Josh Paul: ICE arrests Dallas Muslim leader who contributed to a legal, registered charity 30 years ag.
Irina Naji Palestinian kids in Jail
_____________________________________________
(Josh Paul is a human rights activist and former director of congressional and public affairs for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, an agency within the United States Department of State. Paul resigned from his position in October 2023 in opposition to the Biden administration’s decision to continue arms transfers to Israel amid the Gaza war, making him the first Biden administration official to do so publicly). He is also, along with Tarik Habash, the founder of A New Policy – an organization dedicated to transforming American foreign policy toward Israel/Palestine to reflect American values and foundational principles of liberty, equality, democracy, and human rights; advancing American interests abroad; and protecting American freedoms at home.)
_____________________________________________
Imagine if, 30 years ago, you hired a clown for a charity fundraiser and donated some money to help an orphan. Years later, that charity was prosecuted for alleged malfeasance. And decades after that, as you drove to pick up your kid from school, you were swarmed by federal agents and thrown in prison for giving money to an IRS-registered charity to save the life of an orphan.
That is what has happened to Dallas, TX Muslim community leader, Marwan Marouf, detained by ICE in the past weeks on the basis of charitable acts he performed in good faith in the 1990s via an organization called the Holy Land Foundation that, in the 2000s, was shut down and prosecuted for alleged support to Hamas. These are the facts – the government does not dispute them. We can have a separate discussion about that case, and whether it was fair and just, but whatever its substance, Marouf’s minimal role, 30 years ago, and before any allegations against the charity were even filed, should be no basis whatsoever for the current attempt to deport him.
It’s because of Marouf’s case – and so many others like his around the country – that I joined the Muslim Legal Fund of America in Dallas, TX, this weekend for their annual meeting.
Across America, there is an effort to repress free speech that is critical of Israel using the flimsiest of excuses. We’ve seen students grabbed off the streets for writing op-eds, State Department officials fired for questioning Israel’s narrative, and social media sites like TikTok bought out by the biggest contributor to the Friends of the IDF (which, by the way, if you want to have a discussion about questionable charities…) in an effort to get the story of Gaza out of our ears, and off our screens.
But legal defense organizations are fighting back. The MLFA is one of them, as is Palestine Legal, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and many others. And now they, too, are under attack.
It’s easy to ignore the threat they face, and the causes they represent. What do organizations with words like “Muslim,” “Palestine,” or “American-Arab” have to do with my rights, you might ask?
But the fact is, they are the ones carrying the banner today for the constitutional rights of all Americans. If they lose these fights – if criticism of Israel is a criminal act, if the government can not only ban a charity, but hold liable everyone who supported it before it was banned – we are, all of us at risk.
So I was proud to stand with MLFA this weekend, and am grateful to them for the work they are carrying out every single day, at immense personal risk and with courage, professionalism, and – I have to say – swagger – to fight for the rights and freedoms on which these United States were founded.
Read about Marouf’s case here: https://lnkd.in/edRm6Hfu
Visit and support the MLFA here: https://mlfa.org/
Support the MLFA here: https://mlfa.org/
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 