A Guardian report on damages awarded to the UK-based pro-Palestinian “charity” Interpal has obfuscated the organization’s terror ties.

The June 13 article by Matthew Weaver (“Daily Mail pays damages over hate festival allegations”) reported that the Daily Mail “paid £120,000 in damages plus costs to a UK-based humanitarian charity after the paper falsely accused it of funding a “hate festival” in Palestine that acted out the murder of Jews.

Though that particular charge appears to have been untrue, the Guardian journalist then goes on to downplay the fact that Interpal is widely reported to be affiliated with Hamas.

The second article, which appeared on the Mail Online website, referred to Interpal as a “specially designated global terrorist organisation.” It failed to mention that this referred to a contested designation made by the George Bush administration in 2003, which the charity has always denied and for which the US has provided no evidence. The Charity Commission investigated Interpal following the designation but found no grounds to change its charitable status.

However, the website of the US Treasury Department clearly outlines the reason for Interpal’s terror designation:

Interpal, headquartered in the UK, has been a principal charity utilized to hide the flow of money to HAMAS. Reporting indicates it is the conduit through which money flows to HAMAS from other charities, e.g., the Al Aqsa Foundation (designated under EO 13224 on May 29th) and oversees the activities of other charities. For example, the Sanabil Association for Relief and Development (designated as part of this tranche), represents Interpal in Lebanon. Reporting indicates that Interpal is the fundraising coordinator of HAMAS.  This role is of the type that includes supervising activities of charities, developing new charities in targeted areas, instructing how funds should be transferred from one charity to another, and even determining public relations policy.

The Guardian also fails to inform readers that, last year, following a complaint by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), credit card companies blocked Interpal’s donations due to their affiliation with terror groups. And in March of 2019, Facebook took similar action, blocking Interpal’s donations buttons from its platform — also due to a complaint by UKLFI. Interpal’s MyDonate crowdfunding account was frozen as well.

Reports have revealed that Interpal has long been providing funds to a number of charities run by senior Hamas members, and a report last year noted that Interpal leaders, such as Ibrahim Hewitt, don’t even try to hide their relationship with Hamas.

Interpal is not merely suspected of ties to Hamas; it openly works with Hamas. Interpal directors Essam Yusuf and Ibrahim Hewitt have regularly visited Gaza, where they have been honored at rallies led by Hamas leaders, prayed at the tombs of Hamas terrorists, and visited Hamas terrorists’ homes. In 2013, Yusuf even stood next to Hamas leaders in a videoed singalong praising the “martyrs” of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s suicide bombing wing.

Further, as a superb post at Harry’s Place demonstrated, Interpal — which, quite tellingly, funded Jeremy Corbyn’s 2013 trip to Gaza -– has long been a “key node of the Hamas support network in the UK,” providing “both material and political backing to the terrorist group.”

Once again, The Guardian has done what it does best: deceive readers by whitewashing the extremism and terror ties of pro-Palestinian “activists” by omitting widely available open-source information that definitively contradicts their desired narrative.

Adam Levick covers the British media for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.

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