2018 Campaign Events of Rep. Tlaib Were Organized by Alleged Terror Financiers

Two men who held key positions at nonprofit groups that were found liable in a Hamas terror financing scheme helped organize campaign fundraising events for Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in 2018.

The men, who organized events that were paid for by Tlaib’s campaign, were associated with a network of nonprofit groups that were found liable by a federal jury in 2004 for financing the terrorist slaying of an American teenager, David Boim, at a bus stop in the West Bank in 1996. A federal judge ordered the three groups to pay Boim’s parents a $156 million judgment for funding Hamas, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The groups — the Holy Land Foundation, the American Muslim Society, and the Islamic Association for Palestine — never paid up. They shut down shortly after they were ordered to pay the landmark judgment to the Boim family. The Holy Land Foundation ultimately had its monetary assets seized by the United States, and five of its leaders were sentenced to decades in prison in 2008, for providing material support to Hamas.

REPS. OMAR AND TLAIB AMONG DEMOCRATS TIED TO GROUP WITH ALLEGED LINKS TO HAMAS SLAYING

The first Tlaib campaign organizer, Rafeeq Jaber, testified during a deposition in 2003 that he served as president of the American Muslim Society and the Islamic Association for Palestine. Jaber testified that the two groups, while under his control, worked to “promote [Holy Land Foundation] in every way we can” and also distributed pro-Hamas documents, including an August 2001 editorial that advocated martyrdom operations and the killing of Jewish people.

Jaber was identified as a member of the “Hosting Committee” for a Tlaib campaign fundraiser in July 2018, according to a flier posted on Facebook. The event was paid for by Tlaib’s congressional campaign, the flier stated.

Jaber was also filmed sitting in the front row of an intimate Tlaib campaign fundraising event in March 2018, footage of the event uploaded to Facebook shows.

Jaber later urged his followers to support Tlaib’s reelection campaign in 2020, writing in a July 2020 Facebook post that the pro-Israel AIPAC, “radical right wingers and the white supremacists” want Tlaib out of office.

He also wrote in November 2020 that Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) help and serve the cause of Palestine and suggested that abstaining from casting a vote in the election does nothing to stop “the support for Criminal Israel.”

The Boim family sued Jaber in 2017, alleging that he shut down the American Muslim Society and the Islamic Association for Palestine in 2004 and spun up a new group, American Muslims for Palestine, in order to avoid paying the $156 million judgment.

American Muslims for Palestine “is nothing more than a disguised continuance of IAP/AMS — stripped of the burden of the Boim Judgement and the ignominy of having been found liable for aiding and abetting the murder of an American teenager,” the Boim family’s 2017 lawsuit stated.

Jaber and American Muslims for Palestine are now subject to discovery in the case following rulings by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2021 and by a federal district court in Illinois in May 2022. The case is on track to be heard before a federal jury before the end of 2023, the Washington Examiner previously reported.

Jaber did not return a request for comment.

The second Tlaib campaign organizer, Salah Sarsour, helped raise money for the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation around the time of Boim’s killing and, in one case, allegedly wrote checks from his business’s bank account to funnel money to a Hamas militant.

“I passed money over to Adel Awdallah several times, and my brother sent money to him through me several times too,” Salah Sarsour’s brother, Jamil Sarsour, confessed to the Israeli government in December 1998.

Israeli commandos killed Awdallah in a raid in September 1998 for allegedly planning a terrorist attack. Israeli officials found wigs and a small cache of weapons, including hand grenades and submachine guns, at the hilltop compound Awdallah was killed in.

“The checks that my brother Salah gave me were from a (UI) bank in Milwaukee, from the business account,” Jamil Sarsour said in his confession. “We didn’t want to use personal checks from either one of us so that the government shouldn’t trace the checks back to us personally. We did it this way so we could take checks abroad and send money to Adel Awdallah.”

Salah Sarsour also played an active role in raising funds for the Holy Land Foundation “that is actually for HAMAS,” a 2001 FBI memorandum stated.

American Muslims for Palestine identifies Salah Sarsour as a member of its national board on its website.

Salah Sarsour co-hosted a fundraising event for Tlaib’s campaign on July 28, 2018, according to a flier posted to Facebook. The event was “paid for by Rashida Tlaib for Congress,” the flier stated.

He then appeared in multiple photos with Tlaib at the fundraiser. Tlaib reacted to a Facebook post containing three photos of her posing with Salah Sarsour at the fundraiser with a heart symbol from her personal Facebook account.

Salah Sarsour did not return a request for comment.

Tlaib did not return a request for comment.