Ghassan Elashi, co-founder of the Holy Land Foundation, speaks with the media on Dec. 5, 2001, during a press conference in Richardson, Texas. (Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Today, July 27, marks 20 years since the charges against the Holy Land Foundation were initially filed, all five men had their homes raided by police. Join Samidoun Network as they call for all friends and supporters to join the campaign to free the Holy Land 5!
In May of 2024 Samidoun launched a Week of Action to free the Holy Land 5 to commemorate 15 years since their sentencing and conviction. The Week of Action signified a renewed commitment and a critical piece of an ongoing campaign, including teach-ins and other events to educate communities in the U.S. and internationally about the horrific injustice of the case of the Holy Land 5.
Samidoun Network, along with friends and supporters in the U.S. and internationally, will not stop until they see the release of Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi, two founders of the Holy Land Foundation, who are both serving 65 year sentences, the longest of the five Holy Land Foundation founders who were imprisoned in 2008.
35 years ago, in the year 1989, Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi came up with a plan to serve Palestinians in need – orphans, widows, and the homeless – in their shared occupied homeland. They quit their jobs and made that dream come alive, all while building hope, prosperity, and community among their own Palestinian American community.
By 1990, in Richardson, Texas, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development had been officially founded. The Holy Land Foundation was staggeringly successful. It provided Palestinians in the U.S. with an easy and trustworthy means of providing financial support to their community in Palestine.
Its founders found a way to support their own families through working for the foundation, while also supporting the needy in Palestine, and created an extended Holy Land Foundation family. In the words of Nida Abu Baker, daughter of Shukri Abu Baker,
“There was something everywhere for you to look at, just like always in awe. Always daydreaming, pretending that you’re in Palestine – because my dad made it look like you’re in a Palestinian Village. It was truly amazing. We had summer camps there, youth camps, there would be kids there all the time on field trips, they would learn about humanitarian aid, and they’d learn about the work the Holy Land Foundation would do, and they would volunteer. It was just a wonderful place to be.”
The HLF’s unrelenting work for the Palestinian people continued successfully for many years until it was shut down in 2001, under an executive order issued by President George Bush.
The “Holy Land 5” or “HLF 5” refers to the 5 men who were imprisoned following U.S. government attacks on the Holy Land Foundation: Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammed El-Mezain. They were all involved with the work of the Holy Land Foundation to varying degrees and they, along with the foundation itself, were targeted by the Bush administration as part of the racist and Islamophobic “War on Terror” following 9/11.
The organization was shut down in 2001 by the United States government, immediately after George Bush was visited by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who arrived in the United States carrying a file filled with illegitimate “evidence” against the foundation – including news headlines and mistranslations of Arabic and English documents.
Following the visit – the organization was falsely accused of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Before the shutdown, U.S. and Zionist politicians and lobbying groups had tried unsuccessfully, for years, to shut down the Holy Land Foundation and accuse it of various illegal activities.
The real nightmare for the Holy Land 5 began in the early hours of the morning on July 27th, 2004, when all five men had their homes raided by FBI agents. At Shukri Abubaker’s house, agents hid in the bushes before knocking on the front door and forcing themselves into the home. If it wasn’t enough that they were there to brutally kidnap the husband and father of the home, they also manhandled and screamed at his wife and children, treating them like criminals. Nida Abubaker was only ten years old during the raid, but she still recounts it like it was yesterday.
“Some went to the left, some went to the right, some went all the way down. It was a movie scene. Everything we had ever seen in the movies happening in our home. In fact, it looked just like what we would see on the news growing up of IOF soldiers raiding a Palestinian home. It was that. Everything that my father had taught us about. Everything we had learned about Palestine, we were living it at that moment. I remember them rounding us up into the living room. My little sister was hardly three at the time. One of the agents had picked her up from her crib. I can’t even imagine being a baby, a toddler at the time and being picked up by a stranger who had a gun in their hand. And they threw her at us.”
From the initial attacks on the Holy Land Foundation, to the raids of the homes and offices, to the eventual convictions – these actions were all in an attempt to stop the Holy Land Foundation’s continued support of the Palestinian people. They were providing Palestinians with essential and life-saving resources and care that they needed in order to continue to remain steadfastly in their homes in the face of occupation and displacement by the Israeli government.
Aside from the fact that the HLF was providing legal and necessary aid to the Palestinian people, the work of the Holy Land Foundation was entirely misaligned with the Israeli and U.S. goal of maintaining the image of a pitiful and weak Palestinian, unable to stand firmly against a powerful oppressor. The Holy Land Foundation worked to give the Palestinian people the resources that could sustain them as they stand firmly against decades of continued forced displacement, violent colonization, and genocide.
The idea that Palestinians in the United States could provide their community in Palestine with these critical resources directly contradicts the U.S.’s running narrative of who a Palestinian is – at best, a pitiful victim, at worst, a terrorist. This is why, sixteen years ago, in November of 2008, after years of court proceedings, an unsuccessful attempt at conviction by the U.S. government, with a mountain of flimsy evidence against them, and an Israeli intelligence agent standing as an anonymous expert witness, Mufid Abulqader, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammed El-Mezain, and Abdulrahman Odeh were ultimately found guilty of various crimes related to the false accusation of providing material support to a terrorist organization.
Today, Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi, and Mufid Abdulqader remain behind bars. Abdulqader is set to be released in January of 2025, but Baker and Elashi are on track to serve out the remainder of their 65 year sentences. Baker and Elashi are 65 and 70 years old, respectively, and the fear of them dying in prison mounting – but that fear is no match for strength of will of the family members, community members, and solidarity organizations that will refuse to let that happen.
The story of the Holy Land Five and its destruction at the hands of the United States and Israeli governments is unique in the nature of these specific events, but not its essence. Distilled, it is a simple story of Palestinian survival, self-determination, and joy – three things that Palestinian are not allowed to have, at least not today, in the United States or in Occupied Palestine.
However, through their steadfastness, struggle, and refusal to give up on life and freedom – the Holy Land 5 have dared to take these things anyway.
Source: mondoweiss
