1993 Philadelphia meeting

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The 1993 Philadelphia meeting was a gathering held from October 1 to 3, 1993, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, bringing together several leaders of the Palestine Committee,^[a] a network established by the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood to coordinate support for Hamas in the United States. Held a few weeks after the signing of the Oslo Accords, the meeting was intended to define a joint strategy in response to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process and to adapt the activities of American organizations affiliated with the movement to the new political situation.^[2]

The meeting was secretly monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which recorded the discussions in full. The recordings and transcripts were introduced years later as evidence in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the largest terrorism-financing prosecution in United States history.^[3]

According to Lorenzo Vidino, the abundance of original sources released during the Holy Land Foundation trial, including the Philadelphia transcripts, makes the Muslim Brotherhood's organized attempt to influence American policy makers and public debate on the Palestinian issue particularly well documented.^[4]

Background

Hamas was founded in December 1987, at the start of the First Intifada, as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. In its early years, several members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian branch based in the United States set up a network to support the movement's political, charitable, and media activities. This network, known as the Palestine Committee,^{[by whom?]} was formed in the late 1980s under the leadership of Mousa Abu Marzook, then Hamas's chief representative in the United States.^[5]

The Palestine Committee was not a single organization but a network coordinating several associations founded or led by its members. Its main constituent organizations were the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which handled communications and outreach, and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), which specialized in humanitarian work and fundraising. A third organization, the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), served as a think tank, producing analysis of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and organizing conferences.^[5]

These organizations helped build Hamas's American infrastructure by handling fundraising, communications, and political-support activities, while benefiting from civic or charitable status recognized under American law.^[2]

The signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on September 13, 1993, marked a turning point for the movement. While the PLO recognized Israel and entered a negotiating process, Hamas rejected the accords. According to Vidino, the Palestine Committee strongly opposed the treaty and feared that Hamas could soon become the target of U.S. government action.^[6]

This development led Palestine Committee^{[clarification needed]} leaders to convene an extraordinary meeting to assess the consequences of the Oslo Accords and define a joint strategy for the American organizations supporting Hamas.^[7] Its purpose, in Levitt's summary, was to devise a coordinated strategy for opposing the Israeli–Palestinian peace process and adapting fundraising and support activities to the new political situation.^[2]

Organization

The meeting was held from October 1 to 3, 1993, at a Marriott hotel near Philadelphia's airport. According to an FBI report cited by Matthew Levitt, seventeen attendees, described as senior Hamas leaders, took part.^[8] Lorenzo Vidino writes that the closed-door meeting brought together some twenty top leaders of the Hamas support network in the United States.^[9]

Discussions focused mainly on the political consequences of the Oslo Accords, on adapting the activities of Hamas-linked American organizations, and on continuing their fundraising and communications work, according to Levitt.^[2]

Attendees represented the main organizations making up the Palestine Committee,^{[clarification needed]} including the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).^[10]

Proceedings

The discussions took place behind closed doors over three days. Unbeknownst to the participants, the conversations were recorded by the FBI as part of an investigation into several American organizations suspected of supporting Hamas.^[3]

Participants repeatedly used coded language to avoid explicitly naming Hamas, which was referred to as "Samah" (its name spelled backward) or simply as "the movement."^[11]

The transcripts also show several speakers stressing the need to present the activities of the American organizations as independent humanitarian or educational initiatives. According to court records, Shukri Abu Baker recommended describing the meeting, if its purpose were ever raised publicly, as a simple "workshop" jointly organized by HLF and IAP.^[3]

Attendees

According to Vidino, attendees represented the three organizations making up the Palestine Committee: the IAP was represented by its president Omar Ahmed, its director of public relations Nihad Awad, and Akram Kharroubi, head of its Washington office; HLF founder and president Shukri Abu Baker and treasurer Ghassan Elashi also attended.^[10] Levitt's list of participants, based on FBI records, additionally includes Abdelhaleem Hasan al-Ashqar, Mohammad al-Hanooti, Ismail Elbarasse, Muin Kamel Mohammad Shabib, identified at trial as a Hamas leader, and HLF executive director Haitham Maghawri.^[12]

More information Attendee, Role in 1993 ...

Attendee	Role in 1993	Organization
Shukri Abu Baker	President	Holy Land Foundation
Ghassan Elashi	Chairman of the Board	Holy Land Foundation
Omar Ahmad	President	Islamic Association for Palestine
Nihad Awad	Director of Public Relations	Islamic Association for Palestine
Abdelhaleem Ashqar	Academic	Palestine Committee
Ismail Elbarasse	Official	Palestine Committee

FBI surveillance

The meeting was placed under surveillance by the FBI as part of an investigation opened in the early 1990s into several American organizations suspected of ties to Hamas.^[3]

Federal authorities obtained authorization to record the participants' conversations, and the discussions were captured in full and later transcribed. The recordings remained confidential for more than a decade before being entered into the record in the Holy Land Foundation case.^[13]

Use in the Holy Land Foundation trial

The meeting's transcripts were introduced as evidence in both trials of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, in 2007 and 2008, before the federal court for the Northern District of Texas.^[14]

The prosecution argued that the recorded conversations illustrated the relationships between several American organizations and Hamas, as well as the strategy adopted after the Oslo Accords. The transcripts were used alongside numerous other pieces of evidence, including internal Palestine Committee documents, financial records, and trial testimony.^[3]

In November 2008, five Holy Land Foundation leaders were convicted of providing material support to Hamas. The convictions were upheld on appeal by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 7, 2011,^[3] and became final on October 29, 2012, when the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case.^[15]

