Senate Committee launches campus probe into terror-linked American Muslims for Palestine

At least nine individuals involved with AMP and its sister organization, Americans for Justice in Palestine, are alleged to have ties to Hamas.

By Jessica Costescu and Lexi Boccuzzi, The Washington Free Beacon

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions launched a probe into American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a prominent Hamas-linked advocacy group, over its role in fueling anti-Israel demonstrations on American college campuses, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Committee chairman Bill Cassidy (R., La.) sent a letter to AMP’s founder and chairman Hatem Bazian on Wednesday demanding the nonprofit hand over documents and records detailing the group’s financial and logistical involvement in supporting college protests in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

Bazian, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has argued that “it’s about time we had an intifada in this country.”

“Reports of individuals with ties to terrorist groups or their affiliates engaging with students on college campuses are cause for the highest alarm,” Cassidy wrote in the letter. “Activity that threatens the safety of others is not constitutionally protected free speech, and conduct that violates campus rules should not be tolerated.”

“While college campuses should welcome free speech and the free exchange of ideas,” he continued, “they should never be havens for terrorist organizations or their affiliates to engage with college students or instigate conflict for their own political purposes.”

The probe comes as the Trump administration moves forward with its efforts to deport pro-Hamas visa holders and pull funding from schools that fail to protect Jewish students.

The administration has revoked the visa and green card of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and prominent pro-Hamas protest leader.

It has also slashed more than $430 million in federal funding to the Ivy League school and is now eyeing sanctions against the international funders bankrolling pro-Hamas demonstrations.

At least nine individuals involved with AMP and its sister organization, Americans for Justice in Palestine, are alleged to have ties to Hamas.

The letter names AMP executive director Osama Abuirshaid, who was featured on the website of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, who were responsible for the Oct. 7 attack.

Last spring Abuirshaid personally visited anti-Israel encampments at Columbia and George Washington University to encourage participants.

The letter also names Salah Sarsour, one of the group’s board members, who is alleged to have played a direct role in fundraising for a Hamas front group in the late 1990s, according to an FBI memorandum.

Other AMP associates, like Jamal Said and Mohammed El-Mezain, are tied to the Holy Land Foundation—a sham charity founded by a top Hamas official—which was shut down by the U.S. government after it was discovered the foundation had sent approximately $12.4 million to support Hamas.

The committee’s inquiry zeroes in on AMP’s relationship with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and its national network of college chapters, responsible for spearheading anti-Semitic protests at campuses across the country.

Four of the universities at the epicenter of this chaos, Columbia, Barnard College, George Washington University, and the University of California, Los Angeles, have also received letters from Cassidy ordering them to turn over all records related to SJP’s activities.

The committee has requested the universities provide all information related to the funding of the anti-Israel student groups and their links to AMP.

Shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares filed a suit against AMP demanding access to its financial records after failing to file tax disclosures in the state for seven years.

Miyares alleges that the group “may have used funds raised for impermissible purposes under state law, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations.” AMP has so far refused to comply, even after being ordered to do so by a judge.

In May, meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Congress, spearheaded by the House Oversight and Education and Workforce Committees, demanded the Biden Treasury Department turn over any “Suspicious Activity Reports” related to AMP that could tie the group to money laundering and terrorism financing.

AMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.