Despite battling accusations of anti-Semitism, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) is due to speak this month at a fundraising event alongside a senior charity official who has published social media posts praising the killing of Jews. According to the National AE, the group Muslim US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar will be helping to raise money for a group that designated a terrorist organization in 2014 by the United Arab Emirites.
Islamic Relief USA is now hosting a fundraising dinner for aid to Yemen on February 23. Rep. Ilhan Omar is due to speak alongside senior Islamic Relief USA official Yousef Abdallah, who was widely criticized in 2017 after the Middle East Forum found he had expressed violently anti-Semitic ideas on his social media accounts.
From the invite: Guest Speakers
- Congresswoman Ilhan Omar
- Imam Belal Alzuhiry, Yemeni-American motivational speaker
- Sheikh Muhammad Alzahid – Munshid & Qari
- Yousef Abdallah, IRUSA East Zone Manager
Senior official of IR-USA, Yousef Abdallah, who will be appearing with UC Congresswoman Omar this month, published a story praising “martyrs” who provided guns to “kill more than 20 jews” and “fire rockets at Tel Aviv.”Elsewhere, Abdallah published text that referred to Jews as “stinking.”
Abdallah, who serves as Islamic Relief USA’s “operations manager,” shared a “very beautiful” modernized version of a Palestinian folk story about a ‘resistance hero’ named Zharif al-Tawl, who took revenge against Jewish “gangs” – which had purportedly attacked a Palestinian village – by providing guns to “kill more than 20 jews” and “fire rockets at Tel Aviv.”
Other posts referred to Jews as “stinking,” and claim “the Jews put the outside wall of Al Aqsa [the mosque in Jerusalem] on fire.” Abdallah also ‘liked’ a comment on his Facebook post that calls on God to wreak “revenge on the damned rapists Zionists. O God they are no challenge for you. Shake the Earth beneath their feet and destroy them as you destroyed the peoples of ʿĀd, Thamud and Lot.”
On March 31, 2014, New Jersey’s Republican governor, Chris Christie apologized for referring to the West Bank and Gaza as “occupied,”
Abdallah responded to Christie’s tweet, saying: “Christie kneels down on his knees before the Jewish lords and says ‘I am sorry’. Only money makes stuff like this happen. Mr. Christie… Muslims should remember this very well.”
Like Yousef Abdallah, sitting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) tweeted a similar anti-Semitic sentiment only yesterday, using similar language. Omar tweeted: “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” suggesting that support for Jews is all about the money, a typical anti-Semitic comment. Omar’s comment was in response to a Haaretz article retweeted by Intercept writer Glen Greenwald about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who threatened punishment for Omar and her fellow Muslim Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, over their criticisms of Israel.
https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1094747501578633216
In January 2018, the Middle East Forum revealed that Islamic Relief USA or IR-USA is a key partner of a Hamas-linked charity in Gaza named the Unlimited Friends Association, which, using money raised in America, gives money to the families of deceased Hamas terrorists.
Despite Islamic Relief’s claims to be a moderate charity, its invitations to the White House and the hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money it has received, the charity has a long history of promoting extremism and violent hatreds of minorities.
Yousef Abdallah is a perfect example of Islamic Relief’s duplicity. When he is not in front of the cameras at interfaith events, his private social media posts reveal an intense, violent anti-Semitism.
IR-USA is the largest Muslim charity in America. In 2015, it reported total revenue of over $108 million. Between 2015 and 2016, IR-USA received $370,000 of taxpayers’ money, and it has enjoyed hundreds of thousands of dollars from prominent corporate and community foundations across the country.
According to the National Review, Islamic Relief USA fudraises for UFA a group that hands out cash to families of Hamas terrorists killed in the act of terror against Israel.
Not especially shy about its Hamas connections, UFA openly advertises projects funded by U.S. charities in prominent Hamas literature. And on its website, UFA boasts a certificate of supportfrom Ummah University, an institution in Gaza directly controlled by Hamas’s interior ministry. UFA appears to be a cog in the Hamas martyrdom machine — the charity regularly hosts events financially benefiting “the families of martyrs and prisoners.”
UFA’s most important U.S. supporter is Baitulmaal, another charity. Saying they help Baitulmaal distribute cash to the “families of martyrs of the Palestinian people,” UFA officials have published photos to corroborate the claim.
These cash handouts are part of an “Orphan Sponsorship Program.” In videos published by the UFA, it defines orphans as those who have lost their fathers (not their mother), some of whom, it claims, were killed resisting “the ongoing slaughter against the Palestinian people.”
It would appear that American money is being given to the families of Hamas terrorists.
UFA published these photos showing an official of U.S. charity Baitumaal handing out checks, at UFA’s offices, to “the families of martyrs of the Palestinian people.”
UFA and the U.S. charity Baitulmaal have such a close relationship that they even share the same staff. UFA officials Jomaa Khadoura and Amgad Mansor identify themselves as Baitulmaal employees. Mansor has promoted the views of Nabil Awadi, an Islamic cleric whom the Daily Mailhas described as the “key financier” of the Islamic State.
Several other U.S. registered charities support UFA by funding UFA projects or hosting joint events. These include Islamic Relief USA, a branch of a charity established in Britain by Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Islamic Relief USA receives millions of dollars from Western governments, the European Union, and the United Nations. The U.S. government has given $370,000 to Islamic Relief Worldwide, the parent organization of its American affiliate. As with Baitulmaal, UFA and the Palestinian branch of Islamic Relief have shared the same employees.
Abdallah isn’t the only prominent member of Islamic Relief USA to be accused of anti-Semitism. The group designated as a “terrorist organization” in 2015, found itself in hot water after multiple cases of anti-Semitic rhetoric were discovered on the Chairman’s social media accounts.
In 2015, the United Arab Emirates, a key ally of the United States, designated Islamic Relief as a terrorist organization because of its links to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. This ban followed similar accusations leveled against the charity in Israel and Egypt. In 2016, it emerged that the international bank HSBC had closed down Islamic Relief’s accounts over terror financing fears.
Then in January 2017, following a statement by a German minister in the Berlin Senate that Islamic Relief was closely connected with the German branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Germany’s Federal Court of Auditors announced an investigation into Islamic Relief for a “potential misuse of the aid money.” And in April, The Times reported that Britain’s Charity Commission – the government’s regulator of non-profits – was investigating the charity’s decision to organize a tour with Yasir Qadhi, an extremist American preacher previously recorded telling his audience that killing homosexuals was part of his religion.
Through all this, the US branch of Islamic Relief (IR-USA) remained relatively unscathed. But recently uncovered evidence of extreme, violent anti-Semitism expressed by senior officials of IR-USA threaten to make the growing scandal a pan-Atlantic affair. IR-USA’s current chairman is Khaled Lamada, a prominent Egyptian-American and a public supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Lamada’s Facebook page includes a number of alarmingly anti-Jewish posts. He has re-published text praising the “jihad” of the “Mujahidin of Egypt” for “causing the Jews many defeats” and shared posts that praise Hamas for inflicting a “huge defeat” against the “Zionist entity.” In addition, Lamada has circulated videosthat claim the current leader of Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is secretly Jewish and that he opposes the Muslim Brotherhood on the orders of the Jews. Lamada simply comments “I hope that this is not true.”
In response to these revelations, IR-USA said it “strongly rejects these unfounded accusations.” It added that “the personal attacks on Mr. Lamada result from inaccurate translations of Arabic,” although Islamic Relief failed to provide its own translations, and Lamada has since deleted the posts and restricted public access to his Facebook account.
Sounds like a stand-up organization. No wonder they asked U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to help them raise money.
