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U.S. Anti-Israel Activity
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Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Support for Terrorism
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Posted: August 14, 2007
Al-Awda demonstrations and online activity have included open support for terror groups targeting Israelis.
- July 2007: At least five communiqués from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), including one in conjunction with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and one joint statement with Hamas, were distributed via Al-Awda’s main listserve. Nearly all of the communiqués expressed support for terrorist activity, extolling “martyrs,” encouraging the “resistance,” and detailing violence against Israeli troops.
- March 2007: Al-Awda issued a press release in support of Ahmad Saadat, the general secretary of the PFLP, who is currently in Israeli custody. The release encouraged “freedom loving people” to demand his release from prison.
- November 16-19, 2006: Samia Halaby, a former Al-Awda co-chair, served on a delegation at the “Solidarity with the Resistance” conference in Beirut, which was organized by the Hezbollah and the Communist Party of Lebanon.
 The gathering was held to consolidate international support for “the resistance movements in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, without distinction,” including Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Iraqi insurgency. The conference’s final statement indicated that participants agreed “to establish a worldwide network against the American-Zionist project which does not only target the area but also humanity.” This, they agreed, would be achieved by “developing more and greater relations between leftist, democratic and nationalist currents and Islamic and resistance movements.”
- July-September 2006: Al-Awda organized and co-sponsored several anti-Israel events around the country in response to the fighting between Israel and terrorist organizations in Gaza and Lebanon. These events were marked by support for terrorist groups, calls for the destruction of Israel, messages equating Zionism with Nazism and a proliferation of anti-Semitism.
At a September rally in Brooklyn, New York, co-sponsored by Coalition in Solidarity with the Arab People, of which Al-Awda is a member group, Charlotte Kates of Al-Awda New York stated, “Our troops are Hezbollah. Our troops are the Palestinian resistance, and we do support our troops. And we will struggle and we will build the resistance here until all Palestine is free.” Ahmed Eid, another Al-Awda representative who spoke at the event, declared: “We are all Hezbollah…I believe in armed struggle.” Similarly, at another New York City rally the prior month, Samia Halaby said of the fighting, “This will not come to an end until Israel is finished, until there is no Israel…We need to shut down the media and their corporations [we need to] shut down Israel.”
- September 2, 2004: Al-Awda co-founder Mazin Qumsiyeh published an article in Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, calling for support of the “Iraqi resistance” against what he described as the pro-Israel “cabal pulling the strings in the White House.” Qumsiyeh argued that U.S. support for Israel had been having a catastrophic effect with global implications and that “only by awakening the U.S. public and linking it to resistance movements from within the world community (including the Iraqi resistance), will this pathway to destruction be avoided.”
- Spring 2004: Al-Awda joined two separate rallies across from the Israeli consulate in New York, to protest the killing of Hamas leaders Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi by Israeli security forces. The first rally, following Yassin’s death, was co-sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition and New Jersey Solidarity. Speakers memorialized Yassin while the crowd chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, Hamas will never go” and “Long live jihad.”
Another rally, following Rantisi’s death, was co-sponsored by New Jersey Solidarity, the IAC and Neturei Karta, a fringe ultra orthodox Jewish sect that opposes Israel. The rally coincided with closing of Al-Awda’s annual convention, also in New York City, and speaker Abbas Hamideh, a coordinator for Al-Awda, told the crowd that Rantisi “was a leader who defended and fought for Palestinian rights.” Members of the crowd waved signs that said: “What’s next Sharon. Ovens!,” “Globalize the Intifada,” and “All of Israel is occupied territory.” An Al-Awda New York-New Jersey representative, Rama Kased, lauded the Hamas leader: “Abdel Aziz Rantisi was a son of Palestine, a refugee, and a symbol of resistance against a racist apartheid regime.”
- December 13-14, 2003: Elias Rashmawi, a member of Al-Awda Sacramento, served as one of the coordinators of the Second International Cairo Conference in Egypt, which was held under the banner “Yes to resistance in Iraq and Palestine, no to capitalist globalization and U.S. hegemony.” The conference had representatives from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Also in attendance was Osama Hamdan, the Hamas leader in Lebanon, who openly supports suicide bombing.
- April 20, 2002: Al-Awda helped organize the ANSWER Coalition’s “National March for Palestine Against War and Racism” in Washington, DC. The rally served as a forum for anti-Semitism, as well as support for violence and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, whose flag flew from the speakers’ podium. It was part of several protests held simultaneously that focused on a range of issues from the war on terror to globalization. At one point, when the different crowds converged for a march, their numbers swelled to about 200,000.
- April 7, 2001: Several thousand people attended Al-Awda’s second large event, the “Right of Return Rally,” in New York City. The event included speeches by George Habash, former secretary general of the PFLP (via telephone), and by Rafeeq Jaber and Raeed Tayeh, representatives from the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). The IAP, which was among the rally’s endorsers, has been described by the U.S. government as part of “Hamas’ propaganda apparatus.” Other endorsing groups included the International Action Center, an anti-Israel organization; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC); and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Solidarity events took place in Canada, Spain and Australia, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon.
- March 17, 2001: Al-Awda’s listserve featured a communiqué from a coalition that included Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the PFLP reaffirming their commitment to armed struggle.
- September 16, 2000: Al-Awda’s first large rally, which took place in Washington, DC, included a speech by Sabri Samirah, then-IAP chairman. Samirah said, “Jerusalem is an Arab, Palestinian and Islamic holy city; and will stay forever as such.”
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