Book Talks
Israeli-American author and activist Miko Peled spoke before an audience of about 200 at the Iowa State Historical Museum on April 12 about his new book,Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five, and the on-going humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“The story of the Holy Land Foundation is the story of what used to be America’s largest Muslim charity, and it is a story of the persecution of Arabs and Muslims here in the United States,“ said Peled.
“The Holy Land Foundation was dedicated to Palestine and was run by Palestinian Muslims, Americans who lived here in America, but they did a lot of good in a lot of places. Their impact in Palestine was tremendous, but they were not only focused on Palestine. They were there after the Oklahoma City bombing to provide relief; they were there after tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes around the world,“ said Peled.
Beginning “in the early and mid ’90s,” Peled said, “the Holy Land Foundation was targeted by Zionist groups including “the Anti-Defamation League, which likes to present itself as a civil rights organization but is really a fascist, racist, terror-supporting organiation.”
The ADL, “spearheaded a campaign to bring down the Holy Land Foundation... spreading rumors that they were connected to Hamas, that they were funding terrorism… They approached the IRS trying to revoke their non-for-profit status... they got the FBI to begin an investigation,” said Peled.
After 9/11, in the atmosphere of panic and hysteria, “George Bush declared them to be a terrorist organization, closed them down without due process using an executive order, and had all their assets frozen. ... But they were not worried, because they did everything right. They said, ‘Here in America, if you do everything right, and you’re honest, and you keep records, and you pay your taxes, then you’re going to be OK,’” said Peled.
The problem, explained Peled, was that the Holy Land Foundation was “doing really good work, they were gaining a good reputation, they were presenting the Palestinian story in a light was endangering the [Israeli] “narrative, and that narrative is that Palestinians are guilty, Palestinians are terrorists, and because of that they had to be taken down.”
In the first criminal trial against the men who became known as the Holy Land Five, the government produced poorly translated documents and “they brought in two expert witnesses, Israeli nationals, who testified anonymously. This was unprecedented, the first time in the history of the United States that a court allowed this. One claimed to be a member of the Israeli secret police, the Shabak, and the other claimed to be an officer in Israeli military intelligence,” said Peled.
When defense lawyers proved that there was no evidence that any of the charity’s funds had gone to support terrorism, “these expert witnesses said that that didn’t matter because they could smell Hamas. This was said in a court of law. This was testimony in a court of law,” declared Peled.
The first trial ended with no convictions, a hung jury. About a year later, the government changed the indictment, rearranged the charges, and the second judge allowed in evidence and testimony that the first judge excluded. That trial ended in convictions, said Peled.
The men were sentenced to 15 to 65 years in prison: Shukri Abu-Baker (65 years), Ghassan Elashi (65 years), Mufid Abdulqader (20 years), Abdulrahman Odeh (15 years), and Mohammad Elmezain (15 years). Appeals failed, and President Obama declined to pardon the men.
“So today, we have five good men, five honest men, five of the finest men you will ever meet, innocent men, in federal prison, and the only reason they are in prison is because they are Palestinian and Muslim,” declared Peled, who met with their attorneys and later visited with four of the five in prison in while performing research for his book.
Using the terms “apartheid” and “genocide,” Peled went on to deliver a scathing critique of Israeli policies.
Gaza is “worse than a prison. In a prison you get water and food and some health care. Two million people live in the Gaza Strip today; 98 percent of the water is not fit for drinking. The highest rate in the world of children with kidney failure is in the Gaza Strip,” said Peled.
Peled’s presentation in Des Moines was sponsored by the Middle East Peace Education Coalition, STAR*PAC, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Des Moines, and the Iowa Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action.
—Michael Gillespie
