Has the Federal Government Dismantled Hamas’s U.S. Networks? No

Two years after the October 7 attacks on Israel, the U.S. government has failed to prosecute a single member of the American Islamist networks that subsidize Hamas terror.

There is no shortage of targets for investigation and prosecution, as detailed in a dozen investigative pieces published over the past two years, which illustrate American 501(c) charities’ direct contact and coordination with Hamas politburo members and ministries in Gaza, as well as financial transfers with designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, among other apparent crimes.

Why has the government failed to act? Both Democrats and Republicans in office increasingly appear willing to turn a blind eye to Islamist threats in their pursuit of votes.

The last prosecutions of Hamas entities in the United States occurred with the incoming Obama administration in 2008, which explicitly embraced Islamists overseas and dropped prosecutions at home.

Second, U.S. authorities continue to believe Islamist charities can be partners in the battle against Salafi jihad. Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted in congressional testimony: “One official candidly told me that suspected Hamas activists in the United States were viewed then as protected sources in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group.” Intelligence officials explicitly discourage action against domestic Hamas organizations.

In August, the Department of Justice appeared to abandon its decades-long effort to deport Mohammad Qatanani, an accused member of Hamas and a prominent Islamist imam at a Hamas-aligned mosque in New Jersey.

A few weeks later, upon the president’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization, the Justice Department immediately instructed six different offices to plan the investigation of far-left radical financing infrastructure in the 501(c) system.

Islamist networks operate with impunity, it seems, because officials in Washington persistently choose not to act against them.