IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

DALLAS DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) CAUSE NO. 3:04-CR-240-P

 (

vs. )

( SEPTEMBER 22, 2008 

) DALLAS, TEXAS 

HOLY LAND FOUNDATION, ET AL ( 9:00 A.M.

______________________________________________________________

VOLUME 6 of 37

______________________________________________________________

STATEMENT OF FACTS 

BEFORE THE HONORABLE JORGE A. SOLIS

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

and a jury

______________________________________________________________

A P P E A R A N C E S

 FOR THE GOVERNMENT: UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

 1100 COMMERCE, 3RD FLOOR 

 DALLAS, TEXAS 75242

 BY: MR. JIM JACKS

 MR. BARRY JONAS

 MS. ELIZABETH SHAPIRO

FOR THE DEFENDANT: FREEDMAN, BOYD, HOLLANDER, 

(SHUKRI ABU BAKER) GOLDBERG & IVES, P.A. 

 20 FIRST PLAZA, SUITE 700 

 ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO 87102 

 BY: MS. NANCY HOLLANDER

 MS. TERESA DUNCAN

Shawn M. McRoberts, RMR, CRR

Federal Official Court Reporter

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FOR THE DEFENDANT: LAW OFFICE OF JOSHUA L. DRATEL

(MOHAMMAD EL-MEZAIN) 14 WALL STREET, 28TH FLOOR

 NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10005

 BY: MR. JOSHUA DRATEL

 MR. AARON J. MYSLIWIEC

FOR THE DEFENDANT: LAW OFFICE OF MARLO P. CADEDDU

(MUFID ABDULQADER) 3232 McKINNEY AVENUE, SUITE 700

 DALLAS, TEXAS 75204

 BY: MS. MARLO P. CADEDDU

FOR THE DEFENDANT: LAW OFFICE OF LINDA MORENO

(GHASSAN ELASHI) P.O. BOX 10985

 TAMPA, FLORIDA 33679

 BY: MS. LINDA MORENO

 JONES DAY

 555 CALIFORNIA ST., 26TH FLOOR

 SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104

 BY: MR. JOHN D. CLINE

FOR THE DEFENDANT: WESTFALL, PLATT & CUTRER

(ABDULRAHAM ODEH) ONE SUMMIT AVENUE, SUITE 910

 FORT WORTH, TEXAS 76102

 BY: MR. GREG WESTFALL

COURT'S LAW CLERK: MS. JENNIFER HELMS

 1100 COMMERCE, RM. 1654

 DALLAS, TEXAS 75242.

COURT COORDINATOR: MS. BRENDA WEBB

 1100 COMMERCE, RM. 1654

 DALLAS, TEXAS 75242

 OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER: SHAWN M. McROBERTS, RMR, CRR

 1100 COMMERCE STREET, RM. 1654

 DALLAS, TEXAS 75242

 (214) 753-2349

Shawn M. McRoberts, RMR, CRR

Federal Official Court Reporter

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INDEX

EXAMINATION

Witness Name Page

MATTHEW LEVITT

Direct By MR. JONAS............................................. 113

Government's Exhibits

Government's Exhibits Page

MAP 4 Admitted into Evidence 136

Map 3 Admitted into Evidence 137

Map 5 Admitted into Evidence 138

Demonstrative No. 12 Admitted into Evidence 146

Hamas Charter 2 Admitted into Evidence 162

Hamas Charter 1 Admitted into Evidence 163

Demonstrative No. 9 Admitted into Evidence 164

Jury sworn and preliminary instructions

Jury sworn and preliminary instructions Page

6

Indictment read

Indictment read Page

16

Opening Statements

Opening Statements Page

Ms. Shapiro 17

Ms. Hollander 44

Mr. Dratel 61

Ms. Cadeddu 73

Mr. Westfall 89

Ms. Moreno 99

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THE COURT: Good morning. I understand the jury is 

on the way up, so we will get started, and then they will be 

in here in just a few minutes.

I understand there is not any issues that counsel needs 

to take up, other than the length of time for opening 

statements. We will go over that in a few minutes, but no 

other issues. Is that correct? 

MR. JACKS: Judge, the only thing I wanted to make 

sure was that the jury is aware and that all parties are aware 

that the Holy Land Foundation Corporation is a Defendant and 

that there will be evidence in that regard. 

As I understand it, and as was represented by Judge Fish 

before the beginning of the first trial, that the Foundation 

has no employees and no officers and so there is no one to 

represent it, but it is an essential part of this lawsuit 

because of the forfeiture provisions and the funds that are 

being held subject to being forfeited. 

So for that reason, I just wanted to make sure that that 

doesn't get lost during the trial, the fact that the 

corporation is also a Defendant. 

THE COURT: All right. And certainly I was aware, 

and I am sure you will remind the jury in your opening 

statements.

Anything from the Defense that we need to address? 

And I think we discussed the time for opening statements, 

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and my plan is still -- When the jury comes in I will swear 

them, will administer the oath, and then I will give them 

their instructions, and then we will proceed to reading the 

indictment and taking pleas, and then we will move on into 

opening statements. 

The Defense has been allotted a total of two hours for 

opening statements, and I understand you might want to divide 

that up different than what you told me last Thursday, and so 

that -- 

MS. HOLLANDER: Thank you, Your Honor. We will 

divide it up.

THE COURT: Let me or Jennifer know so I can keep a 

rough time on that, because I want to keep a time overall. 

Any other matters we need to address? 

MR. JACKS: Judge, I don't know what the Court's 

plans were with regard to the memorial service with Judge 

Sanders, if that will affect our schedule.

THE COURT: We don't have all the details yet, so we 

are not in a position -- We will have to be off some Wednesday 

afternoon. Exactly how much time I don't know yet. We should 

know something by the end of today, so we will discuss that 

before the day is over today. Just remind me before we leave 

today to take that back up. 

Counsel, ready for the jury? All right. Go ahead and 

bring the jury in. 

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(Whereupon, the jury entered the courtroom.)

THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, good 

morning and welcome back. And we are ready now to proceed. 

And I will ask you to raise your hand and take an oath as 

jurors in this case. 

(Whereupon, the oath was administered by the Clerk.)

THE COURT: Members of the jury, now that you have 

been sworn in, let me give you some instructions that will 

guide your deliberations while on the jury. 

As you remember, of course, from our conversations last 

week and then the week before that, or two weeks before that 

when you were here, we expect this to be a fairly lengthy 

trial. We will be here about six weeks, and so it will be 

important for you to follow these instructions. I will remind 

you about them periodically. You will be receiving a lot of 

information during the time that you are on this jury service.

First, as jurors it will be your duty to find from the 

evidence what the facts are. The jury and the jury alone is 

the judges of the facts. You will then have to apply to these 

facts the law as I will give it to you, and you must follow 

that law whether you agree with it or not. 

I think we talked to each of you about this last week 

when you were in being questioned individually. The oath that 

you took stated you will reach a verdict based on the law and 

based on the evidence. 

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For those that haven't served on a jury before, once all 

the evidence has been presented I will give you a written 

document--we call it the Court's charge to the jury--that will 

contain the law that applies in this case. It will contain 

instructions and definitions. It will contain all the law you 

need to know, so you don't need to worry about getting any 

information on your own. All the law will be in there. 

You will take that law as I give it to you, along with 

the instructions, and you will have heard six weeks or so of 

evidence, and take those two together and we will be asking 

you to make decisions in this case as to each of these 

Defendants.

Nothing I may say or do during the course of the trial is 

intended to indicate, nor should be taken by you as 

indicating, what your verdict should be. The evidence from 

which you will find the facts will consist of the testimony of 

witnesses, documents, and other things received into the 

record as exhibits, and any facts that the lawyers agree or 

stipulate to, or that the Court may instruct you to find. 

Again, we discussed these things last week with each of you. 

The evidence, of course, is what is presented here in the 

courtroom; not anything that you may have heard or read 

outside the courtroom, but strictly is what is presented in 

the courtroom where witnesses are here under oath, testify in 

front of everyone, and subject to cross examination. 

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Certain things are not evidence and should not be 

considered by you in arriving at your verdict. I will list 

those for you now. 

Statements, arguments, and questions by the lawyers are 

not evidence. Anything the lawyers say is not evidence. 

Anything I say is not evidence, unless I instruct you of 

something that you are to find. But typically the evidence 

will come from the witness stand and then documents or 

exhibits or photographs, anything that is introduced here in 

evidence. 

Also objections to questions are not evidence. Lawyers 

have an obligation to their clients to make objections when 

they believe evidence being offered is improper under the 

rules of evidence. You should not be influenced by the 

objection or by my ruling on it. 

If the objection is sustained, then ignore the question. 

You typically won't hear the answer, so forget the question. 

If it is overruled, then you will hear the answer, and treat 

the answer like any other item of evidence, and don't worry 

about the objection. If I instruct you at any time that some 

item of evidence is received for a limited purpose, you should 

follow that instruction. 

Any testimony that the Court excludes or I instruct you 

to disregard is not evidence and should not be considered by 

you in arriving at your verdict. 

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Also, as we discussed last week, anything you may have 

seen or heard outside the courtroom from today on is not 

evidence and should be disregarded. And as we discussed with 

some of you, be sure not to share anything that you have heard 

or seen outside the courtroom with anybody else. That is not 

evidence, that is not something to discuss, and it is 

certainly not anything to be considered by you in arriving at 

your verdict in this case. You are to decide this case solely 

on the evidence presented here in the courtroom. 

Generally speaking there are two kinds of 

evidence--direct and circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence 

is direct proof of a fact, such as the testimony of an 

eyewitness establishing a certain fact. Circumstantial 

evidence is proof of facts from which you may infer or 

conclude that other facts exist. I will give you further 

instructions on this in the Court's charge to the jury that we 

discussed earlier, but have in mind that you may consider both 

kinds of evidence. 

The law doesn't consider one kind of evidence better than 

the other. That ultimately will be up to you as far as what 

evidence you wish to accept and to not accept. 

It will be up to you as jurors to decide which witnesses 

to believe, which witnesses not to believe, and how much of 

any witness' testimony to accept or to reject. I will give 

you some guidelines in the Court's charge to the jury that may 

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help you in assessing the credibility of witnesses, but for 

now have in mind that is one of the important jobs roles that 

a jury does. You will be hearing a lot of evidence, and you 

will sort and sift through that to make your own determination 

as to what you believe and don't believe so you can arrive at 

what the facts are in this case.

As you know, this is a criminal case. There are three 

basic rules about a criminal case you must keep in mind. We 

went over these before, but I want to touch on them because 

they are important. 

First, the Defendants are presumed innocent. Each of 

these Defendants, like every other person accused of a crime, 

they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The 

indictment against the Defendants brought by the Government is 

only an accusation, nothing more. That is not any evidence 

that you should consider in arriving at your verdict, the fact 

they were indicted. That is what brings them here into Court. 

Start off with a clean slate, they are presumed innocent, the 

burden of proof is on the Government, and then you start 

looking at the evidence that is presented to you here in 

court.

The burden of proof is on the Government until the very 

end of the case. The Defendants have no burden to prove their 

innocence or to present any evidence or to testify. Since the 

Defendants have the right to remain silent, the law prohibits 

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you in arriving at your verdict from considering that the 

Defendants may not have testified. 

Third, the Government must prove the Defendants' guilt 

beyond a reasonable doubt. I think we talked about that with 

most of you, if not each of you, last week when you were here, 

but I will give you some further instructions on this, as well 

as other matters, in the Court's charge to the jury, and I 

will give you a definition for this. But have in mind that 

this is the burden of proof, and it is different than a civil 

case. 

Some of you may have served in civil jury trials before. 

You may remember the burden of proof was by a preponderance of 

the evidence, something more likely so than not. That is, of 

course, a lower standard than applies in criminal cases. The 

standard in a criminal case is beyond a reasonable doubt. 

That is the burden that the Government has.

A few words now about your conduct as jurors while you 

are participating as jurors in this case. First, during the 

trial you should not discuss the case with anyone, nor permit 

anyone to discuss it with you. And this applies until the end 

of the case. This applies to spouses, friends, neighbors, 

co-workers, anybody. We don't want you to get any influence 

from outside the courtroom. Those individuals that may want 

to talk to you about it, they are not here in court listening 

to the evidence, they are not observing the witnesses, they 

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are not going to know what you know. So simply tell them you 

can't talk about it until after the case is concluded. 

Once the case is over, you will be free to discuss it as 

much as you want to, but during the case it is important that 

you not talk about this case with anyone, and simply that way 

we don't have any improper outside influences.

Do not read or listen to anything touching on this case 

in any way. And there have been some media reports in this 

case already. There may continue to be. So you just need to 

be careful and make sure you don't read any newspaper 

accounts. Of course, if you are watching TV and listening to 

the radio, sometimes it will come on before you know it. At 

that point kill the sound or walk out of the room, turn it 

off, whatever you need to do, but make sure you try not to 

listen to anything being reported about this case. And if 

anyone should try to talk to you about this case, you should 

bring that to my attention immediately.

Do not try to do any research or make any investigation 

about the case on your own. Occasionally we will have jurors 

who feel maybe their questions aren't being answered by the 

lawyers, so they will make phone calls and seek information. 

That is improper, of course. The lawyers will bring you the 

evidence that they think is important, both sides. That 

amounts to secret evidence that nobody has the chance -- That 

information you are getting is not under oath, that is not 

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being provided here in open court, not subject to cross 

examination by other side. You will hear plenty of evidence 

over the next six weeks, so focus your attention on the 

evidence you hear. 

And lastly, do not form any opinion until all the 

evidence is in. You will be thinking about the case as you go 

along, but don't form any final decisions until you have heard 

everything. The case evolves. Anything this long will take 

some time, so wait until you have heard everything from both 

sides before you make your final decisions in this case. 

And by then you will also receive the instructions on the 

law and at that point you will have everything you will need 

in order to make a proper decision in this case. So wait 

until you have heard everything from all the parties, keep an 

open mind until you have heard everything and until you 

receive the instructions on the law. 

Some jurors ask about taking notes. I do allow taking 

notes. There may be some pads, hopefully, and some pens, so 

you can take notes if you choose to do so. I will leave that 

up to you. Just a couple of things to remember if you decide 

to take notes. That is, don't get so involved in taking notes 

that you are missing what is going on. I think you will find 

that one of the most useful things you can do is simply 

observe the witnesses as they are being questioned, as they 

testify, so you can form your impressions about them and the 

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testimony they are giving. 

And then secondly, the notes are strictly for your own 

personal use. They are not a substitute for the official 

record. There is one official record, and that is what is 

being prepared by the court reporter that is here in front of 

me. So don't share them with anybody. Don't substitute them 

as an official record. They are strictly for your own 

personal use. 

If you should decide to take notes, don't take them home 

with you at the end of the day. Leave them in the jury room, 

and they will be there for you in the morning, and you can 

have them if you wish to use them.

And then lastly, you have had the juror tags. Wear those 

while you are here. Do not talk to any of the lawyers, the 

Defendants, the family members, any of the agents that are 

involved here. You will hear from some law enforcement 

officers. Just keep yourselves apart from them, other than 

casual greetings. If you see them you can say "Good morning" 

or "Hello," but don't engage in any conversations. That is 

why you are wearing the juror tags. 

Sometimes we have jurors that want to make conversation 

with somebody, and it may not be about the case, but it still 

would look improper. Nobody knows what you are talking about. 

So the best thing to do is keep yourselves apart from anybody 

that is participating in any way in this case.

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We will in just a few minutes have the indictment read, 

which is fairly lengthy. That is the accusations against the 

Defendants. We will take the Defendants' pleas, and then go 

straight from that to opening statements by the lawyers. 

The Government gets to open, as they have the burden of 

proof. You have seen where they go first every time. So you 

will hear from -- Ms. Shapiro is making the opening statement 

on behalf of the Government. 

The opening statements, as I told you, is not evidence, 

but this provides a framework what the parties believe their 

case will show or what the case will show, so it gives you a 

framework of the issues that are involved and what to look 

for. 

Then once Ms. Shapiro makes her opening statement, we 

will take a break and then you will hear from counsel from 

each of the Defendants and address you, and that should take 

us into sometime after lunch. Once we come back from lunch, 

we will finish that up, and start the evidence sometime this 

afternoon. 

At this time, Mr. Jacks, who is reading the indictment? 

MR. JACKS: Yes, Your Honor, I am. 

THE COURT: All right.

MR. JACKS: Ladies and gentlemen, at this time I am 

going to read the indictment which was returned by the federal 

grand jury in the Northern District of Texas in this case.

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(Whereupon, the indictment was read in open court.)

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Jacks. And to these 

charges how do the Defendants plead? 

DEFENDANT BAKER: Shukri Abu Baker. Your Honor, I 

plead not guilty.

DEFENDANT ODEH: I plead not guilty.

THE COURT: Mr. Odeh? 

DEFENDANT EL-MEZAIN: Your Honor, I plead not 

guilty.

THE COURT: And you are Mr. El-Mezain? 

DEFENDANT EL-MEZAIN: Yes.

DEFENDANT ELASHI: Not guilty.

THE COURT: And we will enter a plea of not guilty 

for the Holy Land Foundation. 

Ms. Cadeddu? 

DEFENDANT ABDULQADER: I plead not guilty.

THE COURT: Thank you. 

So each of the Defendants have entered pleas of not 

guilty here, and the corporation Holy Land Foundation is also 

A named a Defendant, as you heard in the indictment, and we 

will enter a plea of not guilty for them. 

Let's take the morning recess. We will take about a 

20-minute break. We will be back here about 20 till by that 

clock, and at that point you will hear opening statements from 

the Prosecutor and then the Defense attorneys. 

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(Whereupon, the jury left the courtroom.)

THE COURT: All right. We will be in recess.

(Brief Recess.)

THE COURT: All right. Members of the jury, as we 

explained to you then, we will begin with opening statements.

On behalf of the Government, Ms. Shapiro. 

MS. SHAPIRO: May it please the Court, counsel, 

co-counsel. 

My name is Elizabeth Shapiro and I am an attorney with 

the Department of Justice, and I wanted to start this morning 

by thanking you for your service as jurors, because other than 

serving in the military, jury service is probably the most 

important civic duty you will ever do in your lifetime, so I 

want to thank you for being here.

This case is a big case, it is an important case, but it 

is not really that hard of a case. It is about violating the 

laws of the United States by funding a terrorist organization.

You are going to hear about a dangerous terrorist 

organization called Hamas, and you are going to hear that 

Hamas is a single organization and it has a military side and 

it has a social side, but they act together. And that social 

side is in order to build popular support. Hamas can't 

survive without popular support from the people in the West 

Bank and Gaza and Palestine.

Now, when you were all here for your first day of jury 

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selection, His Honor Judge Solis told you that the law 

prohibits giving money to a terrorist organization even if 

that money goes to a charity, and you are going to learn 

during this trial there are important reasons for that law.

Money is the life blood of terrorist organizations. Once 

money gets into the hands of Hamas, Hamas can do anything it 

wants with that money. And when you give money to the social 

side of Hamas, you free up other money that the military side 

can use. It is all one organization and it is against the law 

to give to any part of it, and there are good reasons for 

that.

You may agree with that law or you may disagree with it, 

but you all took oaths as jurors to follow laws, and the law 

is that you can't give the Hamas no matter what part of Hamas.

Now, over the course of the trial you are going to hear a 

lot of evidence, and when it comes time to go back into the 

jury room to deliberate, you may want to have some notes to 

refer to, so I recommend that you may want to take notes 

during this trial. And Judge Solis said that that would be 

permissible, and he will instruct you on how to use those 

notes. But you are going to hear a lot of names and a lot of 

things that may be unfamiliar, so my recommendation would be 

that it would be helpful for you to have notes.

Remember the Defense lawyers told you last week that all 

the Defendants here are Palestinian and they are Muslim. But 

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in this country it doesn't matter where you come from and 

doesn't matter what religion you follow. If you live here you 

have to follow the law. 

And the evidence will show over the course of many years 

these Defendants broke the law, and they did that by 

conspiring to raise money for Hamas and by sending that money 

into the hands of Hamas.

I want to spend a little time with you this morning 

giving you a preview of how the Government is going to present 

its case. The first part of the Government's case is going to 

introduce you to Hamas, what it is, what it stands for, how it 

works, and we will present documents and witnesses that will 

tell you about why, even though Hamas operates over in the 

Middle East, why we should care about that here in the United 

States and why it is important that what happens in the Middle 

East is important to the United States.

