Senior officials working for Islamic Relief, the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., have promoted anti-Semitism, according to new evidence uncovered by the Middle East Forum (MEF) think tank’s Islamist Watch project.
Khaled Lamada, chairman of Islamic Relief’s U.S. branch (IR-USA), has posted anti-Semitic content and publicly expressed support for the Muslim Brotherhood—the parent group of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas—on his social media accounts since 2013.
In numerous social media posts written in Arabic, Lamada “appears to hate Jews and admire violence against Israel,” Islamist Watch said; he has also praised the “Mujahidin of Egypt” for “causing the Jews many defeats.”
Further, Lamada has peddled various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including videos that claim Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is a Jewish agent working to sow division and promote sexual promiscuity among Egyptian Muslims.
In July, Islamist Watch uncovered anti-Semitic social media posts by other IR-USA senior officials, including Yousef Abdallah, who posted content glorifying “martyrs” who provided weapons to “kill more than 20 Jews” and “fire rockets at Tel Aviv.”
Islamic Relief—although it is designated as a terror group by the United Arab Emirates and is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood—receives financial support from the United Nations and numerous governments around the world, including some $370,000 in aid from the U.S. in 2016. Research by Islamist Watch has revealed that this funding is often channeled to Hamas-affiliated organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.
