The Washington Free Beacon has reported that the State Department is giving $41,000 to a charity that has partnered with terrorists to fund a project training Palestinian journalists to build their English language skills. The organization Fares Al-Arab is based in the Gaza Strip and has a history of partnering with the Hamas government, which has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department itself.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, “The charity has openly worked with the Hamas government as recently as 2021 on a housing project, and regularly works with the terrorist organization and others on projects. Fares Al-Arab gave its media award to a radio network run by the Islamic Jihad Movement, honored a self-described journalist who belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hosted a press freedom event that featured a spokesman for Islamic Jihad, and co-led a human rights training course with a convicted terrorist. The group has also blasted Israel as an ‘apartheid’ regime, supports boycott campaigns against the Jewish state, and signed on to a petition that calls on the United Nations to ‘uncover the terrorist face’ of Israel.”
A spokeswoman for Fares Al-Arab, Areej Al-Massry, claimed that the charity’s anti-Israel views will not be reflected in their training of journalists. However, lawmakers still are gravely concerned since terrorist groups have a history of posing as journalists to commit acts of terror. For example, an Israeli journalist was stabbed by a terrorist posing as a photographer, and Hamas has reportedly employed their operatives as cameramen working in media buildings.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that it is not surprising that Biden’s State Department is taking money meant for programs to foster coexistence and integration in Israel, and instead, pouring it into causes supporting Hamas.
Despite Fares Al-Arab’s claims that the group does not work with terrorists, their website “[echoes] the extremist political views of Palestinian leadership.” According to their own website, the group has honored Hassan Jaber, a journalist and former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group. One of their board members, Gaza anti-prison activist Jamal Farwana, has called for the release of a convicted murderer and other Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. In 2010, the group also “co-led a human rights training course with Jaber Wishah, a convicted terrorist who was locked up for bomb-making and trying to kill an Israeli staff sergeant in 1985, according to NGO Monitor.”
With their history of partnering with “media figures linked to terrorist organizations,” Fares Al-Arab has much to hide if they are trying to convince people that they will be objective and use these funds appropriately.
As Cruz pointed out, the refusal of State Department officials to disclose the distribution of grants, even entering false information to “shield them from congressional and public scrutiny,” is troubling. With the discovery that State Department funding is going towards groups that work with, praise, and honor terrorists, it is becoming even more crucial that these officials practice transparency with those they serve.