Islamic Association of Palestine

Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP, also known as Islamic Association for Palestine) was an organization accused of raising money in the United States for Hamas established in 1981 and defunct since 2004. It described itself as "a not-for-profit, public-awareness, educational, political, social, and civic, national grassroots organization dedicated to advancing a just, comprehensive, and eternal solution to the cause of Palestine and suffrages of the Palestinians." For a time it also used the name American Muslim Society (AMS) and operated as the American Middle Eastern League for Palestine (AMEL).

The Islamic Association of Palestine had strong ties to the Holy Land Foundation for Relied and Development and to several organizations established in the U.S. to serve as fronts for the U.S.-terrorist designated Hamas. Founders included Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, funder and 1989 member of IAP Board of Directors.

As terror finance expert Matthew Levitt reported, Hamas invested considerable resources to give “the Palestinian cause an Islamic flavor.” U.S. authorities believed that the Islamic Association of Palestine was established towards that goal, as well as to raise funds for Hamas.

The Islamic Association of Palestine was intimately tied to Hamas, and especially to its senior leadership. Levitt observed that the organization “was originally formed in 1981 by Dr. Aly Mishal at the personal direction of Khaled Mishal (who was then a senior Muslim Brotherhood activist and would later become secretary general of Hamas.” When the Muslim Brotherhood leader in Gaza formally established Hamas in 1987, “the IAP became the group’s mouthpiece in North America.”

IAP was mentioned among the organizations affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States in a May 1991 memorandum titled “An Explanatory memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.” The organizations listed allegedly shared the common goal of turning America into a Muslim country and promoting a grand jihad for the destruction of the Western civilization.

The other organizations named in the memorandum included:

Several among IAP officers and founding members were Hamas senior leaders who participated to the 1993 Philadelphia meeting attended by Hamas officers. Some former Islamic Association of Palestine staffers and members were founding members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). This is the case of Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director who was affiliated to the Islamic Association of Palestine, and who was also a “self-identified supporter of the Hamas movement.”

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