At least two elements of the global Muslim Brotherhood have announced that they are coordinating aid for Gaza through Islamic charities that are also associated with the global Brotherhood and/ or Hamas fundraising. A Serbian news blog has reported that Bosnian Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric had donated 100,000 Euros to Islamic Relief Worldwide:
Chief Bosnian Imam Mustafa Ceric has donated 100,000 Euros to the Islamic Relief Worldwide to be distributed to the Muslims of Gaza. In a ceremony, Imam Ceric gave the money to the director of the Islamic Relief Worldwide, Mohammed Hamad. Mr. Hamad did not specify whether he will give the money to Hamas that rules Gaza….“This is an urgent donation that we offer to Gaza is out urgent help. We expect that the resources collected in the mosques across Bosnia and abroad come,” said the Bosnian Imam Ceric. Ceric expects that Bosnian Muslims will collect more money through their network of mosques in Bosnia and abroad. “Everything that gets collected through that [mosques]we are ready to send though our special envoys to Gaza,” said Ceric.
An Israeli terrorism research center also reported that in 2002, Dr. Ceric sent a letter to Sabri Ikrimah, the Mufti of Jerusalem, asking for his advice on how to send the proceeds of an “an unlimited drive to collect donations to aid the Palestinian people.” Sabri Ikrimah is also known to be a Trustee of the Union of Good, the worldwide coalition of charities raising money for Hamas.
Islamic Relief Worldwide is headquartered in the U.K. where one it’s trustees listed in U.K. charity records is Ibrahim El-Zayat, a leader in both the European and the German Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. El-Zayat is also a Trustee of the U.K. branch of Islamic Relief. Islamic Relief Worldwide is also listed as a company in the U.K where records indicate that Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi, the former head of the Federation of islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) and President of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) is a director. Both FIOE and the MAB are part of the U.K. and European Muslim Brotherhood. Another director of the company Islamic Relief Worldwide is Issam Al-Bashir who, as previous posts have discussed, is a former Minister of Religious Affairs in the Sudan and who has held numerous positions associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. In a number of European countries, the local branch of Islamic Relief is also tied to the local Muslim Brotherhood organization.
In the U.S., the Muslim Public Affairs Council announced that it was was holding a fundraising concert and also donating the proceeds to Islamic Relief as well as to KinderUSA:
The Muslim Public Affairs Council Foundation will hold a Gaza Benefit Concert on Saturday, January 24th at USC Bovard Auditorium (map to USC Bovard Auditorium) to raise awareness of current crisis and raise money to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. Bringing together musicians, actors and civic leaders, the Gaza Benefit Concert is an opportunity to raise our voices for the voiceless people of Gaza, who are suffering horrifically from Israel’s attack on their neighborhoods. The event is organized by the MPAC Foundation and all proceeds will benefit Islamic Relief & KinderUSA, two humanitarian organizations who are working on the ground in Gaza today. Islamic Relief and KinderUSA are locally based organizations who are already working on the ground in Gaza to provide food, medicine and other much-needed supplies to the 1.5 million residents of Gaza.
As discussed in a previous post, a former U.S. Treasury Department linked KinderUSA to the Holy Land Foundation, recently convicted in the U.S. for terrorism financing in connection with Hamas. As the post noted, Riad Abdelkarim was a Chairman of the KinderUSA board as well as a Holy Foundation board member. He was also the Western Region communications director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood group that has strongly supported the Holy Land Foundation and itself was an outgrowth of the U.S. Hamas infrastructure.