Background

From April 3-6, the Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) hosted its annual conference in Clifton, New Jersey, featuring addresses from US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Wisam Rafeedie. 

Rafeedie – labeled “one of the most prominent leaders of the PFLP” by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Museum – claimed that “the US is the head of the snake” after the 2001 death of the PFLP General-Secretary. In 1991, he was sentenced by Israel for being an active member of the terrorist organization.

Notably, promotional materials for the conference feature the logos and paraphernalia of the PFLP-linked NGO, Samidoun.

  • In October 2024, the US and Canada jointly designated Samidoun as a terrorist entity. The US called Samidoun a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the [PFLP] terrorist organization” and designated Samidoun head Khaled Barakat, “a member of the PFLP’s leadership” who played a “critical role in external fundraising for the PFLP.”
  • In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun a terrorist organization and “a subsidiary of the [PFLP].” According to the Ministry, Samidoun was founded by “members of the PFLP in 2012,” and Khaled Barakat, identified by the PFLP as “coordinator” of Samidoun, “is involved with establishing militant cells and motivating terrorist activity in Judea & Samaria and abroad.”

Sponsors and Promoters

According to PACC, the conference is sponsored by Jamhour Media, Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), the US Palestinian Council (USPC) and Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA).

The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) (2023 revenue – $2.9 million)

USCPR is a coalition of anti-Israel NGOs advocating for anti-Israel arms embargoes – and other BDS measures – in the US.

Funding

USCPR, a registered 501c3, is receiving $515,000 (under the name of Education for Just Peace in the Middle East) in 2019-2026 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF). Moreover, it is the “fiscal sponsor” of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC). The BNC is the leading Palestinian BDS umbrella network. 

USCPR has made statements justifying the Hamas-orchestrated October 7th massacre, as well as supporting members of other US-designated terrorist organizations:

  • On October 10, 2023, USCPR tweeted, “There are no ‘both sides’ when Israel has always been the colonizer & aggressor, with one of the world’s most advanced militaries, trapping 2+ million Palestinians (mostly refugees) in an open-air cage in Gaza in unlivable conditions. This is genocide. Pick a side. Free Palestine.”
  • In May 2023, senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) member Khader Adnan died.  He had been arrested in February 2023 and indicted for membership in a terror group, supporting a terrorist organization, and incitement. USCPR tweeted, “May Khader’s spirit of revolution live on, until Palestinian liberation & return.”

Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) (2023 revenue – $400,000)

FOSNA is a 501(c)3 organization that “promotes the vision of,” and funds, the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem (Sabeel).  Applying “liberation theology,” Sabeel claims that Palestinians represent a modern-day version of Jesus’ suffering. This includes deicide imagery, and supersessionist rhetoric used to demonize Israel and Judaism.

Sabeel and FOSNA have made extreme anti-Israel statements, including rationalizing the October 7th massacre:

  • A statement from Sabeel for New Year’s 2025, states “Our people will fear neither Israeli genocide nor Israeli erasure because, with our Muslim brothers and sisters, we say, God is Greater, knowing that God indeed stands above Israel’s evil snares and conspiracies and God will ultimately defeat the evil schemes of Zionism” (emphasis added).
  • On October 8, 2023, FOSNA published a statement in which they claimed that “this war reveals the veracity of the message we have long been communicating: today’s violence was the inevitable outcome of Israel’s persistent and systematic violation of the rights of Palestinians. In the case of Gaza, two thirds of whose population are refugees from the 1948 Nakba and who have been suffering an inhumane siege since 2007, today’s outbreak is the most foreseeable outcome (emphasis added).”

In addition to NGO sponsors, PACC has also partnered with groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to market the conference to students.  PACC and multiple SJP chapters have jointly promoted the conference on Instagram, offering student-discounts. 

Funding

New York-based WESPAC Foundation, fiscally sponsors SJP, allowing the organizations to receive anonymous tax-deductible donations in the US. 