Historiography

The meeting is presented by Matthew Levitt as an important step in the evolution of the American support network for Hamas after the Oslo Accords.^[2]^[16]

In The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2010), Lorenzo Vidino devotes a chapter section to the meeting and its aftermath, analyzing the transcripts as a key source on the internal workings of the Palestine Committee and on the strategy of dissimulation adopted by its member organizations.^[17]

In 2007, the NEFA Foundation published a report by Josh Lefkowitz, subtitled A Roadmap for Future Muslim Brotherhood Actions in the U.S., which analyzed the meeting's discussions in detail and traced their connections to the 1994 founding of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the subsequent activities of the organizations involved.^[18]

Steven Emerson also discusses the meeting as part of his analysis of Hamas support networks in the United States, though without devoting a specific study to it.^[19]

References

[1]
Vidino 2010, pp. 183–184: "The amended bylaws of the Palestine Committee, drafted in 1991, had already expressed the wish to establish one additional organization in the future."
[2]
Levitt 2006, pp. 147–149.
[3]
United States v. El-Mezain, 664 F.3d 467 (5th Cir. 2011) (full text).
[4]
Vidino 2010, p. 177: "Given the abundance of relevant original sources released during the HLF trial, the Brotherhood's organized attempt to influence American policy makers and public debate on the Palestinian issue is particularly revealing."
[5]
Vidino 2010, pp. 177–178: "The result of the meeting was the formation of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, a subgroup of the American Brotherhood made up mostly of members of Palestinian origin. Reflecting the traditional pyramidal structure of Brotherhood organizations, the committee was composed of three U.S.-based organizations that had been set up to aid the Islamic movement in Palestine: the general purpose Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), the financial arm represented by the Occupied Land Fund (which later became the Holy Land Foundation), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). The committee was headed by Musa Abu Marzook, a native of the Gaza Strip who had obtained his doctorate in industrial engineering in Louisiana and currently serves as the deputy chairman of the Damascus-based political bureau of Hamas."
[6]
Vidino 2010, p. 178: "Things began to change in August 1993, when PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Peace Accords. The Palestine Committee went into fibrillation, strongly opposing the peace treaty and also fearing that Hamas could soon become the target of U.S. actions."
[7]
Vidino 2010, p. 178: "Realizing the huge repercussions that the Oslo agreement could have had not only on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also on their activities inside the United States, the members decided to convene an extraordinary three-day meeting in Philadelphia."
[8]
Levitt 2006, p. 147: "According to an FBI report describing the conclave, the seventeen attendees 'discussed the "Holy Land Fund" and the "El-Aqsa Fund"' and also held a brief discussion about 'collecting money in an effort to support uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza.'"
[9]
Vidino 2010, p. 178: "Held at a Marriott hotel near the city's airport, the closed-door meeting was attended by some twenty top leaders of the Hamas support network in the United States."
[10]
Vidino 2010, pp. 178–179: "Attending the meeting were representatives of the three organizations making up the Palestine Committee. Following a common pattern, most were united by blood ties and lived in tightly knit communities in the three American cities that have traditionally hosted the largest clusters of Hamas supporters: Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. The IAP was represented by its president, Omar Ahmed; its director of public relations, Nihad Awad; and the head of its Washington office, Akram Kharroubi, who would later become HLF's representative in Ramallah. HLF founder and president Shukri Abu Baker, whose brother Jamal was the head of Hamas in Sudan and later in Yemen, and Dallas-based treasurer Ghassan Elashi, whose cousin is married to Marzook, also attended."
[11]
Levitt 2006, p. 148: "Instead they referred to it simply as 'the Movement' or as 'Samah' (Hamas spelled backwards)."
[12]
Levitt 2006, pp. 147–148: "They included Abdelhaleem Hasan al-Ashqar, Akram Kharroubi, Mohammad al-Hanooti, Ismail Elbarasse, Muin Kamel Mohammad Shabib, HLFRD CEO Shukri Abu Baker, executive director Haitham Maghawri, chairman of the board (and later vice president of international marketing) Ghassan Elashi, and others."
[13]
Vidino 2010, p. 178: "Unbeknownst to the participants, the FBI had placed wiretaps inside the hotel, taping most of the conversations that took place behind the doors of the conference room. The transcripts of many conversations were introduced as evidence during the HLF trial."
[14]
"Federal Jury in Dallas Convicts Holy Land Foundation and Its Leaders for Providing Material Support to Hamas Terrorist Organization" (Press release). United States Department of Justice. November 24, 2008.
[15]
"US Supreme Court denies appeal of Holy Land Foundation convictions". The Times of Israel. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. October 29, 2012.
[16]
Levitt, Matthew (October 14, 2025). "Hamas Is Not Done Fighting: As It Has in the Past, the Group Will Retrench and Rearm". Foreign Affairs.
[17]
Vidino 2010, pp. 177–186.
[18]
Lefkowitz, Josh (November 15, 2007). The 1993 Philadelphia Meeting: A Roadmap for Future Muslim Brotherhood Actions in the U.S. (Report). NEFA Foundation.
[19]
Emerson, Steven (2002). American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-3435-9.

[a]
The name "Palestine Committee" comes from the organization's own internal documents, including a 1991 document titled "Suggested Amendments to the Bylaws of the Palestine Committee", seized by the FBI at the home of Ismail Elbarasse and entered into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial.^[1] The term is used in the scholarly literature by Vidino and appears throughout the trial record; it designates the coordinating structure rather than a formally incorporated entity.