Key Charlie Crist Ally Hosted Hamas Fundraiser in Florida Mosque

A key Muslim ally of Florida Governor and US Senate candidate Charlie Crist, Imam Muhammad Musri, hosted a fundraiser in Orlando for the terrorist group Hamas in June 2009, and a camera crew from ACT for America infiltrated the event held at Masjid Al-Rahman, Musri’s mosque, to record the proceedings. Imam Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, serves on Crist’s Faith-Based and Community Advisory Council and was appointed by Crist to his 2010 Sunshine Census Committee.

The Orlando Hamas fundraiser featured as its keynote speakers former UK parliamentarian George Galloway and Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society-Freedom, and was intended to raise money for Galloway’s Viva Palestina organization.

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That Galloway and Viva Palestina have provided material support for Hamas through the funds they have raised across the U.S. and elsewhere is hardly a secret. In March 2009, Galloway was videotaped by Al-Jazeera giving a duffel bag full of cash to Hamas social minister Ahmad Kurd, who called Galloway “a hero.” Kurd was designated a global terrorist by the U.S. government in August 2007.

In presenting Kurd with the cash, Galloway flaunted his violations of US and UK sanctions:

We are giving you now 100 vehicles and all of the contents, and we make no apology for what I am about to say: We are giving them to the elected government of Palestine. Just in case the British government or the European Union want to face me in any court, let me tell them live on television: I personally am about to break the sanctions on the elected government of Palestine… But I, now, here, on behalf of myself, my sister Yvonne Ridley, and the two Respect councilors – Muhammad Ishtiaq and Naim Khan – are giving three cars and 25,000 pounds in cash to Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. Here is the money. This is not charity. This is politics.

As a result of Galloway’s open funding of the terrorist group, he was banned from entering Canada later that month. So Galloway turned to his Florida friend Muhammad Musri to help take up the fundraising slack.

As the video taken by ACT for America shows, Galloway and Bray raised $55,000 at Musri’s fundraiser. During the event, Bray promised that the cash and materials collected from the Orlando event would be sent straight to Gaza:

Well we’ve got the equipment. We’re going to send it Insha’Allah. We’re going to go with your movement Viva Palestina… We’ll ship it here from Florida to New York, and from New York to Egypt, and from Egypt we will put it into Gaza.

According to a July 26, 2009 article posted on the Muslim American Society website authored by Aishah Schwartz (now since scrubbed from their site), documents how Bray was true to his word, with the supplies shipped by container from Orlando.

According to press accounts, more than $1 million in aid for Hamas, including the cash and supplies raised in Orlando at Musri’s mosque, along with funds raised in Kansas, New York and Illinois, was provided on Galloway’s July 2009. There to greet them and take possession of the cash was Hamas economic minister Ziad al-Zaza and Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, another designated global terrorist.

In response to this second Hamas support convoy, Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, sent letters to Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, demanding an investigation into Galloway and Viva Palestina’s U.S. fundraising for Hamas. Not long afterward, Mahdi Bray scrubbed any mention of the convoy from his personal website.

In December 2007, federal prosecutors identified Bray’s Muslim American Society as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America,” and a 2004 Chicago Tribune exposé details the Society’s founding by the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest Islamist group in the world that has given birth to Al-Qaeda, Hamas and virtually every other Islamic terrorist group in the world today.

With such a tight U.S. Senate race in Florida, it’s doubtful that a Hamas fundraiser sponsored by Charlie Crist’s good friend Muhammad Musri at Musri’s own mosque, and the money and supplies raised in Orlando being given to designated terrorists on international TV, is going to help his election prospects. But Hamas fundraisers being conducted across the U.S. without any action by federal authorities should concern us all.