The Treasury Department designated a group housed at a charity in the United States as an “international fundraiser” for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, the agency said on Tuesday.
The agency’s Office of Foreign Assets Control took action in partnership with Canada against the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. A Washington Examiner investigation over the last two years laid bare the group’s ties to the PFLP, which had prompted payment processors such as PayPal, Stripe, Deluxe, and Salsa Labs to allow it to fundraise online no longer.
“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need yet, in reality, divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” said Bradley T. Smith, acting undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
“The United States, together with Canada and our like-minded partners, will continue to disrupt those who seek to finance the PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations,” Smith said.
Samidoun, the Treasury Department said, is a “front” for the PFLP. The agency highlighted how Samidoun leader Khaled Barakat is affiliated with the PFLP. Samidoun is a project of Alliance for Global Justice, a nonprofit organization in Arizona, the Washington Examiner reported.
Marc Greendorfer, an attorney at the Zachor Legal Institute who has long demanded investigations into Samidoun and AFGJ, took a victory lap on Tuesday.
“As far back as 2018, Zachor Legal Institute has been asking the U.S. government to designate Samidoun as a foreign terror organization operating on behalf of the designated foreign terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and we are very pleased to see the U.S., as well as Canada, take this action,” Greendorfer told the Washington Examiner.
“Foreign terror organizations are very familiar with the loopholes in the U.S. sanctions programs, which often allow designated foreign terror organizations to evade sanctions by creating faux charities that operate as alter egos to unlawfully raise funds and provide other support to terror,” Greendorfer said. “We hope that the important designation is the first of many, as there are a large number of other faux charities operating in the U.S. on behalf of the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP, and other terror groups.”
Alliance for Global Justice did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, a group that has also long investigated Samidoun, said the joint designation of Samidoun shows that the U.S. and Canada are “recognizing the dangers of using NGO facades to support terror and mass murder like the Oct. 7 atrocities.”
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“As NGO Monitor has documented, Samidoun is a major participant in campus-based mob violence across the U.S. and Canada, and there are a number of similar NGOs that need close examination,” Steinberg said. “Authorities should also examine the role of Alliance for Global Justice, which, as NGO Monitor has repeatedly highlighted, served as Samidoun’s fiscal sponsor in the U.S.”
The Treasury Department said in its press release, “As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above, and of any entities that are owned directly or indirectly, 50% or more by them, individually, or with other blocked persons, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC.”