And the first part of our case we are going to show you 

how the Holy Land Foundation was born, how it became 

ultimately the financial arm for Hamas in the United States.

The second part of the Government's case is going to take 

you across the ocean, and it is going to show you where that 

money went. And you will see wire transfers and checks and 

show that money went overseas to organizations in the West 

Bank and Gaza. And we will show you that those organizations 

were controlled by Hamas; that the people who ran those 

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organizations were people in the Hamas organization, and that 

the Defendants knew that; that they knew these people and they 

knew the money that they were giving to these organizations 

was going into the hands of Hamas.

So that is the essential outline, two parts of the case 

that the Government is going to present to you.

Now, before I tell you a little more about Hamas, I want 

to just introduce you to the geography of the region, because 

it is important that you know geographically what we are 

talking about during this trial.

I have here -- I am going to walk away from the 

microphone for a moment. This is a map of the Middle East. 

And you can see over here in this red area is the state of 

Israel, and it also shows the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the 

Palestinian territories. And you can see this is surrounded 

by a lot of big countries. Over here to the right is Jordan, 

Egypt down here to my right, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Iran 

is up here. Okay? Small countries surrounded by a lot of big 

countries.

Now, here this is a blown up map of Israel and the 

Palestinian territories. To give you an idea of the size of 

the area we are talking about, this entire country from the 

top to the bottom is smaller to the state of New Jersey. It 

would run from top to bottom about from Gainesville on the 

Texas/Oklahoma border to Austin. 

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Now, the width, if you look over here, you will see Tel 

Aviv, the largest city in Israel. If you were to go from Tel 

Aviv to the border of the West Bank, the Palestinian 

territories, that would be about the distance from this 

courthouse to Texas Stadium, a little over ten miles.

You can see also -- On this map you can see the West 

Bank, the Gaza Strip, and we will be referring to those as the 

Palestinian territories. 

Now, this tiny strip of land, and whole area, has been 

the focal point of conflict for a thousand years, and we are 

not going to solve that conflict in this courtroom during the 

trial, so I am just going to talk about more modern times 

starting with World War II.

After World War II the British controlled the area that 

is now Israel and the Palestinian territories, and it was 

called Palestine. And in 1947 the United Nations partitioned 

that area into a Jewish area and an Arab area. And Israel 

became a state in 1948. 

And there were lots of wars, and I am not going to go 

into a lot of wars, but there has been conflict for years 

after that time. 

And then came 1967, and in 1967 there was a war that 

affected the geography of the region. In 1967 those bigger 

countries around Israel amassed their troops on the border and 

a war broke out, and it was over in six days, and it is 

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sometimes referred to as the Six-Day War. 

At the end of that war, the end of six days, the map 

changed a little. Israel occupied the West Bank, which had 

formerly been Jordan, the Gaza trip which has been Egypt. And 

the Sinai Peninsula which is down here off to the right of the 

map, you can't see the whole thing, and also the Golan 

Heights, that was Syria. And Israel held onto that territory 

as a security buffer and kept that territory until 1978. 

In 1978 there was a peace treaty with Egypt, and as part 

of that peace treaty the Sinai Peninsula went back to Egypt. 

And then later on in the early '90s, there was a peace treaty 

with Jordan, and Jordan relinquished its claim to the West 

Bank and signed a peace treaty with Israel. Israel continued 

its presence in the West Bank. 

And then came an event in the early '90s called the Oslo 

Accords. And the Oslo Accords were between the Palestinians 

and the Israelis, who on their initiative, with the help of 

the Norwegians, and the United States came into the game a bit 

later, but that agreement essentially set out a framework for 

a future peace and a future Palestinian state. So the idea 

from the Oslo Accords was that it would be a framework so that 

there would be a Palestinian government, ultimately a state, 

and peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, a 

resolution.

Now, the Oslo Accords created what was called the 

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Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Authority was 

headed by Yasser Arafat. And his party was called the 

Palestinian Liberation Organization. And the Accords gave the 

Palestinians self-rule in the areas of the West Bank and Gaza 

according to a complicated agreement, but there was self-rule. 

So the Palestinian Authority started governing those areas.

Now, the evidence will show you during this case that 

although this area is far away from here, it directly affects 

our political and our military interests here in the United 

States. So what happens in the Middle East is actually 

important to us here in this courtroom.

Now, I would like to talk to you for a moment about 

Hamas. You heard already a little about it. Hamas is an 

Arabic acronym meaning the Islamic Resistant Moment, sometimes 

known as The Movement, and it has a plan to create an Islamic 

state in all of this area, essentially wipe the state of 

Israel off the map. That is its goal. Its founder was a man 

named Sheik Ahmed Yassin. He was considered to be Hamas' 

founder and spiritual leader. You will hear his name a lot 

during the trial. And he is a distinctive figure. You will 

see he was a paraplegic and he was in a wheelchair, and he 

will recognizable to you throughout the trial. 

Sheikh Yassin seized on some events in the late 1980s 

when there was a spontaneous uprising amongst the Palestinians 

that -- Actually it was ignited by a car accident, and there 

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was a spontaneous uprising. And the Palestinians essentially 

revolted against Israeli occupation. And Sheikh Yassin took 

that opportunity to establish Hamas, the Islamic Resistance 

Movement. 

And sometime after that, Hamas published its charter, and 

you will see evidence in the trial, you will see the charter 

and what it says, and the charter makes it very clear that the 

goal of Hamas is violent jihad. The goal is to take over the 

state of Israel and create in its place an Islamic state. 

It also says in the charter that peace agreements, 

international negotiation conferences, all of that is a waste 

of time, futility, because peace is not possible until Hamas 

achieves its goal of creating an Islamic state over the entire 

area of what is now Israel.

Now, Hamas, as you will see, has two wings, and we have 

talked about those a little bit earlier. It has a military 

and it has the social. And then on top there is essentially a 

political wing. And the political wing sits outside the 

territories in Damascus. That is where the leadership of 

Hamas is. The head of Hamas right now is a man named Khalid 

Mishal, and you will hear his name quite a bit, too. In fact 

the Defendant Mufid Abdulquader is Khalid Mishal's half 

brother. 

Khalid Mishal is in Damascus, and is number two is a man 

named Mousa Abu Marzook. And you will hear his name quite a 

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bit as well. Mousa Abu Marzook was in the United States for 

quite some time, and I will get to his role in a moment.

And I want to talk to you first about first Hamas' 

military wring, what they do. What they do is they terrorize 

the local population through random violence. That is their 

job. They also have a part of the military wing that kills 

Palestinians, anybody who is suspected of cooperating with the 

Israeli government, being a collaborator, is executed by 

Hamas. 

And Hamas was one of the first terrorist organizations to 

really perfect the use of suicide bombings. The way that 

would work is Hamas operatives would be smuggled into Israel 

with suicide belts with explosives or vests that have 

explosives, and they would find a place that is crowded with 

civilians, like a bus stop or a restaurant or a shopping mall, 

and they would ignite themselves, blow themselves up. 

Sometimes these explosive vests would be packed with 

nails and screws so that the explosive impact would maim and 

injure as many people as possible. 

And sometimes these attacks would be sequenced so you 

would have a suicide attack, someone blows themselves up, and 

someone rush to the scene to assist the wounded, and then 

another person would blow themselves up to maximize the 

casualties. 

You will hear a phone call that will be played during the 

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course of this case between two of the Defendants, Defendant 

Abdul Odeh and Defendant Mohammad El-Mezain, and there will be 

a phone call after one of these terrorist attacks where 

Defendant Odeh will call up and he will talk very excitedly 

about what he says is a beautiful operation.

Now, the other part of Hamas that would be a big focus of 

this trial is the social wing, and that is in fact, the 

evidence will show, what the Hamas leadership considers to be 

the most important part of Hamas, because that is the part of 

Hamas that builds popular support. That is where the biggest 

part of -- That is where they get the most money coming in. 

That is where they are able to indoctrinate the 

population. That is where they are able to reach out and 

essentially mold people, including children, into future Hamas 

supporters. You can sort of think about the social wing of 

Hamas as it is Hamas' investment in the future. Without the 

support of the people, without being able to indoctrinate the 

population, Hamas would die out ultimately. 

And what is it the social wing does? It runs schools, 

clinics, hospitals, hands out food parcels, it provides 

stipends for Hamas prisoners who are being jailed by either 

the Palestinian Authority or by the Israelis. It will support 

the families of people who have been killed or injured as part 

of the conflict with Israel. And essentially what they are 

doing is they are reaching out and winning over the hearts and 

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minds of the population.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the schools, the 

summer camps, the kindergartens. Hamas runs all of these 

things. There are Hamas kindergartens, Hamas summer camps. 

And you will see evidence of what goes on in the schools and 

summer camps. What goes on is there is an indoctrination 

where Hamas essentially teaches a culture of hate. Children 

are taught to hate Israelis. They are taught to love 

martyrdom. They are taught to revere suicide bombers. This 

is what goes on in these institutions. 

So when you talk about the social wing of Hamas, we are 

not talking about necessarily benevolent activity. We are 

talking about an indoctrination, a plan, an investment in 

Hamas. Hamas is grooming the next generation.

Another thing Hamas achieves through this social wing is 

by garnering the popular support. It gains power, essentially 

gains power and the ability to displace the existing 

government, the Palestinian Authority. And you will see that 

Hamas is actually succeeded in that goal in that right now 

Hamas has taken over the Gaza Strip. So you have a situation 

now where Hamas runs the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian 

Authority runs the West Bank.

Now, what is the effect of all this violence that Hamas 

engages in? Well, it has the effect of destabilizing the 

region, and it has the effect of preventing the Palestinians 

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and the Israelis from reaching a negotiated peace. And that 

is exactly what Hamas wants, because Hamas doesn't want peace. 

That is what its charter says. Hamas wants an Islamic state 

in all of Israel. There is no room for compromise. And Hamas 

believes in violent jihad. 

The United States, on the other hand, is interested in 

negotiated peace. It wants that region to have peace, and 

that is in the interest of the United States. And you will 

hear about how war between Israel and the countries in the 

Middle East undermines U.S. policy interests, both 

economically, politically, and militarily.

And so the evidence will show that in 1995 President 

Clinton signed an executive order, and the executive order is 

sort of like a law except it doesn't have to go through the 

Congress. The President can sign it on its own. President 

Clinton signed an executive order that designated Hamas a 

specially designated terrorist organization, and he did that 

because Hamas represented an obstacle to peace. 

And in 1995, remember the Oslo Accords had been signed in 

about 1994, 1993, and there was a wave of violence, and that 

violence was undermining the efforts to implement the Oslo 

Accords and to have peace in the region.

So President Clinton in that executive order essentially 

declared a national emergency, and he said that anybody who is 

an obstacle to peace, as designated in that executive order, 

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it was against the law to give money to them, because he 

recognizes that money is what terrorist organizations are all 

about. They need money to operate.

In that executive order it is also specified that no 

humanitarian aid, no charity, no money of any kind can go to a 

designated organization. On the back of that executive order 

there is an annex, and it lists the terrorist organizations 

that are subject to that order, and it includes Hamas. 

And then in 1997, a couple of years later, Congress 

passed a similar kind of law that made Hamas a foreign 

terrorist organization, an FTO that is sometimes referred to. 

And similarly, it is illegal to give any money to Hamas, 

including humanitarian and charitable assistance.

I want to talk for a moment about how the Holy Land 

Foundation came into being and how it ended up right here in 

the United States.

The Hamas charter says in the charter that Hamas was 

borne out of the Muslim Brotherhood. You heard a little bit 

the Muslim Brotherhood. It was an organization that started 

in the late '20s in Egypt. And Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who 

founded Hamas, he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And 

the Muslim Brotherhood is a global movement, and there are 

Muslims of all nationalities that belong to the Muslim 

Brotherhood. And their goal, the Muslim Brotherhood goal, is 

to create essentially a global Islamic state, no more -- no 

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Western civilization; just replace it with an Islamic system. 

And that is its long term goal. And the Muslim Brotherhood is 

a very patient organization. Its ultimate goal is a global 

Islamic state.

Now, in the late 1980s the Palestinian part of the Muslim 

Brotherhood was the dominating faction, and the international 

Muslim Brotherhood, there is a governing body, and the 

international Muslim Brotherhood directed, once Hamas was 

formally declared, that all the countries where they have 

Muslim Brotherhood organizations should set up a Palestine 

Committee. That was a directive from the international body 

of the Muslim Brotherhood. So all the countries around the 

world that had Muslim Brotherhood organizations created these 

Palestine Committees. And what was the purpose of the 

Palestine Committee? It was to support Hamas. And that -- 

You will see documents, and you will see evidence that will 

say that expressly. The purpose was to support Hamas. 

And in the United States there were Muslim Brotherhood 

organizations that already existed. And I mentioned the name 

of Mousa Abu Marzook. He became the head of the Palestine 

Committee here in the United States. At the time he was 

actually number in the political bureau of Hamas. Marzook was 

actually here as a student, and he was the head of the 

Palestine Committee. 

And the Palestine Committee, in order to carry out its 

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mission of supporting Hamas, it encompassed three 

organizations. It needed organizations for what you will see 

are media, men, and money. Those are the elements, the things 

that the Palestine Committee thought it needed to have to 

support Hamas. 

And for the media side of things, which was propaganda, 

spreading Hamas' word, getting the message out, they had an 

organization called the Islamic Association for Palestine. 

And the Defendant Ghassan Elashi was part of that 

organization. And the Islamic association of Palestine, or 

IAP I will call it, they are the first organization to publish 

the Hamas charter in English, and they would publish Hamas 

communiques and they would have conferences, and they were 

essentially the propaganda arm of the Palestine Committee. 

There is another organization called the UASR, the United 

Association for Studies and Research, and that was purported 

to be a sort of think tank. It was meant to win the battle of 

ideology and win people over to Hamas, and it was also a form 

of propaganda. 

And then there was the money side of the equation, and 

the money, the most important part of this, was assigned to 

the Holy Land Foundation. The Holy Land Foundation was called 

something else. It was called the Occupied Land Fund at that 

time. And the Occupied Land Fund's mission, as you will see 

from the evidence in the case, was to support Hamas. There 

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will be no doubt about that.

Now, the Occupied Land Fund was actually started by the 

Defendant Shukri Abu Baker at the time when he lived in 

Plainfield, Indiana. And he started working with the Occupied 

Land Fund in Indiana. It was formally incorporated in Los 

Angeles in California with the Defendant Shukri Abu Baker and 

Ghassan Elashi and Mohammad El-Mezain filed articles of 

incorporation creating the Occupied Land Fund formally in Los 

Angeles. And a few years it changed its names to the Holy 

Land Foundation, and moved right here to Richardson, Texas. 

Across the street from the Holy Land Foundation there was 

a company called InfoCom, and that was a computer-related 

business that Ghassan Elashi had. And you will see the 

evidence will show that a lot of Holy Land's records were 

actually stored at InfoCom across the street, so you will hear 

about InfoCom quite a bit during this trial as well.

Now, remember I mentioned Mousa Abu Marzook, head of the 

Palestine Committee. He shared a bank account with a man 

named Ismail Elabarasse, and you will hear his name as well. 

Ismail Elabarasse actually lived in Virginia, and he had a lot 

of documents in his house about the Palestine Committee. And 

the FBI got a search warrant, and they were able to get these 

documents. And you will see many of them during this trial. 

And those documents will show you organizational charts and 

member lists and minute meetings and all kinds of things, 

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records about the Palestine Committees. And you will see many 

of the names of the Defendants, and you will see the Occupied 

Land Fund. And those documents will be very important to you 

because they establish why the Holy Land was created, what its 

mission was, why it existed.

Now, remember it didn't become illegal to support Hamas 

or to fund Hamas until 1995, and you will see that a lot of 

these documents are before 1995, so why do they matter? Why 

should you see them? Those documents are important not 

because the documents themselves are the crime, but because 

they show you the knowledge and intent of the Defendants. 

They show you what the true purpose of the Holy Land 

Foundation was. And you can evaluate the evidence that you 

see in this trial with that knowledge and with that evidence 

that you will have seen about why the Holy Land was created 

and what it was all about. It was created to support Hamas.

Now, how did the Holy Land go about raising money? Well, 

the evidence will show that Holy Land took full advantage of 

all the freedoms available to us in this country and to make 

themselves look just like a regular charity. And you will see 

that one of the things that they did was they had festivals 

and they had conferences. And you will see the Defendant 

Mohammad El-Mezain, he was one of the original incorporators, 

he lives in New Jersey, and his talent was as an orator, 

as -- He was a great speech maker. And he is actually an 

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emam, which is a Muslim religious leader. And you will see 

him and see videotapes of him raising money at Hamas 

fundraisers, Holy Land fundraisers, and will be raising money 

for Hamas. And you will see him give fiery speeches, and then 

people in the audience will donate jewelry, cash, checks, 

whatever it is, they will come up and they will donate it, and 

that is one way the Holy Land Foundation raised money.

Another way they raised money is they had a musical band, 

the band of Mufid Abdulquader would come and play at these 

fundraisers, and this musical band sang songs glorifying Hamas 

and inspirational sort of music that inspired people to give 

money to Hamas. And again, you will see a lot of these 

videotapes over the course of the trial. In fact, some of 

these tapes were actually found by the FBI buried in the 

backyard of one of the former band member's home in Virginia. 

The FBI was able to reconstruct some of those tapes, and you 

will see them.

Now, another way the Holy Land Foundation raised money is 

it brought in speakers from overseas. And you will see lists 

of overseas speakers that would come in and raise money for 

the Holy Land Foundation. And many of those speakers were 

Hamas leaders, others were from other radical groups to 

espouse radical ideologies, and they would come into the 

United States and appear at these conferences, and they would 

give speeches, and again people would donate money. 

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Sometimes there would be conference calls where you would 

have a speaker who would be on the telephone and people could 

have a pass code or access code, and you could conference into 

these conference calls and hear the inspirational talk and you 

could donate money that way.

Another way you could raise money is through orphan 

sponsorships where you could sponsor an orphan in Palestine on 

a monthly basis or on a periodic basis, and you would get a 

little package and you would get to meet that orphan and you 

could send regular payments that way through this orphan 

sponsorship. And the Defendant Abdul Odeh, who was in charge 

of the New Jersey office, he did some of those orphan 

sponsorships.

Now, for all of these donations, and you will see this 

also through the evidence, you could -- People who donated 

could take a tax deductible -- It was a tax deductible 

donation. Because remember, Holy Land incorporated as a 

regular American charity, so when you gave money to it you 

could take that off your income tax. And you will see 

documents like that that say send your tax deductible donation 

to the Occupied Land Fund, or to the Holy Land Foundation.

Now, you are going to hear about an important meeting of 

the Palestine Committee that took place in Philadelphia, and 

the context for this meeting I mentioned earlier, and that was 

the Oslo Accords. If you recall, the Oslo Accords was that 

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agreement that the Palestinians and Israelis were trying to 

work out to create a road map for a peaceful co-existence. 

And this was a crisis for Hamas and a crisis for the Palestine 

Committee, which is set up to support Hamas. And why is that 

a crisis? Because remember, Hamas is against peace. Hamas 

doesn't want a negotiated settlement, because a negotiated 

settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians would 

mean that there would be a Palestine and there would be an 

Israel, and that is unacceptable to Hamas. 

So many of the Defendants here and the Palestine 

Committee met in Philadelphia at the Courtyard by Marriott 

Hotel, and the FBI found out about that meeting. And they 

went and got a search warrant, and they got a warrant to 

listen in on the meeting. And so you will see during the 

course of this trial transcripts of that meeting, and you can 

see for yourself what was going on. 

During that meeting the participants talked extensively 

about how to defeat the Oslo Accords, what would be the best 

way to make sure that peace didn't happen.

They also talked about how they needed to hide their 

support for Hamas, and they directed the participants in the 

meeting to not say Hamas but to say Samah, which is Hamas 

spelled backward.

And you will hear Shukri Abu Baker talk at that meeting, 

you will read the transcript, and he talks about how important 

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it is to make sure that the Holy Land Foundation maintains its 

status as a legal American organization, because it can't 

afford to get caught. 

Other participants talk about the Holy Land Foundation as 

a front organization. Now, a front organization is an 

organization that doesn't -- It doesn't appear or appears to 

be something that it is not. And those words are used in the 

Philadelphia meeting. And they talk about how important it is 

to make sure that Holy Land is not exposed because its mission 

of raising money is so important.

Another thing they talk about at that meeting are the 

particular committees in the West Bank and Gaza where they 

send their money. They talk about those committees, they talk 

about them by name, so they know where their money is going 

when they send it overseas to these committees.

They also talk about how they should communicate with the 

American public. They say things like, "You can't talk to the 

Americans about our true objectives, you can't talk to them 

about Palestine, so we have to talk to them about things they 

will relate to like human rights. You have to talk to 

Americans differently." 

And then you will see the words of Shukri Abu Baker when 

he says "War is deception." He says, "We are fighting our war 

with a kind heart. Deceive. Camouflage. Deceive your 

enemy." You will see those words.

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So this meeting, which was in 1993, why is it important? 

Okay. It wasn't illegal to have that meeting. But what it 

tells you is what was in these Defendants' minds. It is their 

knowledge and it is their intent. That is why that meeting is 

so important.

Now, how did the money get from the Holy Land Foundation 

overseas to the hands of Hamas? Remember, this is an 

organization that is trying to not be exposed. It can't just 

write out a check that says "Pay to the order of Hamas." It 

can't do that otherwise everybody will know they are sending 

money to Hamas. So what do they do? They send the money over 

to the social institutions that are controlled by Hamas. And 

the social wing of Hamas has their own charitable 

organizations that are in the West Bank and Gaza. And the 

leaders of those charitable organizations were members of 

Hamas, the people who controlled those committees, and the 

Holy Land Foundation and these Defendants knew who those 

people were, and you will see from the Holy Land Foundation's 

own documents that they knew these people and that they knew 

they were Hamas, and yet they sent the money to these 

organizations. And that is how they got money into the hands 

of Hamas.

Now, there are some things that are important to 

understand about these committees, and this is really what our 

second half of our case will focus on. Now, you will see that 

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a lot of these committees, some of them are called zakat 

committees, and they are called zakat committees because zakat 

means charity. And it is an obligation in Islam to give 

charity. So there are these organizations that collect that 

charity and distribute it.

And the evidence is going to show that some of these 

organizations pre-dated Hamas. They actually existed before 

Hamas ever existed. What Hamas did is it recognized how 

important it was to have a social infrastructure, and it 

infiltrated those committees, it got its people inside those 

committees. And that was a gradual process. From the late 

'80s early '90s on it got its people into the committees so 

Hamas controlled the committees. 

So even though some of these committees actually existed 

prior to the time of Hamas, Hamas took them over. There were 

some committees that Hamas created with Sheik Ahmed Yassin, 

the leader of Hamas. He established organizations in the Gaza 

Strip. They were his organizations. They were Hamas 

organizations. There were others that had existed for a long 

time prior and they were infiltrated by Hamas members.

Now, you are also going to see that some of these 

committees had licenses from the Palestinian Authority. You 

may see some of those licenses in this case. But don't be 

fooled, because those licenses, the evidence will show, were 

absolutely meaningless, because the Palestinian Authority by 

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the time it took over in 1994 and it started governing the 

territories, these committees were already controlled by Hamas 

and there was very little the Palestinian Authority could do 

about it. So while there was a piece of paper on the wall, it 

was meaningless.

You are also going to hear evidence that the relationship 

between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas was a complicated 

one. Hamas was gaining popular support, and the Palestinian 

Authority was perceived as corrupt and weak. And it was 

politically impossible for the Palestinian Authority to do 

anything about these committees. Hamas already had a strangle 

hold on them. But you will see evidence that from time to 

time the Palestinian Authority did take action and did shut 

down some of these committees, usually under pressure from the 

United States, but then they would quickly re-open. 

It wasn't really until last year, you will hear evidence, 

that these committees finally the Palestinian Authority took 

decisive action to close and reorganize these committees and 

the entire zakat committee structure in the West Bank.

Now, you are also going to hear evidence that these zakat 

committees and charitable committees in the West Bank and Gaza 

are not separately designated by the United States government. 

Okay? You will see a list of specially designated 

organizations from the Department of Treasury. You are not 

going to find any of these committees on that list. But it 

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doesn't matter. Why? Because Hamas is designated. Okay. 

Terrorist organizations are like a cancer. You can 

blight it out in one place and it pops up in other places. It 

is impossible, the evidence will show, that it is impossible 

for the United States government to separately designate every 

single committee, every single charitable organizations.

It would be easy if Treasury Department, the United 

States government tried to close down one, to just move across 

the street and put up a sign with a different name. It is not 

possible to designate everything. But when Hamas is 

designated, that means you can't give to any organization that 

you know is Hamas, and these Defendants knew that these 

committees were controlled by Hamas. You will see that 

through the evidence. They knew who the people were. They 

knew the committees. They talked about these committees in 

Philadelphia by name. You will see documents from Mr. 

Elabarasse's house that lists these committees by name and 

says, "These committees are ours." 

You will see evidence that they knew where they were 

sending their money. And yet they put that money into the 

hands of these committees, which was putting money into the 

hands of Hamas, and that is illegal.

Now, you may also see that the United States government 

made a few mistakes on occasion. We have an agency in the 

U.S. government that gives out charity in troubled places 

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abroad, and you will see evidence that on occasion the United 

States government gave money to some of these committees. But 

again, those are mistakes. The United States government is 

learning about how to uncover these sorts of organizations and 

how to understand where the terrorist organization is 

controlling another organization. Okay? The difference is 

that the United States government didn't intend to give to 

Hamas. These Defendants intended to give to Hamas, and the 

evidence will show that, again, that they knew where the money 

was going. 

And remember the evidence will show what the mission of 

the Holy Land Foundation was. The mission was to support 

Hamas.

Now, I have three requests that I am going to make of all 

of you during the course of this trial. The first one I 

already touched on, and that is that I would recommend that 

you take notes, because even this morning you have probably 

heard more names than you can possibly remember. So it will 

be helpful to you to be able to write those down so you will 

have them when you go back for deliberations. 

The second thing I am going do ask for you is to think 

like a terrorist organization. What does that mean? This 

case is about unraveling deceptions. You are going to hear 

evidence that one or more of these Defendants lied on multiple 

occasions. You are going the hear that they lied on travel 

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documents, that they lied in sworn court statements, that they 

lied to the media, that they lied to the American public. 

There is a lot of deception. Remember the words of Shukri Abu 

Baker, Defendant Abu Baker, in Philadelphia. He said, "War is 

deception." So you have to look at the evidence in that way. 

You are unraveling a deception. So try to think like a 

terrorist organization. What would they do? A front 

organization trying to survive trying to keep raising money 

without being detected.

The last thing I am going to ask you to do is to listen 

to all the evidence carefully from both sides and the Court's 

instructions that he will give you at the end of the case, and 

focus on the law, because you are going to hear a lot of 

things to try to distract you from the law. When you hear 

about Israeli occupation and hear about Israeli settlements, 

and you hear and see pictures of children with backpacks and 

you will hear about the First Amendment, just ask yourself 

what does that have to do with the law that says you can't 

give charity to a terrorist organization? Keep that in mind.

Now, I am going to make one prediction, and that is that 

at some point during this trial one of the lawyers from the 

Defense is going to stand up and say, "These men are not 

accused of a single act of violence." You might hear that. 

But remember that money is everything to a terrorist 

organization. Money is the life blood of a terrorist 

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organization. And these men put money into the hands of 

terrorists, and that terrorist organization commits heinous 

acts of violence. 

So I want to end where I started, which is that this case 

is not about charity. It is about this law. In the United 

States you cannot give money to a terrorist organization, even 

if it is charity, for any part of that terrorist organization. 

So while this is a big case and a bit of a long case, that is 

really all there is to it.

When you hear all the evidence, I am confident that you 

will apply the law and that you will find each of these 

Defendants guilty as charged in the indictment. 

And I thank you for your time, your attention, and for 

your service as jurors. 

THE COURT: Thank you. 

Ms. Hollander? 

MS. HOLLANDER: Thank you, Your Honor.

Good morning. 

This case is about delivering charity to people who 

desperately need it. 

The Prosecutor was right about one thing--not one of 

these men, including my client Shukri Abu Baker, is charged 

with committing a single act of violence against anyone. That 

is not distraction. That is reality.

I would like to start by introducing you to someone Ms. 

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Duncan my co-counsel and I have come to know, and that is 

Shukri Abu Baker. You are going to learn in this case that he 

has dedicated his life to helping poor children, suffering 

people around the world, particularly the families and 

children of Palestine, and you are going to learn that they 

are among the poorest and neediest people in the world.

It is true that the Holy Land Foundation was everything 

to Shukri and he was everything to it. It was his life, it 

was his love, and it was his hope for the children of 

Palestine.

Now, the Prosecutor just said these men are Palestinian, 

but let's start there with what is reality, because that is 

not entirely true. Shukri Abu Baker is an American citizen. 

He wasn't even born in Palestine. He was born in Brazil. His 

mother is Brazilian. His father is Palestinian. He was born 

in South America. His mother's family are all Brazilian and 

they are all Catholic. His father's family are all Muslim 

from Palestine. So as a really multi-cultural family, maybe 

it is correct to call him a Palestinian-American, or perhaps a 

Palestinian-Brazilian-American, but that is what reality is.

He worked full time at the Holy Land Foundation every 

single day from the day it opened until it closed in 2001. He 

was responsible for it and he accepts that responsibility, 

because he believes so strongly in it. 

But we have to go back to 1948 and talk about it a little 

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more than the Prosecutor did to understand what happened. She 

said that Israel was created out of this land that was 

Palestine, and showed you a map of Israel and the Middle East. 

And that is a helpful map, but it made it sound like Israel 

was just created out of this empty land. Well, that is not 

exactly what happened. 

But let's start a little bit with size, because she told 

you a little bit about size, and I want to show you something 

that we are all very familiar with here, and that is just to 

give you some perspective here, this is what this would look 

like if it were in the state of Texas. And it is pretty much 

what she said, but here is the whole area. This part is 

Israel, and this part, we are going to learn, is the part that 

Israel occupied since 1967, but the whole thing would fit into 

this tiny little bit of Texas.

And of course it is a long ways away, but what happened 

in 1948 is when the country of Israel, we call it the state of 

Israel but it is a country, the country of Israel was created. 

Jews came from all over the world to settle there. But there 

were already people there. There were the Arabs, Muslims, and 

Christians who were already living there who had lived there 

for generations, many of them, and they had homes and farms 

and olive groves and animals and children. And as a result of 

the conflicts and the wars around the creation of Israel, 

nobody knows for sure, but somewhere between 750,000 and 

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1,000,000 Palestinian Arabs, Muslims, and Christians fled or 

were forced to leave Israel at that time. They ended up in 

refugee camps, and many of these camps still exist today.

Now, these camps, these refugees created a huge 

humanitarian crisis, which she also didn't tell you about. 

That is part of the reality. It was so overwhelming that the 

United Nations had to create a special organization. It is 

called the United Nations Works and Relief Organization. And 

it is usually known by its initials UNWRO. And it had to 

create that just to deal with these refugees. Many of these 

refugees still live in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, 

the area we will call the occupied territories or we also call 

Palestine. 

And these are some of the people who Holy Land helped to 

survive, to live, not to live better, but just to live--the 

people in these refugee camps. I just want to show you a 

picture of one refugee camp that exists today. This is a 

picture of the refugee camp, and the gentleman where my finger 

is, you will see that again, he had the Holy Land logo because 

he was taking some supplies into the refugee camp. 

But UNWRO, the UN couldn't provide everything that 

Palestinians need to survive, and the Palestinians -- those 

Palestinians and other Muslims who had more money tried to 

help themselves through the local charities. 

And zakat is not just the name of a committee. Zakat is 

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a fundamental tenant of the Muslim faith. It is an Arabic 

word that means something like charity or tithing, but Muslims 

are required by their religion if they have any funds to give 

to those less fortunate. But when they want to donate they 

have to figure out who are the neediest people, so 

historically they created committees, local volunteers who get 

together to help decide how to donate the money so that it is 

accountable and they are accountable. And you will see their 

books are audited, they are accountable to the government, so 

the money really goes where it is supposed to go.

You are going to hear a lot more about this. She said 

that the evidence is going to show these zakat committees are 

controlled by Hamas, and that is simply not true. They were 

started long before Hamas, even before Israel existed, and you 

are going to learn a great deal more about them. 

And their licenses do matter. That is reality, not 

deception. They have licenses. They have registration. They 

are audited. They are very significant organizations 

throughout the Muslim world, not just in Palestine.

But they are particularly important in the West Bank and 

Gaza, because for many years there was really no functioning 

government so there was no way to provide services for the 

people who need them. And the people were desperately poor, 

and the zakat committees are known to be honest and fair and 

could be trusted.

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You will also learn that the United States government is 

the largest single contributor to this UN organization that 

provides for the same people and worked with the same 

organizations that Holy Land worked with. 

Now, the Prosecutor told you again that there was another 

war that started in 1967 known as the Six-Day War. And this 

is a very significant war because that is when Israel took 

over the occupied territories. That is when Israel began to 

occupy not just this land that it got in 1948, but all the 

rest of this land over here, this kidney-shaped area and the 

Gaza Strip which is right here. And it is called the occupied 

territories because Israel occupies it. And that is very 

significant. Now, that is where the refugees were living from 

the first war, and now there were more people, more 

Palestinians who were living there who had also been living 

there. 

This occupation has led to tremendous economic suffering 

and to another humanitarian crisis. And to understand 

Shukri's intent and his state of mind in devoting his life to 

giving money and charity to Palestine, you have to understand 

this suffering and its causes. That is reality.

Under international law you will learn, that the U.S. 

also supports, Israel was not supposed to move its own people 

onto this land that it occupied. It had two obligations under 

international law. One is not to move its own people on to 

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take over the land, and to provide for the people. If it is 

going to occupy the land it has to provide food and water and 

supplies. 

Well, Israel started immediately after 1967 moving its 

people in, taking over land from the Palestinians, and has 

failed miserably in providing for the Palestinians. And that 

is when Israel built these settlements. That is what they are 

called--settlements. They are actually actual cities. Israel 

moved Jewish people into these settlements, and that meant 

that the Palestinians lost land. And the Palestinians lost 

some of their livelihood, and their economic situation 

worsened. 

You will learn that the United States has repeatedly 

asked Israel to stop building these settlements. And they 

figure into this case in many ways, because Palestinians work 

their land they have to be able to get to their land, their 

children have to be able to get to schools, sick people have 

to be able to get to hospitals. But once the settlements were 

built, then Israel built roads around to get from the 

settlements for the settlers, the Jewish settlers, to get 

where they wanted to go. These are called bypass roads. They 

had big walls around them, and the Arabs are not allowed to 

drive on those roads. 

Well, the roads, too, cut through their land because 

Israel took land to make those roads. And in addition, the 

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Palestinian roads are bad and they have to wander around these 

roads that are now all over the West Bank to get where they 

need to go. So there are people who a house is on one side of 

the road and their olive groves are on the other side, and 

instead of being five minutes away it may be a day's drive to 

get to where they have to go.

This created another need that Shukri and Holy Land 

sought to fill, and it added to the anger and resentment 

against the Israelis. Then Israel created checkpoints to 

protect their settlements and their bypass roads, and these 

checkpoints are all over the West Bank so that Palestinians 

who need to go to school or hospitals or need to go to work 

have to wait in long lines, and sometimes can't get where they 

need to go. 

This creates another huge humanitarian crisis and other 

economic crises. Trucks full of produce rot because they 

can't get through because the checkpoints get opened and 

closed by the Israelis who have complete power over them.

You will learn that one of the things Holy Land did was 

help provide for local hospitals, because the Israeli 

hospitals that they provided were abysmal, and people needed 

local hospitals they could get to without going through the 

checkpoints. 

There is going to be no dispute in this case about how 

desperately poor the people in the occupied territories are. 

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That is the Palestinians. Israel does provide for the 

settlers. They have all the food and water that they need. 

They are provided for by Israel. It is the Palestinians who 

are not.

So that is why really we have the Intifada that started 

in 1987. The Palestinians had taken all they could take. But 

the resistant took many forms. Certainly some people, young 

people, threw rocks at the soldiers, but some went on peace 

marches, some waived Palestinian flags. All of that resulted 

in people getting arrested. Israelis didn't make distinctions 

who was throwing rocks and who was on a peace march. So 

hundreds and hundreds of people were arrested at that time. 

Some of them were injured by Israelis shooting rubber bullets. 

People were killed. This raised the anger and it raised the 

humanitarian crisis that resulted, because people were now in 

prison and, therefore, children had no fathers to take care of 

them.

And, of course, Israel doesn't have all the legal 

protections that we have, so people could be detained for a 

long time without any evidence.

The needs of the Palestinian people dramatically 

increased during this time. That is when Holy Land was 

created. The Government is trying to convince you that 

because Holy Land was created at approximately the same time 

Hamas started, that somehow they are connected, but they are 

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not and you will see that they are not. Holy Land focused on 

the needs of the people and kept itself out of politics.

I want to give you one little example. The Government is 

going to try to convince you Holy Land supports terrorism, 

when really it was a legal response to a humanitarian crisis. 

And I will tell you this very briefly, you will hear more 

about it, and it was mentioned in the indictment, that there 

were -- Israel deported 400 men in 1992 and sent them to a 

wasteland in the middle of the Winter. It is true that Holy 

Land came to their aid. It is also true that they were never 

accused of a single crime. It is also true that the United 

States of America and many other countries in the UN condemned 

Israel for this act, and finally Israel relented and took the 

men back. None of them were ever charged. They just simply 

went back home. But Holy Land the Red Cross, the UN, and many 

other agencies immediately went to their aid, otherwise they 

would have starved and frozen to death. This was in 1992. 

Some of them indeed were members of Hamas, but it was not 

illegal at that time to provide support for Hamas, and the 

entire world, including our government, said that these men 

had to be returned home. Think of that when you hear the 

evidence about them. There was nothing illegal about giving 

to charity to members of Hamas in 1992 and that is very, very 

important. 

The next thing she talked about was Oslo, and again she 

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didn't exactly tell you the reality. This was not a peace 

agreement. It was not intended to be. It wasn't called that. 

It is called the Oslo Accords. Nor was it an agreement 

between two countries. The Palestinians agreed to recognize 

the country of Israel, but Israel did not agree to do anything 

other than negotiate with the Palestinians, and Israel did 

not, and to this day does not, agree to the creation of any 

part of the occupied territories being a Palestinian state. 

The Prosecutor focused on how Hamas opposed Oslo, and 

that is true, but there were many, many others who opposed it. 

Palestinians, Arabs, Christians, and Muslims opposed it. Many 

Israelis opposed it for other reasons. Many Americans opposed 

it. 

And she said there was a wave of violence after Oslo, and 

that is also true. But again, one of the things that 

happened, and it was a horrible thing, was that a Jewish man, 

one of the settlers in the occupied territories, actually 

assassinated the prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, 

because he had signed the Oslo Accords and this man was 

opposed to it. Now, you can be sure that that man, that 

Jewish terrorist, did not support Hamas. 

From this perspective of the Palestinians, and from 

Shukri's perspective, the Oslo Accords was devastating. They 

were afraid no one was going to pay attention to the people of 

Palestine; more, that more land would be taken and more 

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Palestinians would be driven into poverty and never have an 

independent state. 

It is against that backdrop that Shukri met with other 

men in Philadelphia. And again she only told you part of the 

story. They did meet and they talked. And thank goodness we 

have freedom of speech and freedom of association and freedom 

of religion in this country, because all they did at that 

meeting was talk. And it is not a crime to affiliate. It is 

not a crime in this country ever to speak your mind, even to 

speak your mind about an illegal organization.

The meeting was in a public hotel. Everyone used their 

own names. They signed in. The Government will show you 

their airplane receipts to prove who was there. There was 

nothing secret about it. And it took place before Hamas was 

illegal. 

And I just want to very briefly show you some dates to 

keep in mind. These are the dates to remember. January 1995, 

before that, that is when the law was enacted that made it 

illegal to provide material support to Hamas. The second one 

is in 1997, and Holy Land closed in 2001. Just keep those 

dates in your mind.

You are going to hear things Shukri said during that 

meeting. He was distressed about what was happening. He was 

fearful. Even though it was illegal -- It was not illegal in 

1993. It was two years before the U.S. put Hamas on the list 

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that made it illegal to provide support to it. Israel had 

been trying to put down the Intifada for a number of years, 

and Israel arrested people for little or no reason. 

Shukri had every reason to be fearful of Israel. He was 

going to go there. His foundation was there. People could be 

punished for waving Palestinian flags. He had to be careful 

what he said. And you will hear that he warned people not to 

use the word Hamas, but you will also see that he said that 

the charity had to be distanced from anything political. He 

told the people there, what the Prosecutor told you, "It 

doesn't matter what you agree with or don't agree with. We 

have to be legal. We have to be able to provide our support 

to the people of Palestine. We can't -- Our motto is need not 

creed." You will hear that again.

A few months after Philadelphia tragedy struck first in 

Palestine and then in Israel. A Jewish-American doctor who 

lived in one of these settlements walked into a mosque and 

killed, murdered 29 Muslim men while they were praying. Not 

long after that, Hamas sought revenge with suicide bombings 

directed against civilians in Israel. And not long after that 

the U.S. put Hamas on the list of organizations that were 

interfering with the peace process. It was at that point in 

1995 that it first became illegal to provide material support 

to Hamas. 

As soon as the law changed, Shukri gathered his employees 

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and again reminded them that Holy Land is not to be aligned 

with any political organization. "Our motto is need not 

creed."

And Shukri and Ghassan Elashi, who was chairman of the 

board, were so concerned about this that they hired lawyers. 

They even hired a former Congressman, John Bryant, and you 

will hear him tell you that they hired him to find out, "What 

should we do? We want to make sure we do everything legal." 

He went to Washington. He went to the State Department. 

He went to the FBI. He went to the Israeli embassy. He said, 

"Just tell us. We want to make sure we stay on the right side 

of the law." No one in this government or at the embassy 

would ever tell Holy Land to stop working with anyone. No one 

said stop providing charity to anyone or any organization. 

And, in fact, that is because Holy Land wasn't breaking any 

laws and they knew it. None of these zakat committees were on 

any list. 

And as you have heard, the United States government was 

also giving money to them. It wasn't a mistake. Let's look 

at the reality. The United States government, you will see 

the documents, was giving money to the same zakat committees. 

And you will hear particularly the United States Agency for 

International Development, USAID, and you will hear about the 

work that they did with the zakat committees. 

You will hear from Mr. Ed Abington who was the former 

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consul general in Jerusalem from the United States. He was 

our United States -- the United States representative in 

Jerusalem, Israel from approximately '93 to '97. He visited 

the zakat committees as a representative of the United States. 

This is the same time period when Holy Land is providing 

charity through the help of the zakat committees. And you 

will hear from Mr. Abington that he never received any 

reliable information that these zakat committees were 

controlled by Hamas or part of Hamas. And you will learn that 

none of the zakat committees or any of the charities listed on 

this indictment was ever placed on this list. Even now seven 

years later they are still -- not a single one is on that list 

that she talked about.

You will also find out that Holy Land provided also for 

fathers who were killed by Hamas or suspected of being spies 

for Israel. It was need not creed. An important tenant of 

the Muslim faith is that a child is never to be held 

responsible for the sins of the father, and that was an 

important tenant of this charity. Orphans are particularly 

important in the Muslim faith, and you will hear more about 

that. They provided for any orphan who was in need.

So you might ask yourself what exactly did Holy Land do, 

and I want to very briefly tell you you are going to hear much 

more about this, but you heard about the backpacks. These 

kids couldn't go to school, many of them, because they didn't 

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have shoes and clothes to get there. Holy Land provided 

backpacks for children and the backpacks had everything they 

needed for an entire year--pencils, pads, et cetera, even 

shoes and clothes. And I just want to show you one picture of 

the kids with their backpacks. Here they are. And they are 

outside. You can see the Holy Land logo, and they have got 

their backpacks filled with everything they need so they can 

actually get an education. This was very important to Holy 

Land. 

Holy Land provided orphans and families with monthly 

stipends, during religious holidays provided them with food so 

that they could celebrate their holidays. 

Another thing that Holy Land did, Israel demolished homes 

for various reasons. If a member of the family was suspected 

of being a terrorist, Israel would demolish the homes 

sometimes of the entire family and the extended family. If 

people didn't have a permit to build, Israel would demolish 

the homes. If Israel wanted the land for some other purpose, 

they would demolish the homes. And then Holy Land would step 

in. And I want to show you a picture. It is a picture of two 

little boys going through what is left of their home to try to 

find anything. Holy Land couldn't rebuild their homes, but 

what it could do was help them. Holy Land and UNWRO both 

provided tents for them until they could get housing. And the 

Palestinian Authority would find apartments, but the 

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apartments were empty and these people had nothing, so Holy 

Land would provide basic necessities, and I will show you 

that. There you see the Holy Land representatives with a 

mother and her children and the very basic things they need to 

survive.

The Government can't say -- And you will hear much more 

about the work that Holy Land did. This was reality. This is 

not distraction. The Government can't say it didn't know 

where Holy Land's money was going all those years. It knew 

all the time from 1993 on that millions of dollars, the 

millions of dollars you have heard about was being raised and 

sent to Palestine and to some other countries. They knew 

exactly what it was doing and where the money was going 

because they tapped the phones of the Holy Land office and 

most of -- some of the men, including Shukri, his home phone. 

They listened to their phone calls, they listened, read their 

faxes, they read their emails, they saw the bank transfers, 

they knew where every bit of this money was going the whole 

time.

It is -- Holy Land is an Islamic charity, and you are 

going to learn more about what that means. Its founders, 

including Shukri, are devout religious Muslim men, but it is 

not a Hamas charity. You will see Holy Land's records and you 

can judge for yourself when you see the records they kept. 

You will hear from experts who will explain to you more about 

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zakat, and you will learn that this is indeed a charity, a 

charity that was desperately needed, a charity that was 

Shukri's life, it was his love, and it was his hope for the 

children of Palestine, and you will learn that Holy Land did 

not give one single dime to Hamas. 

Ms. Duncan and I and Shukri are confident that at the end 

of this case you will find Shukri Abu Baker not guilty. Thank 

you very much for your attention. 

THE COURT: Thank you. And we will do one more 

before we take the lunch break. 

Mr. Dratel? 

MR. DRATEL: Thank you, Your Honor.

May it please the Court. 

Thank you. Good afternoon. It is just barely afternoon. 

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Joshua 

Dratel and I represent Mohammad El-Mezain. I hope you can all 

see him. I can't move the monitor, but he stood up before and 

told you he was not guilty.

The Government in its opening statement told you that you 

will see a lot of documents, a fair amount of evidence, but 

what this case will demonstrate to you is the difference 

between the quality of evidence and just the quantity of 

evidence. And I submit to you the evidence you will see will 

not be of a quality where the Government will be able to prove 

its case beyond a reasonable doubt. 

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The important thing the Government has to prove, what it 

really has to prove particularly with respect to Mr. El-Mezain 

beyond a reasonable doubt, it has to prove to each and every 

one of you that Mr. El-Mezain knowingly or intentionally 

conspired to provide material support to Hamas in a particular 

form, that he knew or intended that the charitable aid that 

the Holy Land Foundation provided to zakat committees in the 

West Bank was going to organizations controlled by or 

operating on behalf of Hamas. 

Now, Mr. El-Mezain is charged in only one count, Count 1, 

which is a conspiracy count to provide material support. And 

for that count, and I will talk about it a little bit again 

and you will hear about it throughout the case, the operative 

date, the important date when that law became effective, 

October 8th, 1997. So nothing that Mr. El-Mezain did before 

then can be considered a crime, not that it would be, but the 

Government has acknowledged that it can't even be considered.

About the zakat committees, the organizations where the 

money went, they are all licensed, they all pre-existed Hamas, 

they are licensed by not only the Palestinian Authority, by 

Jordan, they operated when Israelis controlled the territory 

up until 1994 when the Oslo Accords gave authority to the 

Palestinian Authority. And the Government in its opening 

talked about how these couldn't be designated. None of these 

zakats have never been designated. As we sit here today they 

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are not designated.

And you will hear about the designation process. You 

will hear that the Government designates thousands of 

organizations. They designated certain other organizations 

just like the zakat committees as being part of Hamas, but not 

these where the money went.

You will also hear they could have been shut down at any 

time, not only by the Palestinian Authority but by the 

government of Israel. 

There is only one witness who will come in and tell you 

these zakat committees are affiliated with Hamas, in any way 

or controlled by Hamas. That is a witness from Israel who 

will testify anonymously before you who has a bias and an 

interest in this outcome of this case who, I submit to you, 

when you hear his testimony and the cross examination and 

consider it in light of all the other testimony and evidence, 

that you will see not objective, not reliable, certainly not 

beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard.

The Government will try to give you a slice, a small 

slice of a piece of evidence, but then when you look at the 

entire pie, when you zoom out from the small focus that the 

Government gives you, you will see an entirely different 

perspective about this case. 

I will give you an example. When they talk about the 

Philadelphia meeting, Mr. El-Mezain wasn't even at the 

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Philadelphia meeting. I will give you another example. The 

Government had a wiretap on Mr. El-Mezain's phone for a 

decade, a decade, 1993 to 2003. You will hear some of those 

conversations, but think about a decade's worth of your 

telephone conversations and then look at the evidence you will 

see from that and say, "Does this prove the offense that Mr. 

El-Mezain is charged with?" I submit to you it will not. 

None will be related to these charges. None will prove these 

charges in a decade of conversations that are recorded.

I am not going to repeat what Ms. Hollander said about 

Holy Land's purpose and its mission. I will just tell you 

need not creed, and you will see that in the evidence.

Mr. El-Mezain was born in a town called Khan Yunus, which 

is in the Gaza Strip. His parents still live there. He is 

here in the United States with his wife and his eight 

children. And you will hear Abu Ibrahim, as sometimes he is 

referred to, Abu means father and Ibrahim is the first son, 

the oldest son. That is a tradition in the Islamic world, the 

father and then the name of the oldest son. So he is called 

Abu Ibrahim. There is nothing unusual. It is a common 

custom. 

He came to the United States in 1983, received his degree 

in business from the most prestigious university in Egypt, 

Cairo's Al-Azhar. He first lived in fort Collins in Colorado 

while studying for his Master's in economics, which he 

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received in 1985. And then in 1989 he and his family moved to 

Paterson, New Jersey where he became an emam, and he worked at 

the mosque there. He also raised money for an Islamic 

Education Foundation. He also raised money for hundreds of 

mosques and other institutions in the United States--mosques, 

youth centers, schools. This was his skill and job. 

From 1989 to 1999 he lived in Paterson, New Jersey and 

worked for the Holy Land Foundation as the original chairman 

of the board. In 1999 he moved to San Diego with his family 

and he has been in San Diego ever since. 

And he also changed jobs with the Holy Land Foundation, 

resigned from chairman of the board and became the director of 

endowment and he has always worked as a community leader, an 

interfaith community leader in that character as well.

Now, the Government will try -- they talked about 

distractions. Let me tell you about distractions. What you 

will see in the evidence, which is documents from people you 

don't even know who wrote them, handwritten, they will try to 

tell you this has something to do with this case, with Mr. 

El-Mezain, these Defendants. 

Time frames. Keep in mind those time frames. It bears 

repeating. Nothing about Hamas was illegal in the United 

States, giving support to Hamas, material support, nothing was 

illegal before 1995. With respect to Mr. El-Mezain, that one 

count it is 1997. And 2001 are the last acts in this 

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indictment. So when you talk about events and evidence that 

comes after that, ask yourself what is the relevance.

Just as an aside, the Government said that Hamas 

succeeded because they now control the Gaza strip. It is 

interesting that all the organizations to which Holy Land gave 

money that are listed in this indictment are on the West Bank, 

not controlled by Hamas, so ask yourself what is the relevance 

of that. And you will see the evidence from I will show you 

it is not.

Mr. El-Mezain is proud of his work in the Holy Land 

because they provided need to people who really need it, aid 

to the most needy, those ignored, those unable to help 

themselves, those without a government to protect them. Now 

he was not involved in the daily administrative aspects of 

Holy Land. He was a fundraiser, and that was his skill.

What happened in 1995 and again in 1997, you will see 

from the evidence, it is as if you are in a business and you 

have -- let's say you have a contract with the government, you 

are a government contractor, and there are some suppliers, 

subcontractors that are disqualified, for whatever 

reason--prior criminal activity, suspicions, all these things. 

So the government gives you a list you can't use these people. 

That is 1995 a list to the whole world the designation 

process. These people, these organizations are considered 

terrorists and you can't do business with them. That is what 

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the list is about, the designation list. 

What happens in 1995 is essentially you get this list. 

"Okay. I can't deal with A, B, or C, but I can still deal 

with D, E, and F because they are not on the list." And 

imagine if years after that the government comes back and 

says, "You should have known that D, E, and F were bad even 

though we didn't put them on the list." You had this 

government contract and went and used these contractors that 

were on the list because you thought it was okay, and years 

later you find out no. 

What happened in 1995 was that Holy Land knew that this 

law had been passed. There is no question about that. Knew 

Hamas was on the list. Mr. El-Mezain knew that. You will 

hear the evidence. But what Holy Land did, just as a business 

would do if you had been using one of those disqualified 

suppliers and then got a list that said you can't use them 

anymore, you would do what Holy Land did--adjust to the new 

law and comply with it. Adjust to the new law and comply with 

it.

And you can complain about it all you want. That is your 

right as an American. You can say, "I don't agree with the 

new list. I think the supplier is okay." You might call your 

Congressman and say, "This supplier was good in the past. I 

don't know why they are on the disqualified list." That is 

your First Amendment right to petition for grievances to 

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associate, to speak your mind, to vice your opinions, which 

you can do, and do business with that supplier. That is what 

Holy Land did--didn't do business with people who were 

designated and with Hamas; adjust and comply, just like you 

would do in any highly regulated business, which Holy Land 

knew the microscope was on them all times, from the media, 

from organizations, from the government. You will see that 

the last thing it would do is put itself in a position where 

its mission could be compromised, its mission to provide aid 

to needy Palestinians in the territories. That was its 

mission, and anything that would jeopardize that was the last 

straw. They would not do it. Instead adjust and comply.

Now, the Government told you about telephone 

conversations that Mr. El-Mezain will be heard on. And again, 

they have nothing to do with the charges, but you will hear 

conversations. And you will hear how he reacts to news of 

death on either side, Palestinian or Israeli. You will not 

hear joy. You will not hear enthusiasm. And you will hear 

other conversations which he does express joy, not about death 

but about other things. You will be able to tell the 

difference. You will be able to tell what kind of man he is 

from that evidence. You will be able to tell his intent from 

that. 

But those ten years of taped conversations will not 

provide anything of what the Government needs, and neither 

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will the videos. And the videos, when you see those videos 

think to yourself "When was this said? What was the state of 

the law when these statements were made? What exactly is Mr. 

El-Mezain saying as opposed to what the Government 

characterizes, and what is the context of the statements he is 

making?" Again, it won't prove anything to you about these 

charges. 

But what these telephone conversations and all of the 

evidence with respect to Mr. El-Mezain won't show you anything 

about talking about giving money to Hamas; nothing suggesting 

that he thought that giving money to zakat committees meant 

giving it to Hamas, or any suggestion that the zakat 

committees themselves were connected to Hamas in any way.

The Government also spoke about the Muslim Brotherhood, 

and the evidence will show you that even from the Government's 

own witnesses the Muslim Brotherhood is not Hamas. The Muslim 

Brotherhood never been designated. And it is in the United 

States, and still exists in other forms, public and permitted. 

Mr. El-Mezain told them he was a member of the Muslim 

Brotherhood. He told the Government that in an interview. 

There is nothing hidden secret or nefarious about it. 

Look at the evidence. Look at it hard. We ask you to 

look carefully, pay attention. That is very important in this 

case.

The Government also talked about relationships that Mr. 

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El-Mezain is related to someone other Defendants or related to 

people who might be connected to Hamas. Keep in mind as we go 

forward how much time the Government spends on that type of 

evidence. Associations, who you are related to, it is not a 

crime. The Government wants to make this a case about that 

through the evidence that you will hear; not about Mr. 

El-Mezain's intent and where the money actually went, because 

that is what this case is about. It is not a substitute for 

evidence. It is not a substitute for the proof beyond a 

reasonable doubt.

The First Amendment is an important aspect of this case 

because you will hear a lot of speech. In fact, it may 

surprise you, but it is true, but it is not illegal to 

actually be a member of Hamas. You could say, "I am a member 

of Hamas." It is not a crime. What is a crime is to provide 

material support for Hamas, and this case it is talking about 

money going to Hamas. It is not a crime to say, "I agree with 

Hamas. I am all for it." It is not a crime to go out on the 

front steps of the courthouse and read the Hamas charter out 

loud every day. That is all protected by the First Amendment. 

That is not the crime here. The charges are material support 

in the form of money to Hamas.

So you will see and hear a lot of speech from all sides 

of the issue. Some of it will be angry. Some will be 

frustrating. Much of it will be impassioned in one way or 

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another. But under the First Amendment, that speech cannot be 

punished unless it is intended to or it is capable of inciting 

imminent unlawful conduct, and none of that is the case here.

Think about being a terrorist organization. Think about 

that and you will see the evidence and you will see none of 

this what Holy Land did, so much of it, and Mr. El-Mezain in 

particular, is what a terrorist organization would do.

The question is not who you talk to. It is not who you 

know or are related to. It is not what you say. It is not 

your political beliefs. It is about whether the Government 

can prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. El-Mezain 

conspired, that he knew and intended that the money that Holy 

Land gave to these zakat committees that went directly to 

people was given to organizations with his knowledge and 

intent that they were operating for the benefit of or 

controlled by Hamas. 

At the end of the case I will come back to you and ask to 

return the verdict that the evidence will show you is the only 

verdict--not guilty for Mr. El-Mezain. Thank you very much.

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Dratel. 

Members of the jury, we will go ahead and recess for 

lunch. I will ask you be back at 1:45. We will plan on 

starting at 1:45. 

(Whereupon, the jury left the courtroom.) 

THE COURT: Anything from counsel before we recess? 

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See you back -- Yes, sir? 

MR. DRATEL: How much time do we have left.

THE COURT: You used 15 minutes and Ms. Hollander 

used 30, so you are right on where we were. 

MS. SHAPIRO: We have one request to make, and that 

is when the jury comes back or the end of opening, or whenever 

it is appropriate, will you be instructing the jury that the 

pictures Ms. Hollander showed are not in evidence? 

THE COURT: Are they coming into evidence at some 

point? 

MS. SHAPIRO: We will be objecting to them coming 

into evidence.

MS. HOLLANDER: The pictures I used were pictures 

that came into evidence during the first trial, and they will 

be coming back -- 

THE COURT: You will be offering? 

MS. SHAPIRO: And we will be objecting.

MS. HOLLANDER: We won't be offering the map that we 

used.

THE COURT: Right. Okay. Okay. Well, I don't 

think -- So when the evidence starts, you are requesting an 

instruction that says anything they saw during opening 

statements --

MS. SHAPIRO: The same way opening statements are 

not evidence, also anything they saw, that it is not evidence 

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at this stage. 

THE COURT: Are you planning on offering the maps 

that you showed? 

MS. SHAPIRO: These maps I believe, yes.

THE COURT: Okay. Normally it is my practice to not 

let lawyers use anything not in evidence so we don't have to 

get into these instructions. Let me get back with you on 

that. 

MS. HOLLANDER: We are happy to move the map into 

evidence, if that is what Your Honor wishes. 

THE COURT: I don't think -- You are not objecting 

to that? 

MS. SHAPIRO: We are not objecting to the maps. We 

are objecting to the photographs. We don't think those can 

properly be authenticated at all.

THE COURT: All right. We will come back to this, 

then. We will be in recess until 1:45.

(Lunch Recess.)

THE COURT: Ms. Cadeddu? 

MS. CADEDDU: Thank you, Your Honor. 

Counsel, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is 

Marlo Cadeddu, and I represent Mufid Abdulquader sitting at 

the end of the table.

Jury trials are long endeavors and they can sometimes be 

confusing. Unfortunately, unlike on TV, things don't always 

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come in in the order you would like to see them so that you 

can understand everything. Things come in out of order and 

they are sometimes a little confusing, and for that we all 

apologize. It is just how the rules work. 

So my goal is today to give you, so you can think about 

it, a little bit of a framework for how you are going to see 

the evidence and how to categorize it. I am also going to 

tell you a little bit about Mufid Abdulquader, the man I 

represent; who he is, what the charges are, and what the 

evidence is going to be.

During the course of this trial you are going to learn 

about Mufid Abdulquader, the man I represent. You are going 

to learn that he is an American citizen, that he is a civil 

engineer who went to Oklahoma State University. He is a 

licensed professional engineer. And he was born in the 

Palestinian territories, what you are going to hear referred 

to as the Palestinian territories. He, like every immigrant 

that comes to the United States, was looking for a better life 

for himself. That is how he ended up here. 

The life he left behind, though, and the life so many 

Palestinians live is a very, very difficult one. And you have 

heard something about that and will continue to hear about 

that as this case goes on. 

Ms. Hollander told you a little bit about in 1948 the 

state of Israel was created, and in that process almost a 

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million Palestinians were uprooted from their homes and became 

refugees in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian 

territories. 

After about 20 years in 1967, not quite 20 years, there 

was another war that both the Prosecution and Ms. Hollander 

told you about--the Six-Day War. Mufid's family is from 

Silwad in the West Bank. So when the state of Israel was 

originally created in 1948, his family wasn't expelled at that 

time, but in the 1967 war his home was bombed and his family 

fled to Kuwait. He was eight years old at the time.

You will learn that in this trial Mufid spent most of his 

young life, grew up in Kuwait, but in 1980 he had the 

opportunity to come and study in the United States. He came 

to Oklahoma and started attending Oklahoma State University. 

While he was at OSU he met his now wife Diane White, who 

was studying math and industrial engineering. They have been 

married for 23 years, and they have three daughters Zaneb, 

Sarah, and Nadia.

Now, one of the things that I want to talk to you about 

is how Mufid ended up here in Dallas and what that process 

was. After graduating from Oklahoma State University Mufid 

went to work for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation as 

a civil engineer, and you are going to hear he worked there 

for about nine years. At the end of nine years he was offered 

a position here in the City of Dallas working as a civil 

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engineering on community development projects like the Bishop 

Arts District in Oak Cliff. 

You are going to learn Mufid in his free time is a 

motivational speaker who has been invited to speak at area 

high schools about education and being motivated in life. He 

has also volunteered and continues to volunteer for lots and 

lots of area organizations--mosques, schools, community 

organizations. And one of the organizations that he 

volunteered his time for was the Holy Land Foundation. 

There is another very important fact that you are going 

to hear about Mufid, and that is probably what most of the 

evidence will be about. He is also a singer. He is a 

traditional Palestinian folk singer, and he was and has been a 

traditional Palestinian folk singer from the time he was a 

little boy.

Shortly after Mufid moved to the United States, which was 

in about 1980, as I told you, he joined a traditional 

Palestinian music group called Al-Sakhra. Al-Sakhra means the 

rock, and that was the name of the band for a number of years. 

After a few years the band actually changed names, and so 

another name you are going to hear in evidence is al-Najoon. 

Those two names are names for the same band, and Mufid was a 

member of that band for more than a decade.

The band had lots of different members over the course of 

its existence, probably more than a dozen. And really a band 

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is kind of a misnomer. Really it was a singing group. Music 

is played and a number of men sing traditional Palestinian 

songs in Arabic.

The band was hired as a lot -- There are actually a lot 

of Palestinian folk bands in the United States, as there are 

Greek bands and Italian singing groups and Irish dancing 

groups. And one of the things that the al-Najoon or Al-Sakhra 

band was to do was to play weddings also cultural festivals 

for graduation ceremonies, for all sorts of the kinds of 

cultural festivals and cultural festivities that you can 

imagine takes place in an ethnic community in the United 

States.

One of the types of events that the band was also hired 

to perform at was fundraisers, and some of those fundraisers 

were Holy Land fundraisers, and some were fundraisers in which 

Holy Land participated in and raised money. The Government in 

this case is prosecuting Mufid as a volunteer and band member. 

You are not going to hear any evidence he was an employee 

of Holy Land, that he was on the board of Holy Land, that he 

helped establish Holy Land, that he had anything to do with 

where Holy Land decided to send the money, what the goals of 

the organization were, or any of the issues about where the 

money went in the end.

So what we need to do, because he is being prosecuted for 

his work as a volunteer and a singer, we need to talk about 

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his volunteer work and his singing work, and I am going the 

tell you a little bit about what those detailed in more detail 

than I have already. 

Mufid is charged in three counts with conspiracy to 

provide material support to a designated terrorist 

organization. And as I said before, the way that the 

Government alleges he did that is being a Holy Land volunteer 

and a singer in the band.

I want to talk about the singing first because it is 

really the bulk of the evidence in this case. Most of the 

evidence in this case against Mufid is going to be in the form 

of videotapes of his singing and dramatic performances at 

various functions. You are going to see a whole lot of those. 

I think there are close to 10 of them. Those videotapes date 

largely from the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

In the videotapes what you will see is clips of actual 

life in the Palestinian territories and various events that 

were going on in some of them, and some of them you are going 

to see singing -- In all of them you are going to see singing 

and performing about the events that were going on in the 

Palestinian territories at the time. They are basically a 

snapshot about what the political and cultural happenings were 

in the Palestinian territories at the times that these videos 

were made.

So if we take ourselves back to the late 1980s and early 

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1990s, in the 1980s the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian 

territory was in its second decade. What the occupation 

means, as you have heard, is that Israel militarily occupied 

the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and also began engaging in 

settlement activity, so invited Israeli Jewish settlers to 

establish towns in what had been and what was Palestinian land 

in the West Bank and Gaza. 

During those settlement activities, the result of the 

settlement activities was the towns were built up in the 

middle of Palestinian land and the Palestinians were excluded 

from their traditional land. They lost their fields. They 

lost their crops, as you heard about. And the reason I bring 

this up is because those are the subjects that is the -- Those 

are to topics you are going to hear about in the songs. These 

songs are entirely about the political happenings and what is 

going on during that time in Palestinian history. It is 

political speech, political songs, political skits.

There are also other things that are going on at the same 

time you are going to hear about in the songs, and those 

involve the arrest of Palestinians and the detention without 

charge. The songs talk about being arrested, they talk about 

"No matter how many people you arrest, no matter how many 

people you kill, we are still going to resist because your 

occupation is illegal." You are going to hear that 

terminology and that theme throughout the songs that are going 

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to be put into evidence.

You are also going to hear skits, you are going to see 

skits in which an actor, person, plays a particular character 

and another person plays another character, and in one skit in 

particular you are going to see a person play an Israeli 

soldier and you are going to see Mr. Abdulqader playing an 

Arab and someone who talks about Hamas, someone who identifies 

with Hamas. Remember, these are going to be in the late 

1980s, and I will talk about the significance of the date in a 

second. But those characters debate. They have a political 

debate. They argue, "It is my land." 

"No, it is my land." 

"No, I have a right to it. I have been here forever." 

And it is a political dialogue that you see these 

characters have, and in the end they actually battle and fight 

symbolically for the land. So what is -- That is what is 

going on. That is the context of the late 1980s. There is a 

lot of seething resentment in the Palestinian territories as a 

result of the Israeli occupation.

In 1987 there is an event that is really a catalyst. It 

sparks something called the Intifada that you heard about. It 

is not the only thing that -- It is not the reason for the 

events. It is just the spark that lights up all this 

resentment that people have been feeling. That event Ms. 

Shapiro actually called a car accident. I would say car 

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accident is whitewashing the event quite significantly. In 

fact, an Israeli tank manned by Israeli soldiers ran into a 

group of Palestinians from one of the refugee camps and killed 

them, and it was that incident that sparked the uprising that 

we talk about as the Intifada. That Intifada is actually 

called the first Intifada. 

There was a second that happened a few years later, but 

that Intifada is -- Intifada is called uprising, actually it 

means uprising. And that Intifada happened at the end of the 

1980s, as a set of mass demonstrations among Palestinians who 

are living in the occupied territories. The first Intifada 

had a real effect on what people around the world, 

Palestinians around the world, were saying and doing about 

what was going on in their native land. It really -- You will 

see in the videos that there is a lot of discussion about the 

Intifada, a lot of singing about it. 

One of the things that happened in the Intifada is that 

children teenagers threw rocks as a symbolic measure of 

resistance against Israeli soldiers. Many people my age will 

remember seeing on the TV children throwing rocks at the 

Israeli soldiers. There is a theme about rocks and children 

throwing rocks, and you will hear about all of that in the 

music and in the skits.

There were people killed in the Intifada. Israel put 

down this resistance, and there were a lot of people, 

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thousands of Palestinians who were killed. Those people are 

known as shahid, which is the Arabic word for martyr. Martyr, 

you will learn, is not a suicide bomber. You are going to 

hear experts and a lot of testimony that a martyr to a 

Palestinian is simply someone who died as a result of the 

Israeli occupation.

Now, at the time of the first Intifada there was a lot of 

sympathy for what people were going through in the 

territories, and one of the things that happened -- There were 

lots and lots of things. There was a lot of sort of desire 

for political action and for support around the world for what 

the people in the territories were going through, and one of 

the things that happened at that time, and the Prosecution 

talked about that, is that Hamas was established. 

The Hamas movement began at about the same time as the 

first Intifada. And initially among Palestinian people around 

the world Hamas was seen as an answer to some of their 

problems. The PLO--and you have heard reference to that; that 

is the Palestinian Liberation Organization; that is Yasser 

Arafat's organization--was at that time sort of the 

spokesperson, the unofficial spokesperson for the Palestinian 

community worldwide. 

Well, Yasser Arafat at the PLO had been unable to achieve 

anything. The situation had not changed in the Palestinian 

territories for decades. There was a lot of corruption. 

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People viewed the PLO at that time, and even after that, as 

being corrupt and lining their own pockets, so there was 

really this desire for something new, something that could 

make a difference to the people who were there. And so Hamas 

was seen initially as that something new that could help the 

people achieve their goals. 

What you see, then, in the political talk and the 

political songs, that you are going to see in the videos, is 

that there is a lot of singing and discussion about Hamas. 

People are really hopeful that Hamas is going to be the answer 

to everything that they are going through, and so you will see 

in the skits the people talk about Hamas and how excited they 

are, and how maybe Hamas is going to be able to finally fight 

Israel and get back some of the land for the Palestinians.

You are also in these videos going to see a whole lot of 

anger and a whole lot of really hatred and resentment towards 

the Israelis. Palestinians believe Israel is the reason for 

the way they live in the Palestinian territories. You will 

hear conversations, you will hear songs that talk about the 

Jews and blaming all the troubles of the Palestinians on the 

Jews. That language is not pretty. It is not politically 

correct. It is sometimes ugly and hateful. But it is speech 

and it is real feelings expressed by real people who really 

care about the things that they are seeing happening in their 

homeland.

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What you are going to see -- Well, actually let me take a 

step back. An important thing to remember, and I think some 

of my co-counsel have touched on this, is the dates really 

matter in this case. They are really important. The January 

24th, 1995 date, the date that Hamas was designated a 

terrorist organization is a critical date to remember. 

Another critical date to remember is 2001, December, I believe 

4th, 2001, when Holy Land Foundation stopped operating. What 

we need to focus on, ladies and gentlemen, are the events that 

took place between that period. When you hear something that 

happens decades before or decades later, that is really just 

not what we need to be focused on. And part of the reason for 

that is that as we all know hindsight is 20/20, so when 

someone shows you a videotape in this case and people are 

talking about Hamas and how wonderful Hamas is, we are not 

talking -- People are not doing that in 1995. They are doing 

that in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, when they are just desperate 

for an answer to the problems that are happening over in their 

homeland.

So what happens in 1995 when Hamas gets designated? 

Well, what you will see as you see the progression of evidence 

in this case is that people stop talking about Hamas. The 

Palestinians in this country, you are not going to see a whole 

lot of videos where there is any discussion of Hamas. 

Now, as Mr. Dratel told you, it is perfectly legal today 

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and forever to stand up and say, you know, "I love Hamas. I 

want to read the Hamas charter on the courthouse steps," 

whatever you want to do. It is okay to talk about that. But 

people, Palestinians in this country remember where they were 

coming from. They were coming from a country where it was 

illegal to fly their flag, where they could be detained for a 

year without any charges, and they were afraid. So as a 

result of being afraid, they stopped talking about Hamas 

entirely, and you are not going to hear anymore about it after 

1995. And that is not because they were -- That is not 

because there is something wrong with talking about it. It is 

simply because they want comply with the law.

You are going to hear the band that Mufid was a part of 

was hired to perform around the country at all sorts of 

events; not just Holy Land fundraisers, but it did include 

some Holy Land fundraisers. Like any other band that gets 

hired to perform gigs, there was a band manager who charged 

expenses to whoever hired the band, who bought the tickets to 

go to whatever venue was involved, who dispensed whatever fee 

was paid to the band to perform, to the various members of the 

band. And you are going to see evidence of that. 

You are going to see airplane tickets, and you are going 

to see the operation of the band, and you are going to hear 

from an accountant who is actually the Holy Land Foundation 

accountant talking about that.

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I want to turn for a second to Mufid's volunteer work 

with the Holy Land Foundation. The evidence is going to show 

that -- By the way, there were -- I think I may have said 

this, but there were more than a dozen members of the band for 

the number of years it was in existence.

Turning to Mufid's volunteer work for Holy Land, the 

evidence is going to show that he was one of many, many Holy 

Land volunteers; tens of volunteers, 30 or 40 probably, it is 

a little hard to say because there aren't always records of 

people who volunteer their time and people volunteer their 

time in many ways. 

You are not going to see Mufid's name on a single 

employee list because he was not an employee. You are not 

going to see documents that he founded the organization. You 

are not going to see any evidence that he had anything to do 

with the board or with board membership or with any decisions. 

You won't see his name on checks. You are not going to see 

his name on any wire transfers or anything like that. He was 

a volunteer who volunteered his time to raise money for the 

Holy Land and other organizations.

You are going to hear from witnesses who are going to 

explain to you about zakat. And you heard a little bit about 

that already. Zakat is a name for a charity or tithing in the 

Muslim faith. And you can give zakat -- I mean, it is very 

similar to the Christian faith. You can give zakat by giving 

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money, actual money to needy people. You can also do it by 

giving of your time and donating your time to an organization. 

And that is actually what Mufid did. When he was volunteering 

for Holy Land, he was giving zakat. He was doing his duty as 

a Muslim, unlike -- I want to draw a distinction here. Unlike 

when he performed with the band, though Mufid was not a paid 

fundraiser. He was a volunteer. 

His expenses were reimbursed. And you are going to hear 

from the accountant that there are going to be records, he had 

to turn in receipts, as every volunteer fundraiser did, he had 

to collect the receipts for parking and airport and meals and 

that sort of thing and then turn them in to be reimbursed. 

And you are also going to see on one occasion a list of 

people, including volunteers, who were given a check, a bonus 

check on Eid, which is like our Christmas, when they give out 

gifts, and that check is going to be a thank-you for all the 

time and effort he had given to the Holy Land over the years.

To sum up, the evidence is going to show that Mufid was a 

member of a band that had more than a dozen members and was 

hired to perform at various events--weddings, graduations, 

fundraisers, including the occasional Holy Land fundraiser. 

You are going to see evidence that he was also a volunteer 

fundraiser. He was one of many. He was not -- He didn't 

raise anymore money than anybody else. He was a good 

fundraiser, but you will see plenty of people who raised more 

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and plenty of people who raised less. 

So you may actually be wondering why it is that when 

there are a dozen band members and there are, you know, let's 

say 30 or 40 volunteers, why he is sitting at the end of the 

table over here, and you are going to hear about that. You 

have in fact heard about why that is.

The answer is, ladies and gentlemen, this guy right here. 

This picture is a photograph of specially designated terrorist 

Khalid Mishal. Mr. Abdulqader has the unfortunate coincidence 

of being Mr. Mishal's half brother, an accident of birth that 

the Government seeks to exploit for its benefit. 

At the beginning of my opening statement I told you that 

the framework for thinking about this case is the First 

Amendment. The First Amendment protects our right to free 

speech, freedom of religion, assembly, and association, and 

those are rights that all of us have that all -- That 

particular amendment to the United States Constitution is one 

that we all hold dear and we don't think about very much, but 

we just all know we have those rights. It is something that 

we feel deep down in our guts and that we don't really have to 

think about a whole lot, but we do all recognize when those 

rights are infringed. Every single piece of evidence you are 

going to see in this case is going to fall into one of those 

four protected categories--speech, religion, association, and 

assembly.

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The Government is going to play tapes of Mufid Abdulqader 

saying a lot of stuff that Israel doesn't like. They are 

going to try to use the things that he said about Israel in 

order to turn his volunteering for the Holy Land into 

something ugly instead of the religious duty it was. And they 

are going to tell you to find him guilty because his brother 

is Israel's Enemy No. 1.

I would like you to please listen to all the evidence 

very, very carefully and recognize it for what it is, which is 

an attempt to punish Mr. Abdulqader for exercising his First 

Amendment rights, and for the fact that he is related to a bad 

guy. 

At the end of this case, after you have heard all the 

evidence and you have considered everything, I know that you 

will return the verdict that is the only one permitted under 

the evidence in this case, and that is not guilty. Thank you. 

THE COURT: Thank you, counsel.

And Mr. Westfall? 

MR. WESTFALL: Your Honor, may I have just a moment 

to get set up? 

THE COURT: Sure, yes, sir. 

MR. WESTFALL: Thank you, Your Honor. May it please 

the Court.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to do me a 

favor. Look at your computer screens. I want to show you 

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something. See that right there? That is a picture of a 

Palestinian child. That is the type of picture that was on 

orphan applications that the Holy Land Foundation used to get 

sponsors for these Palestinian children. That is also the 

reason that Abdul Odeh got up and went to work every day.

You know, Abdul has been a citizen of the United States 

for 20 years, but before that he was born in Silwad in the 

Palestinian West Bank in the occupied territories. Before he 

was one-year-old his family moved to Kuwait so his father 

could get work. And Abdul came here in about 1982 to go to 

college, and stayed, and has now been a citizen for 20 years. 

After finishing college and doing a couple of other 

things, limousine driver, odd jobs, he took a $25,000 a year 

job with the Holy Land Foundation in February of 1994, and 

what he did was he manned the New Jersey office of the Holy 

Land Foundation. He had no employees. He was the only 

employee in the office. 

He would go and tend to coin boxes, like you have at 

7-Elevens for handicapped kids. You have seen the coin boxes. 

They had those. He would go to mosques and collect donations 

that they made for the Holy Land Foundation. And like Mufid, 

I mean, he wasn't an incorporator of the Holy Land Foundation. 

He wasn't one of the original guys. He was never on the 

board. He didn't hire people. He didn't fire people. He 

didn't make executive decisions. He wasn't in the Muslim 

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Brotherhood. He wasn't on the Palestine Committee. He didn't 

give speeches. He was an employee of the Holy Land 

Foundation. But the number one thing he was is that he was a 

relief worker. And I would like to tell you a little bit 

about the things that Abdul did while he was with the Holy 

Land Foundation.

In 1996 Abdul went to the Canada Camp is what it is 

called. There has been a couple of lawyers that have 

mentioned the refugee camps to you. This is one of them. 

When Israel was created, the Palestinians who lived there that 

had to be moved away for the creation of the state of Israel, 

they went to these refugee camps. And now, like for instance 

this refugee camp in Rafah, which is right on the Egyptian 

border, there are families in there that the children and the 

grandchildren of the original Palestinians that were taken off 

their land were put into these camps. And these people live 

in just unimaginable poverty. There is cinder block homes 

with corrugated steel roofs that they live in. 

And what Abdul did was he got two trailer loads of food 

down in Egypt, and with a couple of other people he drove 

those up to this place. And, you know, the kids met them. 

There is always kids, always kids. And they met them at the 

front. And he went in to this place, that is a little U.N. 

school, the United Nations school, school house, and that is 

where they parked the trucks, and that is where they had 

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everybody line up to come get the stuff. 

And you see this thing here, this is a sign-in sheet. 

This is something they always did. You will see these where 

all the names of all the people who were supposed to get the 

aid, they would come in and sign for it, and if they couldn't 

sign, which a lot of them can't, they would put a fingerprint 

down there, you know. And you will see that. They had to 

show their U.N. credentials and everything, and they got their 

aid off the truck. They would get this little piece of paper. 

And there is Abdul in Egypt administering this aid. This is 

what he did.

You know, I want to take a break and tell you about the 

pantry, because this was Abdul's pride and joy, and it was on 

a picture a few pictures back and I forgot to mention it and I 

need to. In New Jersey in his work place he set up a food 

pantry for poor people in New Jersey. 

Now, the observant Muslims have these food laws, just 

like observant Jews do. You can't eat pork, and there are 

other -- It is just like kosher, not just like kosher, but the 

same idea. There is food laws that are based in the religion. 

And if you are poor in New Jersey and Paterson, New Jersey at 

that time and you are Muslim, there is just -- You just can't 

do anything about it. You have to go to the food bank, do 

what you can, do what you can. 

But Abdul, with the backing of the Holy Land Foundation, 

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set this food bank up in New Jersey out of the Holy Land 

Foundation office, and he did it with the Red Cross and with 

the Passaic County Food Bank and with FEMA. A Congressman 

came to the opening of it. It was a big deal. And that was 

his baby. And at the end he was feeding about 250 families 

out of that.

So let's go to Jordan. This is 1996. In 1997 Abdul goes 

to Jordan and visits ten more of those refugee camps in the 

space of ten days. Ten more of these U.N. refugee camps, and 

the same deal. You can see here there is a lot of them that 

have to do their thumbprints because they can't read or write, 

and then they get their aid and he hands it out. In 1998 he 

did this exact same thing again.

In 1999.

MR. JACKS: Your Honor, I am going to have to 

object. This is not in the nature of an opening statement. 

This is argument and things that are not in evidence, and I 

would just object to the nature of this presentation. It is a 

slide show. 

THE COURT: We may be starting to get a bit more 

into argument, counsel, than we should. 

MR. WESTFALL: I expect the evidence to show these 

things, like this photograph. I am going to show you all 

something, and the evidence is going to show this very 

clearly. Each one of these, you see down there in that corner 

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that little number? That means that these photographs are in 

the possession of the Government, and you will learn that in 

the evidence. The evidence will show that. And each of these 

photographs that I have shown you up to this point is in the 

possession of the Government. And this is what the evidence 

is going to show, the work of Abdul Odeh. 

I am asking you not to think like a terrorist. I am 

asking you to think like a human being a man who is in the 

charity business. 

In Kosovo he took bread or he took a thousand tons of 

wheat flour and a mobile bakery so that the refugees through 

Slobodan Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing could make 

their own bread. He took two mobile clinics with him, little 

hospitals on wheels. And the Holy Land Foundation, a USA 

charity, did this.

This thing here was a booth that Odeh would sit in at 

these conventions, and you are going to hear about these 

conventions, the IAP conventions, the Maya conventions. What 

the Holy Land Foundation did was raise money at these 

conventions, and this is what Abdul Odeh did--he manned the 

booth. And you can see behind the booth there are pictures, 

and the evidence is going to show every bit of this, there are 

pictures you can see, the ambulance picture there. These are 

projects that the Holy Land Foundation did and these are the 

specific things that Odeh would raise money for.

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Some of the projects, like a wheelchair project in 

Palestine, an electrical infrastructure project in Lebanon, 

you know, you will hear -- And the Prosecutor mentioned the 

food parcels. Well, the food parcels were a huge deal, 

particularly around religious holidays. They would give the 

needy these food parcels that would have staples in them like 

olive oil and rice and stuff. 

And, I mean, there are thousands of pictures, and I am 

going to try to bring as many of them to you as I can showing 

how they are put together and who they are given to. It is 

all there.

These are the backpack projects. Here is another. You 

see that little blue sign? That is a U.N. refugee camp. You 

will hear about that. More backpacks.

And then finally this, you will learn from the evidence, 

is an orphan application. The Holy Land Foundation you will 

learn sponsored at any given time upwards of 2,000 or 3,000 

orphans in Palestine at the rate -- If you signed up through 

the Holy Land Foundation to sponsor an orphan, you would agree 

to pay $50 a month, and of that $50, $45 would reach the 

orphan. And there are signature sheets to show that it 

actually did. And in fact they are not even going to claim 

that it happened any other way. The money went to the 

children, period. 

And each one of these orphan applications you will learn 

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has certain documents with it. You will see these documents 

over and over. They are birth certificates, death 

certificates of the father, because an orphan in Islam is -- 

Number one, an orphan holds an incredibly important place in 

Islam because Mohammad was an orphan. But the way an orphan 

is defined in Islam is a child that has no father. So, you 

know, if the mother has eight children and the father has been 

killed, those are eight orphans, even though their mother 

still lives with them. That is the religious definition of an 

orphan. But you will learn that these children, they are 

needy, and it says so in all these documents.

And every single one of them -- This is a UN refugee 

card. You see these a lot with the orphan application. But 

every single one of them had a picture, and the picture of the 

orphan was attached to the application on every one.

You know, they brought up -- Ms. Shapiro brought up this 

beautiful operation phone call, you know, where Odeh was happy 

about a bombing. Well, let me tell you kind of the rest of 

the story.

MR. JACKS: Excuse me, Your Honor. We have got this 

scrolling slide show that is going on while he is making this 

argument or opening, and that is improper. These items are 

not in evidence. Whatever he says about where they came from, 

that is not evidence, and we would ask that this be 

terminated.

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THE COURT: Do you want to stop that? 

MR. WESTFALL: I will, Your Honor. But I promise I 

am going to seek admission of every one of these photographs 

and quite a few more.

MR. JACKS: That is all well and good, Your Honor, 

but until then these are not in evidence, and we object to 

this display during what is supposed to be opening statements.

THE COURT: Okay. Overrule the objection as far as 

the display. He is going to turn it off. Go ahead. 

MR. WESTFALL: The beautiful operation, what she 

didn't tell you was that January 22nd of 1995 there was this 

double suicide bombing, and it killed 20 Israeli soldiers. 

Okay? Twenty Israeli soldiers. And at the time Abdul Odeh 

lives in New Jersey, and you can hear it in the wiretap he is 

listening to the radio, he is listening to this on the radio 

along with 200 million, God knows, other people. He is 

listening to it on London radio. And so he knows that there 

is 20 soldiers killed in this operation. Okay? And he calls 

El-Mezain, this man that he looks up to an awful lot. He is 

an emam. 

Well, consider this. When somebody is arrested in the 

occupied territories and is held without charges for months or 

years, it is the Israeli military that does it. They are also 

called the IDF, the Israeli soldiers. When somebody's home is 

demolished to the ground to dust to make a bypass road, or to 

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make room for another settlement, or for whatever, it is the 

Israeli military that does it. When a woman dies in 

childbirth at a checkpoint because she can't get through to go 

to the hospital, it is the Israeli military that didn't let 

her through. The Israeli military is the face of the 

occupation. So when Odeh hears on the radio that 20 soldiers 

have died, 20 Israeli soldiers, you know, I am sorry that our 

reaction was not appropriate for Ms. Shapiro. I can't wait 

for you all to hear that call, because it shows how very human 

this man is.

What this case is going to come down to is intent, and 

everyone has said that in different ways. Okay? What were we 

thinking, what was Odeh thinking when he did what he did, when 

he said what he said. All right? And when they are going to 

prove intent, they are going to try to prove intent, what they 

are going to do is prosecute him with books that he had in his 

office. They are going to seek to prosecute Abdul Odeh based 

on a letter that somebody else wrote that was in his office. 

They are going to ask you to convict Abdul Odeh based upon a 

newspaper photograph that was cut out of a newspaper that says 

Reuters on it that was found in his office, a picture of 

Sheikh Yassin from 1990. These are things they are going to 

use, that and the beautiful operation conversation like she 

said. We are being prosecuted because of our reading 

material. 

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But if you really want to see the intent of Abdul Odeh, 

all you have to do is look at the pictures of these kids. In 

order to get a conviction they have to somehow show that we 

did humanitarian aid out of hatred, that humanitarian aid, the 

feeding hungry children was an act of hatred done for the 

purpose of eradicating Israel.

This is going to be a case where we see if such a thing 

is even possible. 

THE COURT: Thank you.

And Ms. Moreno? 

MS. MORENO: May I have a moment, Your Honor? 

THE COURT: Certainly. 

MS. MORENO: Will you advise how much time I have 

left? 

THE COURT: I will give you the 25 minutes you had 

asked for. 

MS. MORENO: I might need a few more minutes, Your 

Honor. 

THE COURT: I think 25 will be sufficient. 

MS. MORENO: Okay. Thank you very much.

May it please the Court. Good afternoon, ladies and 

gentlemen.

The evidence is going to show you in this case that 

Ghassan Elashi never supported terrorism, never supported 

violence, has committed no crime, and never sent a nickel to 

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Hamas.

As one of the founders of the Holy Land Foundation, 

Ghassan Elashi made a choice, he made a decision, he made a 

commitment, a humanitarian mission to feed the poor and 

provide for the homeless and destitute of Palestine and other 

countries around the world. In the finest traditions of 

American charitable service, the Holy Land Foundation and 

Ghassan Elashi tried to meet the needs of some of the poorest 

people in the world. 

The mission was humanitarian. It was not political. And 

his intent, you are going to be able to see, is going to be 

amply demonstrated by the evidence. But politics is at play 

in this case, ladies and gentlemen. Politics did not control 

where the aid went, where the food went, and the money.

Now, the Prosecutor told you why this case is so 

important to the United States' interest, but what the 

evidence is really going to show you is Israel's influence in 

the United States government policies in general and driving 

this particular case in particular.

This case is not about terrorism. It is not about money 

laundering. It is not about conspiracy. The evidence is 

going to show you, you are going to see this, that Israel has 

a dangerous influence over these policies, and it is at play 

in this case in this courtroom. 

And where are you going to see that evidence? You are 

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going to see it in the documents, which were largely supplied 

by Israel, in the paid consultants who are in the employ of 

Israel, the witnesses who come from the Israeli military, so 

think about that when you are thinking about what is at play 

in this case.

My name is Linda Moreno and, along with John Cline, 

represent Mr. Ghassan Elashi. I hope you can see Mr. Elashi 

there.

Let me tell you about my client Mr. Elashi. He was born 

in Gaza in 1953, and he came to this country nearly 30 years 

ago. He became an American citizen. He is married to an 

American citizen, and all of his children are American 

citizens. 

And his story is like so many Palestinians of his 

generation. His family lost their home in 1948. Mr. Elashi 

lost his home in the Six-Day War, that the Government told you 

about, in 1967. And you are going to learn why Ghassan Elashi 

and Muslims around the world have a special place in their 

hearts for Palestinians. 

People who are doctors and teachers, lawyers, mothers, 

fathers, business people around the world have a feeling of 

hopelessness around the Palestinians. Those fortunate to have 

escaped the Israeli occupation, which Ms. Hollander discussed, 

and others, felt an obligation to support those who could not 

escape the occupation and they did this through this zakat, 

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this tithing that we do as Christians.

The Holy Land Foundation was one of the preeminent 

charities that accepted these zakat funds, these tithing 

funds, for the benefit of the needy, and distributed the aid, 

as you heard, according to need, not creed, not politics. 

Now, the Government told you that Holy Land was created 

to support Hamas. The evidence will show you this is 

absolutely false. The evidence will show you something very 

different. From 1967 to 1987, that 20-year span of time, 

while the Palestinians were under a brutal military occupation 

in the West Bank and Gaza, it took a deadly, deadly toll. In 

response they organized into this largely non-violent 

resistance known as the first Intifada that you heard about. 

Now, you are going to hear that -- You heard something 

about the children throwing stones. In fact, they were 

referred to as the children of the stones. And you will see 

photographs of children with stones throwing them at Israeli 

armored tanks.

Many Palestinians died. The poverty deepened and the 

Palestinian society deteriorated, you see, ladies and 

gentlemen, because the occupation kills. 

To respond to this crisis, to respond to this need, Holy 

Land was born, not to support Hamas, but to support those 

Palestinians at that desperate time in history. 

Now, what did this need look like? And you have heard a 

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lot about it, and I am not going to go over and over it again. 

But the Government asked you not to be distracted by the 

charity. Remember that? The Government said, the Prosecutor 

said think about the law. We want you to think about the law 

because the law will direct you to intent. That is what you 

must think about. And in this case the intent was the 

charity.

The typical Palestinian child that the Holy Land 

Foundation supported, that is where I want you to focus for a 

minute. The Government's own expert, the first person you are 

going to hear in this case, he will admit that during the 

operation of the Holy Land Foundation, the operation of the 

humanitarian aid, 70 percent of Palestinians lived under the 

poverty line, lived on less than $2 a day. The children were 

born into refugee camps. So were their parents. So were 

their grandparents. The refugee situation, it was 

generational.

The cinder block homes that Mr. Westfall talked about, 

you are going to see photographs of that. You are not going 

to recognize these as homes from any American standard, 

because these homes will in large part be one room, one room, 

sometimes with holes in the ceiling. You will see photographs 

of many, many people living in one room. 

Sometimes there won't be a home because the homes have 

been demolished, and you heard a little bit about that. You 

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see, the demolished homes project was a project that the Holy 

Land supported, and the demolished homes you are going to 

learn are -- it was a special form of collective punishment 

that the Israelis had for families who are suspected of a 

member of them being a terrorist.

Now, I say suspected because you are not going to hear 

any evidence that there was some sort of legal determination 

or court order. You are not going to hear anything like that. 

But these families, because of the situation, will have lost 

their homes. The homes were demolished.

Now, you are going to see that the entire family can be 

punished for the acts of perhaps a family member, if indeed 

that family member was a terrorist. This view is not 

consistent with Muslim or Christian traditions, and we are 

going to admit there is no question that money was raised in 

this case to help some of those families who lost their homes. 

And you saw a photograph with Ms. Hollander of the kind 

of aid that these families would get--water and mattresses and 

kerosene and food and the like. You will see photographs of 

that. But what you will never see, you will see no evidence 

whatsoever that there was any pre-existing agreement with 

Ghassan Elashi or the Holy Land Foundation to extend charity 

to anybody in exchange for any violent act or as a reward for 

any violence; none whatsoever. And there will be no evidence, 

none, that the aid that was given to these families somehow 

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gave them an incentive to do future violent acts; absolutely 

no evidence.

You are going to learn there is no typical family 

situation in the Palestinian homes of the refugee camps that 

Holy Land served. Sometimes the fathers are missing. You 

heard about detentions. Sometimes they have been killed. 

Sometimes, if the children are lucky enough to have fathers in 

the home, they need a permit to work because all Palestinians 

need a permit to work, you will learn. This is the situation 

that the Holy Land Foundation addressed. 

Simply put, you will learn through the evidence in this 

case that the Government of Israel controlled the agriculture, 

the borders, the air, the water, travel, and nearly every 

facet of Palestinian life. Exile and deprivation was the 

condition of the daily life of the Palestinian, and it is to 

this deprivation and to this need that the Holy Land 

Foundation reached out to; not to the politics of Hamas. 

The humanitarian work of Holy Land was a thoughtful and 

reasonable response to the devastation wrought by now 40 years 

of occupation. For the life of the charity for 12 years Holy 

Land sent food, medicine--you are going to see photographs of 

all of this--backpacks, wheelchairs, tuition money for 

students, that is if the schools were open and not closed by 

the Israeli military. You are going to learn that the Holy 

Land Foundation helped train people in the refugee camps to 

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become tailors to learn how to sew so they could have 

something, something of their own. 

You are going to learn about chicken farms that the Holy 

Land Foundation helped support these families so they could 

have food on the table and that they could have a future. 

Millions of dollars, you will see, went to buy food 

packets--grain, flour, sugar, oil, the staples of life. That 

is what Holy Land was about. That is what their intent was 

about. 

You are going to hear wiretaps in this case, phone calls. 

Now, the Government never wiretapped Ghassan Elashi. They 

never wiretapped Mr. Elashi. But he was picked up on phone 

calls when he was talking to others who were being wiretapped. 

And you are going to see some of those phone calls. You are 

going to hear them. And we are grateful that you will be able 

to, because remember, this is the government listening in to 

someone's unguarded moments. 

And by the way, the ten years of surveillance, nearly ten 

years of wiretaps, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, they are 

going to bring you just a handful of phone calls for Mr. 

Elashi, this material supporter of terrorism. That is all 

they have got.

In none of those phone calls Mr. Elashi is never heard 

supporting violence, never; never heard asking about any 

Hamas-controlled zakat committees or about certain families of 

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suicide bombers or expressing a preference or anything like 

that. He never said one committee should receive money over 

another because of its relationship to any organization, let 

alone a terrorist one. 

You are going to hear two very important phone calls, 

April 23rd and April 24th of 1996. These phone calls center 

around the list, the law, the list that Ms. Shapiro told you 

about. And you are going to hear Mr. Elashi and Mr. Abu Baker 

discussing the implications of this new law and how this list 

is going to affect their charity, and how the Holy Land needed 

to wait for the list to determine who would be on it. 

Let me just quote you a few things that you will see Mr. 

Elashi said. He said, "Well, I'm going to abide by the law 

because I won't be able to make a transfer. I know 

that." You are going to hear him say, "What is important is 

that the charitable work goes on. So yes, it is important to 

us that violations do not take place." You will hear him say, 

"The goal is that the work is in the open and the foundation 

stays protected." That the work is in the open and that the 

foundation stays protected; hardly the unguarded statements of 

a supporter of terrorism of a Hamas operative or a money 

launderer. 

Mr. Elashi wanted the charitable work to be open and 

transparent to ensure no violations took place so that the 

needy would still be served.

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Now, this law dealt with a list, and I am just going to 

spend a couple of minutes on the list. The United States 

government has the power to designate people and groups as 

terrorists, and once you are designated you land on this list. 

And no matter how a person or a group ends up being designated 

a terrorist, the person or group goes on the list. And the 

list is a master list. Okay? You are going to see it, 

hundreds of pages long, thousands of names, thousands of 

entities and people. And if you look at the list under H, you 

are going to find Hamas listed. And you will find aliases. 

And the list serves a very important function, because it 

tells people in our country who they can't do business with. 

And this list is public and it is on a website. 

So let's say, for example, Apple in the U.S. is thinking 

about selling ipods to a foreign country or a foreign company. 

They can look on the list and see if that company is on the 

list. If it is, they cannot do business with it. If the 

foreign company is not on the list, however, Apple knows that 

the company has not been designated as a terrorist. All it 

has to do is check the list. 

Now, over the years since Hamas' designation, other 

organizations that the United States thinks are associated 

with Hamas have been designated as terrorists. Abu Marzook, 

Sheikh Yassin, their names are on the list. Various 

organizations from around the world that the United States 

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thinks are part of the Hamas funding network, they are on the 

list, and you are going to hear about them. Organizations 

called Interpal and al-Aqsa. You will hear about these 

organizations. 

You will hear about a zakat committee called the al-Salah 

Society and their director. They are on the list, but here is 

a crucial point. Not a single one of the zakat committees to 

which the Holy Land gave money, not a single one of the zakat 

committees that you heard in the indictment, not a single one 

of them has ever been designated a terrorist or placed on the 

list, and not a single one of the officers or directors is on 

that list. And the evidence will show you that Mr. Elashi was 

looking to the list to tell him who he could deal with and who 

he could not.

And Mr. Elashi says on the 23rd of April, with the FBI 

listening and recording, "Well, I'm going to abide by the law 

because I won't be able to make a transfer. I know 

that." That's what he said. It could not be any clearer that 

he believed that the list would tell him what Holy Land could 

and could not do.

And if the Government put the zakat committees on the 

list, Holy Land wouldn't give money to them. Ladies and 

gentlemen, to this very day the zakat committees are not on 

the list. 

You are also going to find out that Mr. Elashi did 

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several things. He hired lawyers, a former Congressman that 

Ms. Hollander talked about. You are going to hear he met with 

the chief of the FBI here in Dallas to discuss the integrity 

of the charity and its transparency. You are going to hear 

when a leading newspaper accomplished some negative and false 

rumors about Holy Land, Mr. Elashi hired counsel and sued the 

newspaper this brought Holy Land even more into the public 

spotlight, not away from the radar. This is not conduct you 

would expect from a Hamas operative, a money launderer, or 

supporter of terrorism. 

Others have talked about the First Amendment and I am not 

going to go there. It is very important, however, the 

Government in this case has made a crime, made speech a crime, 

it has made religion a crime, has made associations -- they 

are going to want you to convict Mr. Elashi because of a 

family relationship with someone. This is un-American and 

should not be allowed.

Just a few words about the Government witnesses we expect 

you will see. The first witness we believe is going to be a 

Dr. Matthew Levitt. He is a paid consultant from Washington, 

D.C., a so-called terrorism expert. You will hear he wrote a 

book on Hamas, and you will hear that that book relies on, no 

surprise, security sources from the Israeli government, that 

he works for a think tank which has a definite pro-Israeli 

agenda, and that he has spoken at AIPAC, which stands for the 

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American-Israeli Political Action Committee. I think the name 

says it all. 

You are going to hear from -- We anticipate you will hear 

from a convicted felon who stole hundreds of thousands of 

dollars from his employer. And then Mr. Dratel mentioned the 

anonymous Israeli witness that you are going to hear from, and 

what you will learn is that he is an Israeli employed by the 

Israeli government, and he is their expert on these zakat 

committees. And you will also learn that he never visited a 

zakat committee and has read no books on zakat committees, and 

it will be for you to decide the credibility of an anonymous 

witness from the Israeli security agency.

I want to say a few words about the children issue. You 

are going to hear a lot about the children. And Ms. Shapiro 

said something about it. And the children have a very special 

place for the Holy Land Foundation. And I anticipate you may 

see some evidence of videos with Palestinian children. 

Now, the Government is going to present this evidence and 

these videos as examples of children who have been brainwashed 

to hate Israel, brainwashed to hate Israel. The Government 

will tell you that the blame for the way these children feel 

and express themselves does not belong to Israel the occupier, 

but to the Holy Land Foundation. 

The evidence is going to clearly show you that their 

mission was charitable. Holy Land's mission was not 

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political. It will be for you to decide, ladies and 

gentlemen, at the end of the day, whether feeding children 

brainwashes them or whether it is a brutal and violent 

occupation that produces children robbed of their childhood or 

any hope for the future.

Intent is a big issue in this case, and intent is what 

you need to be focused on. I want to show you two last 

pictures. One of them you have actually seen already. This 

picture is a picture of a child in the rubble of family 

members of a home that has been demolished. Cinder block. 

See the cinder block? We are going to be moving this 

photograph into evidence. This is the face of the occupation.

Now, this is the intent of the Holy Land Foundation. It 

is not political. You are not going to hear anything about 

any advocacy that the Holy Land did when it gave out aid. 

Backpacks, children that look fed in their school uniforms. 

This is the intent of the Holy Land Foundation. The charity 

is important in this case. Don't be fooled. Don't let the 

Government make you take the eye off the ball.

These children have a future under the Holy Land 

Foundation and under the aid that Ghassan Elashi and the 

others gave. They have a future. And they are more likely to 

turn away, you will learn, from the tragic footsteps of the 

suicide bomber. This is what the Holy Land Foundation was 

about.

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We are confident that after you look at all the evidence 

in this case, you will do justice for Ghassan Elashi and for 

the Holy Land Foundation and you will vote not guilty on all 

the charges and acquit him. Thank you. 

THE COURT: Thank you, Ms. Moreno. 

MS. MORENO: Thank you, Your Honor. 

THE COURT: Ready to call your first witness? 

MR. JONAS: Yes, sir. If we can have a moment to 

turn the lectern? 

THE COURT: Sure. 

MS. SHAPIRO: Your Honor, we just renew our request 

with respect to -- 

THE COURT: What we discussed at the lunch break? 

MS. SHAPIRO: Yes.

THE COURT: I will decline that at this time. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, the United States calls 

Matthew Levitt. 

(Whereupon, the oath was administered by the Court.)

MATTHEW LEVITT,

Testified on direct examination by Mr. Jonas as follows:

Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Levitt. 

A. Good afternoon.

Q. Could you tell us generally where you live?

A. Washington, D.C. area, Maryland.

Q. Sir, do you have a college degree?

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A. I do.

Q. What is that degree in?

A. I have a Bachelor's of Science in political science from 

Yeshiva University in New York.

Q. When did you receive that?

A. In 1992.

Q. Do you have a Master's degree?

A. I do.

Q. And what is that in?

A. A Master's of Law and Diplomacy, which is a fancy way to 

say international relations from the Fletcher School of Law 

and Diplomacy from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Q. Outside Boston?

A. Yes.

Q. You say Master's of law. Are you a lawyer?

A. No.

Q. Glad to hear it. Do you have any other degrees beyond a 

Master's degree?

A. I also have a Ph.D. in international relations also from 

the Fletcher School at Tufts.

Q. When did you get that the degree?

A. 2005.

Q. Okay. What is your doctorate in?

A. Generally in international relations. The dissertation 

specifically was on terrorism and negotiations in the 

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Israeli-Palestinian context.

Q. I should have asked you, what is a doctorate?

A. It is a Ph.D. It is the highest academic degree we get 

in social sciences.

Q. Have you received any fellowships in getting your degree?

A. Several.

Q. What is a fellowship?

A. A fellowship is money and support, and in some cases 

space, an office, to write and research one's dissertation. 

In my case I received several small grants from the Fletcher 

School and some foundations, the main one was from the program 

Negotiation at Harvard Law School, which gave me a space to 

sit for a year and funded my research in the West Bank, Gaza, 

and Israel.

Q. You mentioned the word dissertation. What is a 

dissertation?

A. A dissertation is the painfully long book-length study 

one needs to do to finish a Ph.D.

Q. What was your dissertation specifically on?

A. It was on the impact of terrorist attacks on the 

negotiation process in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian 

arena focusing on terrorist attacks by both Palestinian 

extremists and Jewish extremists.

Q. After you received your Master's degree, did you go to 

work?

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A. Yes. I went to work briefly at a think tank, the 

Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where I am now 

again, and then spent three years as a counterterrorism 

analyst at the FBI.

Q. And while at the FBI what did you specifically do?

A. Specifically focused on analyzing the activities of 

Middle Eastern terrorist groups present in the United States, 

their fund-raising logistical support activities in 

particular.

Q. Did you take any training courses while at the FBI?

A. I did.

Q. Such as?

A. Counterterrorism analysis, advanced counterterrorism 

analysis, law enforcement and intelligence cooperation. Some 

of these are courses provided by the FBI. Some are provided 

by other U.S. agencies in the intelligence community.

Q. While at the FBI, did you have access to classified 

material?

A. I did.

Q. Did you have a security clearance?

A. I did.

Q. Will any of your testimony in this court be based upon 

any of the classified material you had access to?

A. No.

Q. How long were you at the FBI?

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A. Just over three years.

Q. And after that where did you go?

A. After that I went back to the Washington Institute for 

Near East Policy to found and direct a program on 

counterterrorism specifically in the Middle East context, 

which is what this think tank focuses on, and was teaching at 

Johns Hopkins University, and was there for a little over four 

years.

Q. Can you explain what a think tank is?

A. A think tank is kind of like being a professor without 

having to spend most of one's time grading papers. Instead, 

one is able to have most of one's time free for field research 

and writing. Many people at think tanks like myself also 

teach, but that is the add-on to what I do. 

And so at the think tank I write academic journal 

articles, books, policy pieces, which are by definition short, 

policy-makers have a short attention span, op eds in the 

newspapers, lecture at conferences, and travel doing my own 

research.

Q. What is the general subject matter of the items that you 

write?

A. Counterterrorism and intelligence issues within the focus 

area of U.S. policy towards the Middle East, because that is 

what our think tank is focused on.

Q. As part of your analysis and writings do you write about 

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Hamas?

A. I do.

Q. Have you -- Were you always at the Washington Institute 

after you left the FBI?

A. No. After about four years at the Washington Institute, 

I was recruited in 2005 to go to the Treasury Department to 

serve as the deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and 

analysis at the Treasury, and was there until January 2007.

Q. Are what does that mean? What were your responsibilities 

at Treasury?

A. This was a relatively new office created at Treasury, an 

intelligence office within the Treasury Department, so I was a 

senior executive service manager within the department within 

a branch called terrorism and financial intelligence, and then 

I was also the deputy chief of Treasury's intelligence shop, 

so it meant that I had a one foot in the intelligence 

community under what is now the Director of National 

Intelligence and one foot in the Treasury Department under the 

bureaucracy of the Treasury Department.

Q. Why would the Treasury Department have an interest in 

intelligence and terrorism?

A. The Treasury Department was tasked with focusing on the 

financing of terrorism, and the financing of other illicit 

threats--nuclear proliferation, drug kingpins, this type of 

thing, and that is something that tends to be intelligence 

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driven because you are being asked to analyze and be 

knowledgeable about what is at heart covert activity. So you 

need some intelligence that will help you understand what 

these entities are doing, even though they are trying to hide 

it from you.

Q. When you say intelligence, can you explain what you mean? 

Are you talking human intelligence, what is in the brain, or 

are you using the term differently?

A. Intelligence meaning from sensitive sources and methods. 

The CIA or other intelligence agencies will have spies. They 

will sometimes tap telephones or email. So there can be all 

kinds of means of information that will come into them through 

what we call classified sources that are not public. 

At the Treasury I always had my analysts also focus on 

what we called open source information--the journals, the 

articles, the books, because researchers, academics do very 

good work that is also relevant and can be useful to their 

work. 

But in the Intelligence Branch you are using not only 

what is publicly available but what is available through 

clandestine collection.

Q. And what is the purpose of analyzing this information 

that is gathered?

A. Well, it depends on what your task is. At the Treasury 

Department our task was figuring out how terrorists were 

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raising, laundering, transferring, and then accessing their 

funds, and making it more difficult for them to do so, either 

by either designating them or providing information to other 

agencies in the government to do other action. The FBI could 

arrest them, the intelligence community could run an 

intelligence operation, what have you. And this would apply 

to the terrorism arena, WMD, weapons of mass destruction, 

proliferation, et cetera. 

Q. When you were in the Treasury did you focus on the 

terrorism arena?

A. That was one of the areas I focused on, yes.

Q. And when you were at the FBI, was your role at the FBI 

similar in that you were analyzing all this intelligence 

material that came to you?

A. Yes. The difference was that at the FBI I was the kind 

of desk analyst, and at the Treasury I was their boss.

Q. Again, at the Treasury Department did you have a security 

clearance?

A. I did.

Q. And will any of your testimony in this courtroom be based 

upon any classified information that you have seen?

A. No.

Q. With respect to terrorism, you spoke -- You have written 

a lot about terrorism, I assume. Is that correct?

A. Yes.

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Q. Okay. Is there a particular focus within the terrorism 

community that you concentrate on in your writings?

A. Again, I focus on the Middle East as a region, and in 

particular on logistical and financial support networks who 

enable groups, terrorist groups to carry out not only the 

attacks but also the other activities they need to carry out 

their activities?

Q. And is Hamas one of those groups you focus on?

A. Yes.

Q. I am sorry. After Treasury -- how long were you at the 

Treasury Department for?

A. Almost a year and a half.

Q. And where did you go after that?

A. I returned again to the Washington Institute for Near 

East Policy where I am now director of a program on 

counterterrorism and intelligence and a senior fellow there, 

and again am teaching at Johns Hopkins University, and writing 

and lecturing again.

Q. Could you explain your methods of research?

A. Like I used to tell my analysts, exploiting all source 

information, meaning books, the work of other scholars, 

journal articles, is the very first step, keeping on top of 

information. But then the most important thing is conducting 

primary field research--going out and interviewing people, 

meeting people, spending time in the region. I travel to the 

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Middle East and to Europe in particular a lot. And then 

collating this information, putting together a sense of 

whatever it is you are studying and running it by other 

experts and vetting or checking that information. 

You know, primarily field research involves interviewing. 

Because you interview someone doesn't mean that they are 

necessarily telling you exactly the truth. Sometimes they are 

telling you what they want you to believe. And so talking to 

other experts and getting other inputs and opinions is very 

important.

Q. You mentioned that you traveled to the Middle East. 

A. Yes.

Q. How often do you go there?

A. Several times a year. It varies.

Q. Where in particular do you travel to in the Middle East?

A. I go to Israel and the West Bank a lot. I used to go to 

Gaza as well, but haven't in several years. I go to other 

countries in that part of the Middle East--Egypt, Jordan, 

Turkey, and to the Gulf as well, the United Arab Emirates, 

Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai. I will be going next month 

to the Emirates and Kuwait.

Q. When was the last time you were in Israel?

A. I was in Israel and the West Bank a week and a half ago.

Q. What type of people do you interview when you go over 

there?

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A. As many as I can fit in. Journalists, academics many, 

many government officials, diplomats, police, intelligence 

officials, people who are working with NGOs; anybody who might 

have some insight into whatever the particular issue is that I 

am researching.

Q. You mentioned a term NGO. What is an NGO?

A. Non-governmental organizations.

Q. Okay. When you interview government officials and 

diplomats, are you interviewing just Israeli government 

officials and diplomats or people from other governments as 

well?

A. No. To interview just one side of any issue is useless, 

so I do interview Israelis, of course, but I also interview 

Palestinians. On this last trip, for example, I interviewed 

Israelis, Palestinians, Americans in the region, diplomats, 

European diplomats in the region, and that was just on a 

three-day trip.

Q. When you have traveled over to that part of the world, 

have you interviewed any members of Hamas?

A. I have.

Q. What circumstances?

A. People who are in jail.

Q. Do they freely talk to you?

A. Yes. They don't have to talk to me. I imagine that they 

have got some time on their hands. And like I said, some are 

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more open than others. They are more open on some issues than 

others. 

One Hamas official that I interviewed, his case was still 

pending, made it very clear that didn't want to talk about his 

case at all, but was much more willing to talk about Hamas' 

ideology.

MS. HOLLANDER: Objection, Your Honor. We are 

getting into a hearsay and confrontation issue.

THE COURT: He is talking about general areas. He 

may do that without getting into specifically what they told 

you.

THE WITNESS: But on the same trip another 

individual whose case had already been completed, in that case 

he was convicted, was much more forthcoming on the details of 

the attack that got him in jail for which he was convicted. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Do you speak Arabic?

A. No. A few words.

Q. Are these interviews conducted in English?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you ever have to speak to someone in another 

language? Withdraw that question. Is every interview -- 

every person you speak to who doesn't speak English, how do 

you conduct that interview?

A. Through translators or English. I would say the vast 

majority of the interviews are in English, including with 

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Israelis, despite the fact that I do speak some Hebrew, and 

with Palestinians or others in the Arab world.

Q. Are you familiar with the term primary documents?

A. I am.

Q. What is that?

A. A primary document unlike, say, you know, a newspaper 

account, is an original document, a court document, for 

example, or something that is submitted in the context of a 

court case on a government document; an original document 

written by, you know, a natural participant in an event. 

Those are considered primary source documents.

Q. Well, do terrorist groups, and for purposes of our 

conversation here let's talk about Hamas, do they issue 

documents that you would study?

A. Certainly. They issue communiques, they issue charters, 

that lay out their goals and agendas, they issue communiques 

taking responsibility for attacks or laying out a political 

position, and those are very useful to study.

Q. What is a communique?

A. A press release, really.

Q. And have you studied Hamas communiques -- 

A. I have.

Q. -- and other documents issued by Hamas? 

How often has Hamas issued communiques?

A. It varies, but there have been many, many hundreds over 

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the past few years.

Q. Does Hamas have a website?

A. There are several Hamas websites.

Q. Have you studied those?

A. Yes.

Q. And what sort of information generally would you find in 

a Hamas website?

A. Information about Hamas leaders, information about the 

movement's ideology, its political position on specific 

issues, its reaction to particular events, claims of 

responsibility for attacks, things like that.

Q. How do you know in reviewing a website if it is an actual 

Hamas website?

A. This is one of the things that is a good example of 

something that you would need to get a consensus within kind 

of the academic community about. There are certain Hamas 

websites that are well-known Hamas websites and Hamas refers 

to them themselves, and those are the ones that I would use.

Q. Do Hamas members or leaders give interviews?

A. They do.

Q. And what is the purpose of doing that?

A. Any organization that is involved in political activity, 

whether or not it is also involved in terrorist activity, is 

seeking to get out its message, and to do that you need to 

communicate with the larger public. And so Hamas is trying to 

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articulate its position on issues, whether it is on an attack 

or a political issue or an event, and Hamas very frequently 

will issue communiques or will have its leaders interviewed to 

articulate its position, how was it founded, what are its 

goals, what is its reaction to a particular historical or 

recent event, why does it do X and not Y; get its position out 

there on a variety of issues.

Q. Without going into the details, is there a particular 

interview that is well-known from a Hamas leader?

A. There are several, in particular two --Khalid Mishal, who 

is the current leader of Hamas, one from Ghassan Charbel, a 

journalist in Al-Hayat in the Arab language daily, though it 

also has an English website and is available in English. It 

is a seven- or eight-part interview. There is a more recent 

one in the Journal of Palestine Studies of Khalid Mishal, a 

two-part issue by Muin Rabbani, an analyst based in Amman, 

Jordan.

Q. If possible, can you spell some of those names?

A. With difficulty. Khalid Mishal, K-H-A-L-I-D 

M-I-S-H-A-L. Ghassan Charbel, G-H-A-S-S-A-N C-H-A-R-B-E-L. 

Muin Rabbani, M-U-I-N R-A-B-B-A-N-I. They are all 

transliterations, obviously, from the Arabic, so there will be 

some --

Q. You mentioned as part of your research talking to other 

scholars and reading other material. Are there books out 

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there on Hamas that you reviewed that you found to be 

particularly helpful?

A. Yes.

Q. Can you tell us some of those books?

A. Azam Tamimi is based in Britain and has written a book on 

Hamas; two Israeli scholars Auraham Sela, and I forget his 

first name, Mishal, wrote a book as well published by Columbia 

University Press. Ziad Abu-Amr, a Palestinian scholar and 

politician has also written a book on Hamas. 

In the past year there have been several other books on 

Hamas. Zaki Chehab, a Palestinian journalist, one by I think 

it is a Danish Academic University in Wales in the U.K. wrote 

a book on Hamas, and there is another one by a Belgian that is 

several years old, and all in different ways some are better 

than others, but are all useful for comparison purposes.

Q. With all this information that you gather, how do you 

determine what is useful and what is not?

A. Again, it is a process of meeting with other scholars, 

comparing and contrasting, putting together as much 

information as possible, creating a sense of what is in the 

realm of the known, the likely, and the possible, and anything 

that is out of the realm of the known, which is most, because 

this is a social science not a natural science, not physics, 

is meeting with others and bouncing ideas off others, and that 

would be other academics, experts in government, multiple 

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governments, in this case Europeans, Americans, Israelis, 

Palestinians, and comparing what you find in interviews 

against what you find in primary source documents, et cetera.

Q. Are you familiar with the terrorist designation lists 

that come out by the United States government?

A. I am.

Q. You mentioned that you taught at John Hopkins?

A. Yes.

Q. What is that course in?

A. Several courses. It is the School of Advanced 

International Studies or SAIS. I taught a course called 

"Contemporary Terrorism and the American Response," and then 

after I left Treasury decided to teach something that was more 

related to the expertise I developed there and now teach a 

course on combating the financing of transnational threats.

Q. Where is John Hopkins, by the way?

A. The main campus is in Baltimore, Maryland. The School of 

Advanced International Studies is in Washington, D.C.

Q. Is that graduate level or undergraduate that you teach?

A. It is only graduate.

Q. Have you consulted with governments?

A. I have.

Q. What governments?

A. I have consulted for the U.S. government, lectured for 

the U.S. government, speak at government conferences, testify 

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in this case. As well as for other governments, I have 

testified in two cases now for the government of Denmark, 

consulted for the government of Sweden, consulted for the 

government of Canada. That is representative. I don't know 

if that is all.

Q. Are you familiar with an individual named General Jones?

A. Yes.

Q. And how are you familiar with him?

A. General Jones is currently the special envoy from Middle 

East Regional Security at the State Department, the position 

that he was appointed to by the Secretary of State and the 

President, for the purpose of trying to move Israelis and 

Palestinians closer to peace and trying to secure, if not an 

actual peace, then a better environment on the ground that 

lends itself to a peaceful solution. 

He has put together a team of government officials and 

outside experts, and I have served as an advisor to his 

mission on counterterrorism issues. This is not a 

counterterrorism mission. It is a peace process mission. And 

I have been very proud to serve on it. 

I am not doing it currently. I haven't actually signed 

out of what is called this temporary government position. The 

Secretary has asked him to stay, on and he is continuing with 

a skeletal staff and he has asked the rest of us to be on an 

on-call basis.

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Q. You say the Secretary asked him to stay on. What 

Secretary?

A. The Secretary of State.

THE COURT: Let's go ahead and take the afternoon 

recess. Be back at quarter till 4:00 by that clock up there 

on the wall. 

(Whereupon, the jury left the courtroom.)

THE COURT: We will be in recess.

