Amid growing antisemitism and massive pro-Palestine protests in several cities and university campuses in the USA, recently it was revealed that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was funded by several pro-Hamas Palestinian activists. One such activist who has been advocating in support of Hamas, Huwaida Arraf, had visited India and met several activists and politicians.
According to an expose by activist research group Canary Mission, Democrat politician Rashida Tlaib was funded by 6 Hamas-linked activists during her 2018 Congressional campaign, Mwafaq Jbara, Sheikh Muhammad Qatanani, Huwaida Arraf, Salah Sarsour, Rafeeq Jaber and Abdelbaset Hamayel.
Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American activist and lawyer who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led organization fighting for the Palestinian cause in the USA. She is allied with several Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas.
She was also the co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement, which sent ships carrying activists to fight Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. FGM had sent several ships on this mission, and Arraf herself went there onboard such ships. Huwaida Arraf participated in seven Free Gaza Movement flotillas to Gaza between August 2008 and May 2010.
It is notable that the Naval blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt was approved by the United Nations as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Voyages arranged by Huwaida Arraf’s Free Gaza Movement attempted to breach the blockade, and one of them had had a violent confrontation with Israeli forces.
This pro-Hamas activist visited India in the year 2009 when she met former MP Syed Shahabuddin. Huwaida Arraf visited the office of All India Muslim Majlis Mushawarat on 28 September 2009. During this visit, she met Majlis president Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan and several other prominent Muslim leaders including Feroz Mothiborewala, Mujtaba Farooq, Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, Abdul Wahab Khilji, Dr. Taslim Rahmani, M. Wadood Sajid, Ahmad Kazmi and others, as per a report by Milli Gazette.
Huwaida Arraf came to India in 2002, 2009 and 2013. She's met with former MP Syed Shahbuddin, Dr.Zafarul Islam, Umar Khalid's father, SQR Illyas, Taslim Rehmani, Feroze Mithiborwala. Her friend is Radhika Sainath who compared Indian freedom fighters to Hamas terrorists. https://t.co/B4zodjdT0m pic.twitter.com/o2GEEcwPPb
— Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network (SHHAN) (@HinduHate) November 9, 2023
It is notable that Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas is the father of Umar Khalid, one of the chief instigators and conspirators of the 2020 Delhi anti-Hindu riots.
Huwaida Arraf’s International Solidarity Movement is considered one of the top 10 anti-Israel organizations in the USA. ISM was probed by the FBI as part of a terrorism investigation between 2004 and 2006, however, no charges were filed.
Rashida Tlaib censured by Congress for pro-Hamas views
Rashida Tlaib, who was funded by Arraf and other pro-Hamas activists, is the only Palestinian American in the US Lower House. She was censured by the US Congress earlier this month following her openly anti-Israel rhetoric following the 7 October Hamas terror attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory military action in Gaza.
Tlaib had shared a video showing Palestinian protestors chanting the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a highly controversial slogan that calls for the elimination of the Israeli state. This slogan calls for the entire land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea to be brought under Palestinian control, essentially abolishing Israel. While her democrat colleagues had supported her initially, later several party leaders, including Jews, voted against her to censure her in Congress.
Recently it has also been revealed that Rashida Tlaib is part of a hidden Facebook group that glorifies Hamas. Members of the group Palestinian-American Congress were seen mocking the Israeli civilians kidnapped and kept hostage by Hamas terrorists. The group has posted news of the death of Israeli soldiers in the fight against Hamas as “achievements” of the “resistance in Northern occupied Palestine.”
