Sham Palestinian Charity Sanctioned Over Work With Hamas Has Also Partnered With Elite US Universities

Addameer, now on the Treasury Department’s list of terror financiers, has partnered with universities like Harvard, Yale, and Cornell to spread anti-Israel propaganda

A sham Palestinian charity added to the U.S. terrorist sanctions list this week has worked closely with elite American universities—including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia—to promote anti-Israel propaganda.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said the West Bank-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which describes itself as a “civil institution that works to support Palestinian political prisoners,” has “long supported and is affiliated” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist group that took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

The designation came as part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown against “fraudulent” charities linked to Hamas and the PFLP, which includes sanctions against five other organizations.

Addameer has a long history of partnering with prominent colleges and student groups to push unverified allegations against Israel, a Washington Free Beacon review found.

Addameer’s 2019 annual report listed multiple meetings it held “with its friends and partners,” including many of the groups at the center of the anti-Israel campus movement: Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia Law School, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, Adalah, and the Arab American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Addameer took credit in its report for helping to organize an “event by students from Columbia University shortly after their return from Palestine. The students used the information we gave them during the brief and afterwards.”

Addameer added that “students from different universities in the U.S.” filmed its briefings, screening the footage during events.

In 2022, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic partnered with Addameer to submit a joint report to the United Nations accusing Israel of the “crime of apartheid under international law.”

The report pushed false claims about Israel, including allegations that it has a system of “Jewish Israeli supremacy” and a “deliberate policy of land confiscation, dispossession, and illegal settlement.”

Yale Law School’s Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic also submitted letters to the U.N. in support of Addameer, demanding that Israel “immediately release Palestinian prisoners”—many of whom are members of the PFLP and other terrorist groups—during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Yale statement in support of Addameer expressed “solidarity with Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel,” described Israel as an “occupying power,” and claimed that its prisoners “endure torture, acts of violence, and widespread medical negligence.”

Addameer published a similar call to release prisoners endorsed by the Cornell Law School International Human Rights Clinic.

Harvard, Yale, and Cornell did not respond to a request for comment.

Addameer officials also speak regularly at U.S. campus events. Last year, the University of Chicago’s Student Justice for Palestine and the Organization of Black Students hosted an event featuring the group. Barnard College also hosted two Addameer members in 2018. Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies held events with the organization in 2020 and 2021.

Pro-Israel watchdog group NGO Monitor applauded the Trump administration’s decision to sanction Addameer.

“The US government’s designation of Addameer follows the earlier ban on Samidoun and highlights the abuse of NGO frameworks by Palestinian terror groups,” NGO Monitor president Gerald Steinberg said. “The designation also puts pressure on Spain to end its funding for Addameer, and, with other European countries, to review all support for the Palestinian NGO network.”

Israel designated Addameer as a terror organization in 2021 owing to its operations “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.” The group’s former vice-chairperson Khalida Jarrar was arrested in Israel for terrorist activities in 2019 and identified by the Shin Bet as the “head of the PFLP in the West Bank responsible for all the organization’s activities,” the Jerusalem Post reported at the time.

Several other former Addameer board members and employees are convicted terrorists and members of the PFLP, according to NGO Monitor.