Designated Hamas Charity Listed at 1993 Phili Meeting
By Matthew Levitt
The Treasury designated a key Hamas charity and its director today, adding the al-Salah Society and Ahmed al-Kurd to OFAC's SDGT list. According to new information released by the Treasury Department, "The Al-Salah Society supported Hamas-affiliated combatants during the first Intifada and recruited and indoctrinated youth to support Hamas’s activities. It also financed commercial stores, kindergartens, and the purchase of land for Hamas." Both the al-Salah Society and Ahmed al-Kurd were recently listed by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundaiton case.
As my colleagues have noted below, Hamas activists in the United States met in Philadelphia in 1993 to decide how to respond to the Oslo process process. Interestingly, the al-Salah society was specifically discussed at this meeting. In a presentation on "the situation in Palestine" and the status of "Islamic works" tied to Hamas, Muin Kamel Mohammed Shabib, a member of Hamas’s Izz al Din al Qassam terrorist wing, described the institutions tied to Hamas as falling under the following classifications: educational (schools, universities), social and charitable (refugees, orphans, relief), cultural, health institutions (clinics, medical centers), public syndicates, technical institutions, sports clubs, media, religious institutions, and women's institutions. Shabib then proceeded to list specific institutions tied to Hamas, which he described as "our institutions," including the al-Salah Association.
As Treasury’s designation makes clear, al Salah and similar Hamas organizations actively radicalize Palestinian society, recruit new members, provide operatives with day jobs, launder funds for Qassam Brigade terrorist cells, and provide logistical support for their terrorist attacks. For example, Treasury revealed that "In late 2002, an official of the Al-Salah Society in Gaza was the principal leader of a Hamas military wing structure in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza. The founder and former director of the Al-Salah Society’s Al-Maghazi branch reportedly also operated as a member of the Hamas military wing structure in Al-Maghazi, participated in weapons deals, and served as a liaison to the rest of the Hamas structure in Al-Maghazi. At least four other Hamas military wing members in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza were tied to the Al-Salah Society."
For more information see Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad