The State Department cut ties with the Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) charity on January 19 after the charity had been plagued with allegations of anti-Semitism.
The conservative website Washington Free Beacon reported that the State Department had conducted a review of the charity and found there was “anti-Semitism exhibited repeatedly by IRW’s leadership.” The Dutch government has also said they would cease funding to IRW.
In October, the organization’s former interim CEO Tayeb Abdoun stepped down after it was revealed that he had posted on Facebook, “Lay the bodies of the Jews on the top of the mountains, so that no dog in Palestine must suffer hunger.:
Additionally, in August, the entire board of IRW’s Britain branch resigned after it was revealed that the charity’s new trustee had called Israel “the Zionist enemy,” praised Hamas members as “great men” following “holy call of the Muslim Brotherhood” and posted other anti-Semitic posts. Another trustee had called Jews “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs” on social media.
Lorenzo Vindino, director of the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told the Free Beacon, “The blatant anti-Semitism that large parts of the upper management of IRW have consistently displayed should disqualify them from any partnership with any government agency, irrespective of which administration is in the White House.”
The State Department ending ties with the charity had occurred in the last day of the Trump administration; it’s not known if the State Department under the new Biden administration will undo it.
UPDATE: An IRW spokesperson said in a statement to the Journal, “Islamic Relief Worldwide has a long record of partnership with USAID and the State Department and we look forward to this continuing under the new administration. We have strongly and repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism, and as soon as we discovered the social media posts we acted to ensure these individuals play no further role at Islamic Relief. Their unacceptable comments were completely against our values of mutual respect and interfaith collaboration. The UK’s regulator, the Charity Commission of England and Wales, has concluded that we acted swiftly and decisively to address this issue and has found no evidence of institutional anti-Semitism.”
