Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) called for a federal investigation into whether a pro-Palestinian group is supporting Jew-hatred and terror.
Gottheimer, who is Jewish, asked the U.S. Department of Justice on Sunday to investigate the Palestinian American Community Center after Wisam Rafeedie, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was scheduled to speak via video feed at the center’s conference that day in Clifton, N.J.
The PFLP is a U.S.-designated foreign terror organization.
“Rafeedie has a long history of supporting terrorism and engaging in antisemitic rhetoric,” Gottheimer, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.
Rafeedie last addressed the community center’s conference in May 2024, when he defended Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. He also rejected Hamas’s atrocities and said that “Zionists lie like they breathe” and declared support for “one democratic Palestinian state on all Palestinian land, which will end the Zionist project in Palestine,” Gottheimer stated.
The community center also receives backing from American Muslims for Palestine, which is being investigated by the office of the Virginia attorney general and the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions for its support of Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Gottheimer said that the investigation should focus on whether the Palestinian American Community Center has violated U.S. law, including possible violations of the Anti-Terrorism Act that bans material support for terrorist groups as well as attempts to do so.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) was a listed speaker at the same conference.
