales­tine advo­ca­cy event set to include train­ing ses­sions, online pub­lic ple­nar­ies, and con­gres­sion­al meet­ings. Accord­ing to the post, the event is set to fea­ture mem­bers of Con­gress, Capi­tol Hill staffers, and advo­ca­cy experts.

AMP is a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy group with strong ties to both the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and the Hamas sup­port infra­struc­ture in the US. A report by the Anti-Defama­tion League describes the AMP as “the lead­ing orga­ni­za­tion pro­vid­ing “anti-Zion­ist” train­ing and edu­ca­tion to stu­dents and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions in the coun­try. AMP Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Abuir­shaid is also a board mem­ber of the US Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO), an umbrel­la group of US Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions com­prised almost sole­ly of ele­ments of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in the US. In Octo­ber 2020, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that Osama Abuir­shaid was part of an August 2020 meet­ing between the USMCO and Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan that took place at the Turk­ish pres­i­den­tial com­plex. Pri­or GIOR report­ing about AMP has also included:

• A Decem­ber 2020 report that an AMP-host­ed vir­tu­al Pales­tine advo­ca­cy con­fer­ence brought togeth­er promi­nent Amer­i­can pro-Pales­tin­ian activists sev­er­al US Con­gress­women, includ­ing Rashi­da Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

• A March 2021 report that AMP was part of a coali­tion of inter­na­tion­al Hamas sup­port groups that orga­nized a vir­tu­al “Al-Aqsa Inter­na­tion­al Week” that fea­tured appear­ances by mul­ti­ple pro-Hamas activists and GMB leaders.

• A June 2021 report that the AMP was part of a coali­tion of promi­nent US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood orga­ni­za­tions that co-host­ed a “Nation­al Pales­tine March” in Wash­ing­ton, DC, togeth­er with a Turk­ish-Amer­i­can lob­by group close­ly tied to the Turk­ish rul­ing party.