SJP is also supported by American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).  According to AMP, “We also work in broad-based coalitions and support campus activism through Students for Justice in Palestine.”

In 2024, Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) sent letters to the IRS requesting the revocation of WESPAC and AMP’s tax-exempt status, citing, inter alia, their fiscal support of SJP.

Speakers, their NGO Ties and Funding

In addition to Rashida Tlaib and Wisam Rafeedie, speakers at the conference include Haidar Eid and Diana Buttu. 

Haidar Eid

According to Al-Shabaka, Haidar Eid is an Al-Shabaka policy advisor of, a member of the Board of Directors of BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, and a member of the advisory board of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).

On October 15, 2023, Eid published an article in Electronic Intifada entitled “From Gaza we ask you to stand up against genocide!” In it, he claims that “Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest concentration camp with the largest population of prisoners in the world.”

Diana Buttu

Former PLO spokesperson Diana Buttu is a Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) fellow, as well as a board member and policy advisor of Al-Shabaka.

In an October 2024 interview, in response to the question “Did Hamas miscalculate when they launched the 7 October attack?,” Buttu responded “I don’t think that they had a choice.”

Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network (2023 revenue – $1 million)

Funding

According to Al-Shabaka, in 2023, donors included Switzerland, Norway, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Open Society Foundation, Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Heinrich Boell Stiftung.

Since October 7, 2023, Al-Shabaka’s employees have made tens of declarations justifying or contextualizing Hamas massacre.  

For instance, on October 8, 2023, the NGO tweeted, “Al-Shabaka rejects the Israeli regime’s colonial borders that work to fragment and ultimately erase Palestinian existence. Breaching these boundaries expands the Palestinian imaginary for possibilities of both resistance and collective freedom. We recognize that decolonization is not a metaphor; it is not merely statements or analysis, but an active process that demands the dismantling of colonial power and the reclamation of land. We stand alongside those committed to this effort and to the liberation of Palestinians worldwide.” (emphasis added)

BADIL: Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (revenue undisclosed)

Funding

BADIL does not include any financial data, donor information, or sources of funding on its website, reflecting a complete lack of transparency and accountability. Donors have included Ireland, Spain, DanChurchAid, Diakonia, and Trocaire.

Badil responded to the Hamas-orchestrated October 7th massacre by justifying the invasion:

  • On October 8, 2023, BADIL tweeted, “Nothing about the Palestinian resistance is unprovoked. The Palestinian people have been suffering for 75 years of colonial-apartheid regime, ethnic cleansing, forcible transfer/displacement…massacres on Palestinian towns, desecration of Palestinian holy sites…In seeking the inalienable rights of self-determination and return, resistance is the most human and legitimate act” (emphasis added).

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) (2023 revenue – $780,000)

DAWN engages in lawfare, advocating for legal action and sanctions against IDF officers, and lobbying against US support to Israel.

Similarly, In February 2025, DAWN submitted a 172-page communication to the ICC Prosecutor requesting an investigation of former U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “for their accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Funding

According to DAWN’s 2023 Annual Report, “Institutional Partners” include Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation.

DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson has compared Israel to ISIS, and invoked antisemitic rhetoric:

  • In October 2023, in the aftermath of the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson tweeted, “This is going to sound odd to people but massacring thousands of men, women & children creates major PR problems for Israel because each death will confirm it’s an Israeli ISIS.” 
  • In March 2020, in response to a tweet that “6 million jewish [sic] Israelis” will now understand life under “occupation” due to COVID-related restrictions, Whitson used the classic antisemitic blood libel, lamenting that it was “such a tiny taste. Missing a tablespoon of blood.”
  • In January 2015, Whitson commented on a tweet about the US Holocaust Museum’s display of “death and torture in Syria,” stating that the Holocaust Museum should “also show pics of death and destruction in #Gaza” – equating the 2014 war with Hamas to the Holocaust and the extermination of 6 million Jews.