JERUSALEM – The Biden administration is facing new calls for sanctions against Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network, which has ties to the Iranian regime and the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas.
Germany outlawed Samidoun in November, and Israel designated the Palestinian group a terrorist organisation in 2021.
“If the United States is serious about dealing with the pro-Hamas mobs that have wreaked havoc on American college campuses, it must take steps to ban Samidoun and investigate their allies and supporters,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told Fox News Digital.
Samidoun has chapters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Iran, and many European countries, including Sweden, France and Spain.
German Interior Minister Nancy Fasser said: November statement, “Today I banned all activity in Germany of Hamas, a terrorist organization whose goal is the destruction of the State of Israel. Samidoun is an international network that spreads anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda while claiming to promote solidarity with prisoners in different countries. Samidoun has supported and praised various foreign terrorist organizations, including Hamas…Banning Hamas and Samidoun and disbanding Samidoun Deutschland will put an end to these hateful demonstrations in Germany.”
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Samidoun protesters rally in Cologne, Germany. (Ying Tan/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
She added that “the spontaneous ‘celebrations’ held in Germany following the horrific Hamas terror attacks in Israel revealed in a particularly abhorrent way Samidoun’s anti-Semitism and absolute indifference to human life.”
Asked about the German and Israeli bans on Samidoun, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital: “We are aware that Germany has banned the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. We do not comment on deliberations or potential deliberations regarding the US terrorism designation process.”
A State Department spokesman added: “Unlike many of our foreign partners, the United States cannot designate an organization solely for hate speech under the First Amendment. Under the law, to designate any group as a foreign terrorist organization, the Secretary of State must determine that the organization is a foreign organization engaged in terrorist activities that threaten the safety of American people or our national security.”
However, terrorism experts say Samidoun’s ties to US-designated terrorist organisations, including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), meet the criteria for a travel ban.
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German Interior Minister Nancy Faser spoke after the Federal Cabinet meeting. (Sebastian Gollnow/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
Samidoun’s role in pro-Hamas protests on university campuses has drawn increased scrutiny from experts.
On May 16, counterterrorism expert and Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) executive director Steven Stalinsky wrote on Fox News’ op-ed page: “A coalition of jihadi student organizations in Gaza, representing Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP and others, has also supported the American students. A ‘solidarity’ statement with the ‘American Student Intifada’, translated into English and released by the PFLP-affiliated Samidoun on April 25, praised American students for ‘standing up to end Zionist and US genocide’ and for ‘efforts to transform the university into a ‘People’s University of Gaza.'”
MEMRI also posted a video of a speech by Charlotte Cates, Samidoun’s international coordinator who lives in Canada. He praised Hamas’ genocide. Hamas killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel in October, and on October 7, Hamas killed more than 30 Americans and kidnapped more than 250.
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Anti-Israel activists protested at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. (Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“We’re not going to let this virus get to us,” Cates said in Vancouver, British Columbia on April 26. “We demand freedom for Palestine from the river to the sea. And we support the Palestinian resistance and their heroic and courageous action on the 7th of October. As they said, Long live the 7th of October! And we say today: Long live the 7th of October!”
Canadian authorities arrested Cates for making terrorist speeches in support of Hamas. Across the Atlantic, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul dissolved and outlawed the NGO Palestine Solidarity Duisburg on May 16 for supporting Hamas and Samidoun.
“This ban comes at the right time and sends the right message. In many cases, solidarity with Palestine hides nothing but hatred for Jews, as is the case with the organizations banned today. We will use all legal means to fight anti-Semitism and ideological support for terrorism. Today, the state has taken a clear stance against extremism,” Reul said.
However, the ban on Samidoun and its activities in Germany has not been a complete success. Dr. Raphael Korenzescher, publisher of the German Jewish newspaper Jewish Review (Jüdische Rundschau in German), told Fox News Digital that “the half-hearted ban on Samidoun and Hamas still leaves a lot of room for anti-Semitic activity and is far too late. It is merely an excuse for responsible political actors to divert attention from the root cause.”
According to a recently published domestic intelligence report from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia: Hamas operatives rise to power It is expected to grow from 150 in 2022 to 175 in 2023. In 2003, Germany, along with the EU, formally sanctioned Hamas as a terrorist organization, but Germany did not strictly enforce the ban, making it a hotbed of Hamas membership, recruitment and fundraising.
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German police confront anti-Israel protesters in front of Humboldt University in Berlin. (Michelle Tantucci/Getty Images)
The German state of Baden-Württemberg has taken a loose stance on Hamas. The state’s Green governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has refused to ban the Palestine Committee Stuttgart, an NGO that has raised funds for Samidoun. Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, has allowed the Palestine Committee Stuttgart’s contact information to be posted on the city’s webpage.
Professor Michael Wolfsohn, a prominent German-Jewish historian and commentator on contemporary anti-Semitism and Islamism, told Fox News Digital that Germany’s “structural problems” can be traced to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies: “It’s not just a matter of 2015-2016. Hundreds of thousands of times, Islamic anti-Semites were allowed into the country unchecked. Only right-wing extremism was given attention, which is certainly dangerous, and left-wing extremism was downplayed as a partner of Islamists.”
“This isn’t just a federal issue. State and local governments have to be considered as well,” Wolfson warned, noting that this included “police and law enforcement.”
The future of Jews in Germany looks bleak, given the outbreak of mass Jew-hatred since October 7. Last week alone, some 4,000 German Muslims, leftists and ordinary Germans protested against Israel in front of the main synagogue in Munich, Bavaria.
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“Jewish life in Germany is becoming increasingly impossible,” Korenzecher said. “Illegal immigration from Muslim-majority countries, where hatred for Jews and Israel is partly propagated by the state and is effectively part of its raison d’être, is an existential threat to Jewish life.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Samidoun for comment.
