Who Funds AMP and SJP?

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), also known as the AJP Educational Foundation, as well as its 501(c)(4) parent organization*, AJP Action, are widely and credibly accused of serving as successor to the Islamic Association of Palestine, which was part of a major Hamas fundraising network implicated in the notorious 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial — one of the largest terror finance trials in American history.

A judge recently concluded there was merit in a current lawsuit against which argues the group has “largely the same core leadership as IAP/AMS; it serves the same function and purpose; it holds nearly identical conventions and events with many of the same roster of speakers; it operates a similar ‘chapter’ structure in similar geographic locations; it continues to espouse Hamas’ ideology and political positions; and it continues to facilitate fundraising for groups that funnel money to Hamas.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) argues a similar point, stating: “AMP has its organizational roots in the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), an anti-Semitic group that served as the main propaganda arm for Hamas in the United States until it was dissolved in 2004. Since its creation in 2005, AMP continues to work closely with some former IAP leaders who currently hold positions as AMP board members.”

Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s executive director has previously expressed his admiration for Hamas for resisting and not negotiationg with Israel, and for avenging the “blood of its martyrs.”

In 2021, Abuirshaid spoke alongside terrorist members of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), including Sami Khater, a senior Hamas Politburo leader and co-founder, and Mohammad Nazzal, Hamas’s official representative in Jordan.

In addition, notes Max Samarov in the Forward, “AMP chairman Hatem Bazian … has repeatedly spread anti-Semitism on social media, while other AMP leaders and speakers have engaged in racism, homophobia,  genocide denial, and praise for terrorist groups. One AMP employee listed as a contact in the handbook has said that Israel is, ‘an illegitimate creation,’ and that ‘Israelis have to be bombed.'”

Since the October 7th attacks, AMP officials have led a forceful campaign to justify Palestinian “resistance.” Webinars organized by AMP and other Islamist groups (including Mercy Without Limits, profiled above), have featured Nihad Awad, head of the Islamist-founded Council on American-Islamic Relations, who denounced President Biden as a “Zionist” who spews “Israeli propaganda”; as well as references by Muslim American Society’s Ibrahim Zeini to Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” who are beginning to “shift” the Palestinian cause to “victory.”

AMP’s Director of Outreach & Community Organizing, Taher Herzallah, has been particularly vociferous at these webinars. In one event, he referred to “Jews and Christian Zionists,” as “enemy number one,” although later conceded that anti-Zionist Jews can be partners.

Herzallah has previously declared “Hamas’ rockets are an oppressed people’s cry for help.” He has also, the Investigative Project on Terrorism notes, posted “photos of injured Israeli soldiers and a destroyed tank to his personal Facebook page. The caption for both photos read: ‘The most beautiful site in my eyes.'”

*The EIN number (a unique taxpayer ID) that AJP Action claims to operate under (86-1772909) does not seem to appear in IRS records.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) claims to operate at almost 200 college campuses across the United States. It is a sister organization of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). In fact, AMP head Hatem Bazian is a co-founder of SJP, and, as the Forward points out, “SJP campus chapters are encouraged to reach out to American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) to trade strategies and get non-students to attend student government meetings about divestment.”

SJP operates in university campuses across the United States. As the Anti-Defamation League reveals: “In the days following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, the national leadership of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and many of the organization’s campus chapters explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas and their armed attacks on Israeli civilians and voiced an increasingly radical call for confronting and ‘dismantling’ Zionism on U.S. college campuses. Some SJP chapters issued pro-Hamas messaging and/or promoted violent anti-Israel messaging channels.”

Some chapters, the ADL adds, even approvingly shared Hamas clips of the October 7th attacks.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs alleges that “Principal backers of SJP include founders, financial patrons and ideological supporters who have been connected to Islamist terror organizations such as Hamas, Hizbullah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).”

Funding

While SJP has a national nonprofit, its fiscal sponsor is the WESPAC Foundation. Funding of AMP, its parent organization AJP, and SJP, is murky and mixed up. SJP’s revenue in particular is likely covered by local fundraising and student society grants. In addition, SJP chapters’ expenses are possibly paid for directly by AMP, its parent organization AJP, as well as third party Islamist organizations, with which they regularly collaborate.

There is overlap with other Hamas-aligned charities as well. Islamist nonprofit United Hands Relief, in its tax returns, lists $15,000 of donations to the pro-Hamas charity Reach Education Fund. But the tax return lists the recipient’s EIN as that belonging to AMP, while also listing the recipient’s address as that of Hamas-aligned Texas charity Baitulmaal. That same address, a PO Box 2024 in Arlington, TX, is also listed in other 990 forms as the address for the grantor, United Hands Relief.

The below funding shows grants to AMP, SJP (and its sponsor, WESPAC), grouped by grantor. (It is important to note that WESPAC also finances other radical causes unrelated to SJP).

501(c) Funding for AMP, AJP, SJP, WESPAC, as reported in electronically filed 990s