In August 2006, two American Muslim charities were donors to an overseas organization while that organization personally brought close to $100,000 to the home of the head of Hamas. The two are still affiliated with this organization, an entity which curses and calls for resistance against the United States. This being the case, why do they continue to enjoy the privilege of having a federal U.S. tax exempt status?
Why do they even continue to exist at all?
The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) has two charities — ICNA Relief and Helping Hand (HH). Both have a non-profit 501(c)3 tax status with the United States government, as does ICNA itself. ICNA Relief also has a Canadian component, which has a separate exempt status.
Due to the nature of the work these groups perform — that of Islamic relief work — much of their activities are based in foreign nations. One of these nations is Pakistan.
Pakistan is important to ICNA, because it is where the group’s parent organization, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), resides.
It’s ironic that ICNA, an American group, would be associated with JI, as JI is rabidly anti-American. The organization is currently involved in its Go America Go campaign, working tirelessly to remove any type of American influence from South Asia. Right on the homepage of JI’s official website is the following:All Pakistani forces must unite against America.A recent entry of the blog on JI’s website was written by an individual named Khalid Amayreh. Amayreh is presently a correspondent for the Palestinian Information Center, the official website of Hamas. He is also the author of an infamous piece titled “Why I hate America?” In it, he states:How can I not hate this “great Satan,” the evil empire? … [In] the final analysis, America offers me one of two choices: Either I submissively accept perpetual enslavement and oppression or become an Osama bin Laden.Amayreh’s article was originally published in the London-based Palestine Times in November 2001. On September 12, 2006, one day after the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it was republished by Amayreh and the Times, along with a photo of an American flag (with an Israeli flag in place of the stars) superimposed over a plane flying into the World Trade Center.
JI, or the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, is the largest Islamist organization in South Asia. It has student groups; it has media outlets; it has a political apparatus; and it has a militant wing, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, whose leader, Syed Salahudin, is involved in JI’s Go America Go campaign. It also has its own charitable group, the Al-Khidmat Foundation (AKF).
On August 17, 2006, JI posted on its official website that AKF had just taken a delegation to the home of the global head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal. The reason for the visit was to deliver six million rupees, the equivalent of $99,000, to Mashaal and to present to him a “special message” from the then-ameer (president) of JI, Qazi Hussain Ahmed. In turn, Mashaal thanked the group and said Hamas will continue to wage jihad (terror) against Israel.
At the time of the handover of the money, ICNA’s two charities, ICNA Relief and HH, were listed as donors to AKF on AKF’s official website. ICNA Relief USA and ICNA Relief Canada were listed as the top two donors.