Senator Warren:

We are writing to express our concern and disbelief regarding your participation as a presenter in the upcoming Palestinian Digital Advocacy Forum (PDAF) Conference that is taking place on June 4-5, 2024.

You should immediately pull out of this Conference.

Have you taken the time to read the bios of your co-presenters? Of prior speakers? Of conference sponsors? Have you reviewed their affiliations and missions?

No government official at your level should contribute their time, prestige or platform to PDAF’s propagandist and terrorist-linked program.

PDAF is using you and trying to co-opt your position as an elected American official and also one serving on an important strategic committee to support their distorted agenda. Your decision to associate yourself with this propagandist conference whose content is in direct opposition to US policy and interests calls your judgment and leadership into question.

Below, we prove that PDAF speakers, affiliates and sponsors are affiliated with terrorist ideology, and espouse values that are in direct conflict with US policy and liberties relating to our allies, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights.

The Conference features several individuals whose affiliations and actions raise substantial red flags. Examples include Neveen Abu Rahmoun, Ahmad Qadi, and Marwa Hanna. (1)

Neveen Abu Rahmoun is a presenter and a member of 7Amleh’s Board of Directors. In October 2023, Neveen Abu Rahmoun, posted on Facebook following the Hamas attack on Israel, “The Palestine resistance is imposing a new stage since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa flood operation by resistance fighters infiltrating into numerous Israeli neighborhoods and settlements … The message of the resistance is clear, it has started and it shall escalate and shall impose a new reality." As you are aware, resistance in this context is a euphemism for Hamas and other terrorist groups.

As early as December 2015, Abu Rahmoun shared a poster featuring Samir Kuntar. Note that in April, 1979, Kuntar brutally murdered a family, among them a 4-year-old girl and an Israeli police officer. In December of 2015, The US Department of State designated Samir Kuntar as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.

Ahmad Qadi is also a presenter and 7amleh’s Monitoring and Documentation Officer and Databank Coordinator for Al-Haq. In October 2021, Al-Haq was branded a terrorist organization by Israel, together with five other Palestinian non-profit, non-governmental organizations.

Marwa Hanna is a presenter and Digital Capacity Building Manager for 7amleh. As early as October 2015, Hanna shared content featuring antisemitic tropes on social media.

It is disturbing that a US Senator would seek to share a stage with any of these hateful, terrorist-linked speakers.

A review of prior PDAF Conference programs identifies past presenters that include US Representative Rashida Tlaib, recently found to be affiliated with terrorist groups. Tlaib has been linked to 3 former-imprisoned Hamas’s activists Salah Sarsour, Rafiq Jaber, and Abdbasrt Hamayel. Her social media posts on Facebook through her PAC, Palestinian American Congress-USA, was said to include Nazi propaganda, antisemitic and pro-terrorism content until taken down. Tlaib also founded Black4Palestine, which besides co-opting a black racial profile, can be described as an anti-American, anti-Israel and pro terror hate group. (2)

Another former PDAF speaker was UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, who wrote about Hamas’s October 7 massacre, “Today’s violence must be put in context,” instead of condemning Hamas terrorism. Additionally, both President Biden and the US State Department have rejected Albanese’s reporting as antisemitic.

Not only are PDAF current and prior speakers grossly anathema to Western values, but also, PDAF affiliates and sponsors stand in sharp contrast to what we, as US citizens, stand for.

PDAF affiliates include 7amleh, Arab Fact Checkers Network (AFCN), and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) - groups attempting to serve as false fronts to white-wash the Conference’s extreme ideology and rhetoric. For example, ARIJ has been linked with many controversial statements including the May 2022 petition titled “The Return Appeal” calling on the UN to delegitimize Israel and impose BDS as a means to “ending the current apartheid regime.’

And where were AFCN “fact-checkers” when the Hamas Health Ministry released misleading casualty figures, or to decry the participation of Palestinian journalists in the October 7 massacre? (3)

PDAF sponsors include terrorist-linked organizations such as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), parent organization of National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), currently under federal investigation for charitable fraud and for serving as Hamas’s propaganda division in the US. Just like Hamas, these organizations are branches of the Muslim Brotherhood with the joint objective of the destruction of all Jewish people, the State of Israel, and Western Civilization. (4) SJP’s campaign of violence, harassment, intimidation and disruption has created a hostile environment on university campuses across our country.

Another PDAF sponsor is Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) which has advocated on behalf of Palestinian terrorists such as Ahmed Sa’adat and Rasmea Odeh and regularly justifies/excuses Palestinian violence in addition to drawing false blood libelous parallels between the treatment of African-Americans and Palestinians, by blaming Israel and US Jewish groups for racism and police brutality in the US. (5)

In short, you are choosing to affiliate with organizations whose missions undermine our democracy.

This is shocking, not only because PDAF’s values do not align with the values of the US which you were elected to serve and represent, but also, PDAF does not share your perspective on women’s rights. Nor do they share the mission and goals of EMILY’s List, one of your strongest contributors, and America’s largest resource dedicated to electing democratic, pro-choice women to office. (6) Therefore, it is incomprehensible that you would share a podium and present at an event that is opposed to abortion and women’s rights!

By associating with this Conference, you also betray your LGBTQ constituents who would be persecuted and subjected to violence in Gaza.

As you are aware, Israel is the only country in that region whose values with respect to women, women’s health, and LGBTQ rights align with your personal values and the Western progressive liberal values of the US.

How can you turn a blind eye to PDAF’s lack of alignment and advocacy for these critical issues? Are these journalists demanding the release of innocent civilian hostages- women, children, elderly? Do they care about human rights or just Palestinian rights? What example does your participation at PDAF set for women & LGBTQ persons everywhere?

It is abhorrent to us, as Americans, that this Palestinian Digital ADVOCACY Forum Conference does not include: (i) advocating for the return of American and foreign civilian hostages
immediately and unharmed, (ii) advocating for transparency in Gaza’s accounting for US taxpayer-funded foreign aid that did not elevate Palestinian quality of life but instead likely built a terror tunnel network, (iii) a denouncement of “Hamas’s ministry of Health” lies and the October 7 role of Palestinian journalists who helped video and document the massacre alongside Hamas’s fighters, (iv) advocating for enhanced, democratic Palestinian self-governance, and (v) advocating for peaceful values and a path to PA statehood that recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

PDAF deliberately excludes these critical topics because their agenda LACKS integrity and credibility.

You now have a choice. Your reputation will forever be associated with your decision to align with America and your values, or be party and complicit to terrorist, anti- American rhetoric and virtue signaling.

You should immediately pull out of this Conference.

Signed as a proud American,


____________________
Please contact Gerard Filitti at Gerard@thelawfareproject.org with any questions.



Footnotes:

(1) Board of Directors, Speakers, & Staff of PDAF:Addameer, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International – Palestine, the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees; www.ngo-monitor.org; https://www.ngo-monitor.org/reports/7amlehs-gaslighting/

(2) Canary mission 10/25/23 twitter post and Jerusalem Post 10/26/23

(3) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2024/05/17/un-death-toll-change-gaza-fact-check/73737102007/ and
https://m.jpost.com/opinion/article-772565

(4) Tress, “Republican Senators Demand IRS Investigate Sponsor of SJP,” 5/14/2024 ,Times of Israel. & www.adl.org

(5) NGO Monitor

(6) www.opensecrets.org