State Dept. Gave $600,000 to a Palestinian University with Terror Ties
Hamas has called An-Najah National University a “greenhouse for martyrs”
Amidst the revelations about how the federal government has been misspending taxpayer money for years is this: the U.S. State Department under Obama gave nearly $600,000 to a university in the West Bank with strong ties to terrorist groups.
An-Najah National University, which Hamas has called a “greenhouse for martyrs,” received the money between 2009 and 2017, with the largest grant awarded in 2016 just before Obama left office. It is the largest Palestinian university and its website mentions the period “after the 1967 war when the West Bank and Gaza Strip cities were occupied by the Israeli occupation troops.”
In January 2024, Israeli security forces (Shin Bet), border police, and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) arrested nine An-Najah University students who were part of a Hamas student cell. Support for Hamas among An-Najah students is anything but an anomaly; in 2023, the Hamas-affiliate bloc in An-Najah’s student council won 40 of 81 available student council seats, implying student support for Hamas is about 50 percent. Shabibeh, the affiliate party of Fatah, won 38 seats. Fatah runs the Palestinian Authority, which governs much of the West Bank and until this month, supported a “pay for slay” scheme in which those who kill Israelis are awarded stipends in proportion to the number killed. The affiliate of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)—an internationally recognized terrorist group—won three seats in the 2023 student council election.
When the October 7, 2023, terror attacks broke out in Israel, Shabibeh tweeted in Arabic, “In the field we stand as one man, each defending from his stronghold, there is no difference between two people defending the same homeland, blessed be the arms of the men and blessed be the effort,” with a photo of terrorists from Hamas’s Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades and from Fatah, implying the student group supported Hamas and Fatah in Hamas’s massacre that day.
In December 2021, a joint Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) uncovered “terrorist infrastructure” and arrested 11 Islamic Bloc student activists. The students allegedly were involved in “incitement campaigns under the supervision and direction of senior Hamas officials,” as well as transferring money and “organizing rallies in support of Hamas.”
This is not a new problem; it began long before the State Department under Obama gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the school. Eight out of 13 members of An-Najah’s 2004 student council belonged to the Hamas bloc, including the chairperson. So why was the American government funding it?
The Obama administration’s largest single grant of about $342,000 was awarded in 2016 to address “the disconnect between the skills of Palestinian university graduates and the needs of the private sector.”
The State Department also awarded about $118,000 in 2010 “to educate teachers responsible for sanitation and solid waste.” That same year, it awarded another $25,000 to “support and strengthen the efforts of Palestinian academia[,] media centers[,] government and civil society and media practitioners.”
In addition to the Obama Administration, nonprofits have given to An-Najah as well. George Soros’ Open Society Foundations gave a total of over $15,000 in 2010 to two individuals at An-Najah to support them in their respective fields of urban planning and education.
As recently as 2021, the Open Society Foundations gave $8,000 to Emad Basheet Salameh Dawwas “to enable you to pursue your research project entitled ‘An Assessment of Spatial Environmental Policies and their Impact on the Ecological and Environmental Systems in Palestine,’ which will contribute to your academic career as a faculty member at An-Najah National University.”
Tax records indicate that Palestinian American Women Association gave to An-Najah four times between 2011 and 2014. The nonprofit donated $8,000 in 2011 and $6,000 in 2014 for no apparent designation.
Finally, the U.S. Organization for Medical and Educational Needs (USOMEN) awarded An-Najah $10,000 in 2012. A Google search of the organization barely indicates its existence.
There is no way to determine how this money was actually spent, but giving any money to a university with such endemic support for terrorist groups should be a cause for concern. Given Obama’s record, Rep. Scott Perry’s accusations that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded terrorist groups including Boko Haram, Al-Qaida and ISIS may be founded.
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