(Brief Recess.)

THE COURT: Mr. Jonas? 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, when we -- Before the 

break we were talking about your work with General Jones and 

the Mid East process, I guess?

A. Yes.

Q. Besides working for the U.S. government in that aspect, 

have you ever testified before Congress?

A. Several times, yes.

Q. What were the subject matters of your testimony?

A. Specific Middle Eastern terrorist groups, terror 

financing generally, Iran, sanctions on Iran, this type of 

thing.

Q. When you say specific Middle East terrorist groups, would 

Hamas be one of those groups?

A. Yes.

Q. Are you affiliated with any organization?

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A. Yes.

Q. What organizations?

A. Aside from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy 

and Johns Hopkins University, I am a term member at the 

Council on Foreign Relations, an adjunct fellow at the 

Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at 

West Point, I sit on the international advisory boards for 

Counterterrorism Institute in Israel and another one in 

Singapore. I think that is it, or close enough.

Q. Can you do me a favor and pull the microphone a little 

closer to you, if that is possible?

A. Is that better? 

Q. Yes. 

Have you received any awards.

A. Yes.

Q. What type of awards?

A. I have received awards for government service for the 

work I have done from groups as diverse as CNN to the U.S. 

Treasury Department and the FBI.

Q. You mentioned your writings, you write at the Washington 

Institute. Have you authored any books?

A. I have.

Q. What books have you written?

A. I wrote a book for the Washington Institute called 

Targeting Terror, about Middle Eastern Terrorist Groups other 

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than the ones we have been looking at since 9/11. I have 

written a book on Hamas published by Yale University called 

Hamas: Politics, charity, and Terrorism in the Service of 

Jihad. And now I have written a book called Negotiating Under 

Fire. Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks.

Q. Negotiating Under Fire, when did that come out?

A. About a week ago.

Q. And specifically you are talking about peace -- What is 

the subject matter?

A. It is a book version of my Ph.D. dissertation that we 

discussed earlier. It is about, from a conflict resolution 

perspective if we assume, as I argue we should, that spoilers, 

in this case whether they are Palestinian extremists or 

Israeli extremists, are trying to torpedo a peaceful 

negotiated settlement, then what can be done to buttress, to 

protect the peace process from the outset in anticipation of 

those types of attacks.

Q. Are you familiar with the term peered review?

A. I am.

Q. What does that mean. 

A. Peer review means you have other academics, your peers, 

review your work before publication. In my case, I write 

things that are peer reviewed and I write some things that are 

not peer reviewed. Some of the most prestigious publications 

out there, like foreign affairs, are not peer reviewed. But 

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my books have been peer reviewed by persons unknown to me, 

academics who gave criticism and praise both, and I would like 

to think made the books better for their constructive 

criticism. 

I have written chapters in books published by other 

university presses that have been peer reviewed, and I have 

written articles in academic journals such as "Studies in 

Conflict and Terrorism." I have an article coming out in the 

Journal of International Affairs at Columbia that are all peer 

reviewed.

Q. The methods of research you have talked about, all the 

primary research and the primary interviews and the secondary 

research that you do, is that the accepted standard of 

research in your field?

A. It is. It is been referred to as the gold standard.

Q. Now, you sound like you are a busy person. Are you 

getting compensated for your time here?

A. I am.

Q. And how much are you getting compensated?

A. $200 an hour.

Q. Is that the going rate?

A. No.

Q. Is that above the going rate?

A. It is below the going rate.

Q. Your Honor, at this time I would offer Doctor Levitt as 

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an expert on the terrorist group Hamas. 

THE COURT: Counsel, any objection?

MR. CLINE: We just renew our previous pleadings on 

the subject that I think you have argued to you.

THE COURT: Doctor Levitt is accepted as an expert 

on that issue. 

MR. JONAS: Thank you, sir.

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, what is Hamas?

A. Hamas is a Palestinian group, a movement. The name is an 

acronym for Harakat al Muqawamah al Islamiyya, which means 

Islamic Resistance Movement. And it is a movement that is 

engaged in social, political, and military and terrorist 

activity, with the aim of securing a Palestinian state in all 

of historic Palestine, meaning what is today the State of 

Israel the West Bank, and Gaza; and not just any state, but an 

Islamic state, not a secular state.

Q. You said many things there, and we are going to break 

them down. When was Hamas formed?

A. It was officially formed in December 1987, but those same 

leaders who formed Hamas, in some of the interviews I 

mentioned earlier, for example, have been very open about the 

fact that the group existed under other names long before 

then; certainly through the early 1980s.

Q. Where was it formed?

A. Among the people who founded it were people as far afield 

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as Kuwait in the Arabian Gulf, but the movement was founded in 

the West Bank and Gaza, primarily, in the first instance, in 

Gaza.

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, if I may show some maps to 

Doctor Levitt?

THE COURT: Yes.

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, you are familiar with the 

geographic region of this part of the world?

A. I am.

Q. I want to show you a series of maps starting, with what 

has been marked as Map No. 4. Do you recognize this map?

A. I do.

Q. And what is this?

A. It is a map of the world. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I would offer into evidence 

Map 4.

THE COURT: Counsel? 

MR. CLINE: No objection.

THE COURT: Admitted. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, I will hold it up so you 

can stay where you are. Just point out on this large map of 

the world where Israel, Gaza, the West Bank is located.

A. It is very hard to see them because they are all very 

small, but this little strip along the edge of the 

Mediterranean northeast of Egypt is Israel, the West Bank, and 

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Gaza.

Q. Do you recognize this region?

A. I do.

THE COURT: Give me the map number again, counsel.

MR. JONAS: The current one is Map 3. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) And what is this region?

A. This is a map of the Middle East.

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I would offer into evidence 

Map 3. 

MR. CLINE: No objection.

THE COURT: Admitted. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Again I will hold this up here. And then 

if you can point out Israel and Gaza and the West Bank. 

A. It is easier to see here. Israel is this pinkish part in 

the middle. And what is white, the piece over here and this 

very small piece over here, this is the West Bank, and this is 

the Gaza Strip.

Q. Okay. Could you describe or tell us the countries 

surrounding Israel?

A. You have Egypt here, and the Sinai Peninsula which is 

part of Egypt, now Jordan, Syria, and north is Lebanon.

Q. I will show you what is Map 5. What is this?

A. This is a close-up map of Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip, 

and some of the surrounding countries; all of them, but just 

little pieces of them. 

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MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I offer into evidence Map 5. 

MR. CLINE: No objection.

THE COURT: Admitted. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Now we have gotten really close, would 

you say, Doctor Levitt, in terms of the size of Israel?

A. You have. They suddenly look bigger. What you have, 

this white in the middle is Israel, this is the Gaza Strip, 

this is the West Bank, here you have Egypt, Jordan, the Golan 

Heights and Syria are up here, and Lebanon is up here.

Q. And could you just point out on the map where you said 

Hamas was formed?

A. Here in the Gaza strip and in the West Bank. There was 

input from leaders outside those regions as well, but this was 

its primary location when it was formed.

Q. Do those areas the West Bank and Gaza commonly go by 

another name?

A. The territories are the Palestinian Territories or the 

Occupied Territories.

Q. Why are they referred to as the Occupied Territories?

A. After the 1967 war between Israel and its neighbors, 

after Israel was attacked, Israel conquered a significant 

amount of territory, including all of the Sinai, which has 

since been returned to Egypt, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank 

including all of Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights from Syria. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, again if I can approach 

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Doctor Levitt so he can point out those areas? 

THE COURT: Yes.

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) You mentioned two additional areas, the 

Sinai and Golan Heights. If you will point those out, please. 

A. This what is marked here as Egypt is the Sinai. The Suez 

is somewhere over here breaking it off from the rest of Egypt. 

And here is the Golan Heights which Israel captured from 

Syria.

Q. This occurred in 1967, you said?

A. Yes.

Q. What was the common name for this war?

A. The Six-Day War.

Q. What happened to spark the war?

A. Israel was invaded by its neighbors, and then 

preemptively -- Not preemptively. It was invaded by its 

neighbors, struck back, and within six days conquered a 

significant amount of territory.

Q. You say its neighbors. You have identified several 

countries surrounding it. Which countries in particular are 

you referring to? 

A. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, though there were brigades from 

other countries like Iraq as well. 

Q. When Israel captured these pieces of land, the Gaza, West 

Bank, Sinai, Golan Heights, who did they belong to prior to 

the Six-Day War?

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A. The countries that they are closest to. The Golan 

Heights is part of Syria. The West Bank was being 

administered by Jordan. It was not independent. And the Gaza 

Strip was under Egyptian control, also not independent.

Q. All right. Does Israel still occupy the West Bank and 

Gaza Strip today?

A. Israel is not in the Gaza Strip at all. Israel withdrew 

all civilians or settlers and all military from the Gaza Strip 

in 2005. It is still occupying the West Bank where there are 

pockets of Palestinian control, primarily in the cities. As 

part of the peace process, the West Bank was split up into 

three different types of area, Area A, B, and C. That still 

applies, and so there are some areas that are under more 

Palestinian control. But the entire of the West Bank is still 

under Israeli military control, and, therefore, occupation.

Q. Prior to the 1967 War, when did Israel come into 

existence?

A. In 1948.

Q. And what happened to cause it to come into existence?

A. There was a vote at the United Nations, and the United 

Nations voted to create a homeland for the Jewish people and a 

homeland for the Palestinian people. And they decided not to 

make one homeland, but to split this disputed territory 

between the two. And Israel accepted that partition and 

declared the State of Israel. The Palestinian leadership at 

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the time and the Arab states all rejected it and went to war 

with the new State of Israel leading to the war of 1948, which 

the Israelis describe as and call their War of Independence, 

and the Palestinians describe as the Nakba, or the 

catastrophe, because it led to not only the creation of Israel 

but did not lead to a Palestinian state. As we said earlier 

Gaza was under the control of Egypt; west Bank under the 

control of Jordan.

Q. Turning back to Hamas, what are the goals of Hamas?

A. Hamas seeks to establish a Palestinian Islamic religious 

state in all of the area that we have described as Israel, the 

West Bank, and Gaza. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, if I can approach Doctor 

Levitt one more time? 

THE COURT: Yes, sir. 

MR. JONAS: It may not be one more time. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Can you on this map again, which is Map 5 

for the record, show us what areas you are talking about that 

Hamas wants to establish as an Islamic state. 

A. All of this white which is Israel, the Gaza Strip, and 

the West Bank, so this entire area which is the original 

disputed area.

Q. If Hamas was successful in its goals, what happens to the 

State of Israel?

A. It would cease to be.

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Q. Are you familiar with something called the two-state 

solution?

A. I am.

Q. What is that?

A. The two-state solution is much like it sounds--the idea 

of resolving this conflict by establishing two states, as 

originally intended by the United Nations, living side by side 

in peace with each other and their, neighbors a State of 

Israel and a state of Palestine. The two-state solution is 

primarily, although there is lots to be negotiated, lots of 

final points, the exact borders, the status of the holy sites 

in Jerusalem, the right of Palestinian refugees who fled 

Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza in the various wars to return, 

all that has to be negotiated, but the Palestinian state would 

be in general terms all of the West Bank and all of the Gaza 

Strip. 

Q. What is Hamas' position on the two-state solution?

A. Hamas is expressly against the two-state solution. It 

again wants to have a single Palestinian state in all of that 

land; and not just any state, not a secular state, but an 

Islamist state, and has been very explicit about that. In 

part it is because Hamas puts this into a radical religious 

context where it sees all of this territory, all of these 

lands, as an Islamic endowment, a gift to the Muslim people 

that must be ruled by Muslims.

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Q. You are using the term Islamist state. What do you mean 

by that?

A. A state that is ruled by Islamic law or sharia to one 

extent or another.

Q. What is Islamic law?

A. Religious law.

Q. Can you give an example of -- Well, withdrawn. Are there 

countries out there today that are run by Islamic law?

A. Again, to one extent or another, and they are different, 

but the Sudan or Saudi Arabia or Iran are all states that to 

one extent or another are run by Islamic law.

Q. Are you familiar with the term secular?

A. I am.

Q. And what does that term mean?

A. Secular means not religious; not necessarily 

anti-religious, but not religious in the sense, for example, 

that the United States is a secular country. We are not 

governed by any particular religious law, but you are free to 

practice whatever your religion in this country.

Q. Would you describe Hamas as secular?

A. No.

Q. Are there other Palestinian groups out there that have 

similar goals of Hamas that are secular?

A. Yes, to varying degrees. The goals are not all exactly 

the same, but there are groups that over the course of this 

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conflict, and even today, oppose the peace process. Some who 

oppose the peace process through violence like Hamas, but are 

not religious, they are Marxist or have other nationalist 

ideology.

Q. Can you name some of those groups?

A. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic 

Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In many ways some of 

the groups are affiliated with Fatah, the largest Palestinian 

group that was headed by Yasser Arafat, including their 

military wing the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Q. Was Yasser Arafat part of another organization or Fatah 

part of another organization?

A. Yes.

Q. What was that organization?

A. Yasser Arafat was the chairman of the Palestine 

Liberation Organization, or the PLO, and he was that by virtue 

of being the head of Attach, which was the largest of the 

Palestinian rejectionist groups.

Q. Was PLO sort of an umbrella group?

A. Exactly.

Q. And is Fatah -- is that secular or Islamist?

A. Secular.

Q. What does the name Hamas mean?

A. It is an acronym meaning Islamic Resistant Movement, it 

is a play on words because the word itself means zeal.

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Q. Does it go by any nicknames?

A. Yes. It would go by -- it goes by The Movement, because 

it is the Islamic Resistance Movement, in the same way that 

the Washington Institute where I work is often referred to as 

The Institute.

Q. Could you briefly explain the structure of Hamas?

A. Hamas has three general wings--a social welfare wing, a 

political wing, and a military wing that are all intertwined, 

and all operate under the ultimate authority of the political 

leadership at the top of the political wing.

Q. Have you assisted in creating a diagram that would help 

the jury in your testimony understanding the structure of 

Hamas?

A. I have.

Q. And there are some exhibits before you, if you can go -- 

they are turned over. Do you see before you what is marked as 

Demonstrative No. 9?

A. Yes. It is -- Mine is demonstrative 12 is what I have 

here.

Q. I am Sorry. Demonstrative 12. What is that?

A. This is the diagram of the Hamas structure. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I offer as a demonstrative 

exhibit Demonstrative Exhibit No. 12. 

MS. HOLLANDER: As a demonstrative only, Your Honor, 

we don't object. 

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THE COURT: No objection? Demonstrative No. 12 is 

admitted as a demonstrative exhibit. 

MR. JONAS: If we can put that on the screen, 

please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, can you see what is on the 

screen?

A. Yeah. It is a little -- The words are a little hard to 

see, but I can see it. 

Q. Can you explain what this triangle is?

A. Yes. This is a depiction of the Hamas structure showing 

the political echelon at the top; the military wing of Hamas, 

which is called the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, or the 

Qassam Brigades, in the middle, and the symbol for the Qassam 

Brigades is there; and then at the bottom of the pyramid at 

the foundation is the social welfare wing of Hamas, which is 

often described as the Dawa, which literally means to 

proselytize. The way you get people in to proselytize to them 

is by providing them services, and then you have an audience 

to proselytize to.

Q. Can you define proselytize?

A. Preach. And the reason I depict it this way is because 

the social welfare activities serves literally as the 

foundation for all of the other activity--for the recruitment 

for the group, for political activity, for military activity, 

it provides grassroots support for the organization, it 

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provides financing and logistical support for the 

organization, but the political echelon is at the very top 

because they provide the strategic guidance. They are the 

ultimate decision-makers and arbiters for the direction, and 

sometimes even for specific actions for the group. In fact, 

one of the reasons they are so important and in control is 

because they often control the flow of funds through that 

foundation of the social welfare, giving them or empowering 

them with the ability to give that direction.

Q. Doctor Levitt, we will go into the structure in more 

detail in a little bit. I want to get back to the history of 

Hamas. You stated it was formed in 1987, but there has been 

some indication that it was actually in existence prior to 

that. Can you explain what you mean by that? 

A. Hamas leaders have been very clear, in these interviews, 

for example, that after the 1967 War, the process of creating 

an Islamist-Palestinian -- 

MR. DRATEL: Can we get a time frame on these 

interviews, please? He talked about Hamas interviews.

THE WITNESS: These are the two interviews I 

mentioned earlier of Khalid Mishal. One is by Ghassan Charbel 

that came out two or three years ago. The second one is by -- 

is in the Journal of Palestine Studies and is in the summer of 

2008 most recent volume, and I believe the actual interviews 

were carried out in March of this year. 

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Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Okay. If you could -- 

A. Both of Khalid Mishal, the head of the political 

structure of Hamas.

Q. You were explaining Hamas' form prior to 1987. 

A. Hamas in the Gaza Strip was very active in creating 

social welfare institutions, then under the rubric of the 

Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood --

Q. Let me stop you for a moment. What is the Muslim 

Brotherhood?

A. The Muslim Brotherhood is an international organization 

founded in Egypt. It is the largest Islamist organization in 

the world. It has chapters throughout the world. And the 

Palestinian chapter, the Palestinian wing of the Muslim 

Brotherhood was where almost all the leaders of Hamas came up 

through. Hamas describes itself as the Palestinian wing of 

the Muslim Brotherhood.

Q. You said that the Muslim Brotherhood has branches 

throughout the world. Is there a branch in the United States?

A. Certainly.

Q. When was the Muslim Brotherhood formed?

A. In the 1920s.

Q. Who formed it?

A. A person named Hassan al-Banna.

Q. What is the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood?

A. The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood is to bring Muslims 

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back to the proper practice of the faith; and once that is 

done, to unite them in confronting and challenging the 

perceived enemies of Islam. And for some Muslim Brotherhood 

members that means creating kind of a transnational Islamic 

state. It works as an international level. There is an 

international Muslim Brotherhood, but it is active mostly in 

each of these national chapters, if you will.

Q. How does the Muslim Brotherhood seek to establish this 

goal?

A. It is extremely active in grassroots activity, political 

and social welfare activity, and proselytizing, preaching, to 

bring people back to, as they see it, the proper practice of 

Islam--that Muslims should be properly practicing their faith; 

and then that as they come back to that proper practice, that 

will unite the Muslim nation, or the Ummah, and that then they 

will be united and able to challenge, take on their perceived 

enemies.

Q. Who are their perceived enemies?

A. Historically it would be those who are occupying or 

living in areas that were at some point Muslim lands. And 

traditionally today it is the Western culture, the Western 

influence which they see as drawing people away from the 

proper practice of Islam, and in particular because of its 

dominance in the Western world, and in particular because of 

its dominance in Western culture and also because of its 

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support for Israel, the United States.

Q. Is the Muslim Brotherhood, the international Muslim 

Brotherhood, is that a violent organization?

A. No.

MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, I object. He is not an 

expert on Muslim Brotherhood.

THE COURT: Overruled. Go ahead. You may answer.

THE WITNESS: No. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Is the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed in the 

United States?

A. No.

Q. Is it outlawed in any country?

A. It is outlawed in Egypt. I don't know if it is outlawed 

in other countries. In some countries it doesn't operate 

expressly as the Muslim Brotherhood, but under different 

names. So, for example, In Jordan it operates as the Islamic 

Action Front, which enables the government to say that it is 

dealing not with the Muslim Brotherhood but with another 

entity that, in this case in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front 

is very much involved and engaged in politics and holds seats 

in parliament.

Q. You say that the Muslim Brotherhood's goal is to first 

bring people back to Islam and then take on its perceived 

enemies. Do all the chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood agree 

in progressing that way?

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A. Most do. Hamas is the exception. Hamas still refers to 

itself as the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, or 

The Brotherhood, the Ikhwan, but has flipped the order, and 

does not believe in waiting until everyone has been brought 

back to the proper practice of Islam to then violently 

confront its enemies.

Q. You said that the Muslim Brotherhood as an international 

body is not violent, but Hamas as a chapter, is that violent? 

Is that chapter violent?

A. Yes.

Q. Does the international Muslim Brotherhood try to reign in 

Hamas for being violent? Do they try to stop them, stop their 

violence?

A. Within the Muslim Brotherhood there are some leaders who 

are more supportive of Hamas and some who are less. That is 

perhaps most noticed within the Islamic Action Front because 

they operate in Jordan, which is just over the border from the 

West Bank, and there is a lot of Palestinians living in 

Jordan, a lot of Palestinians involved in the Islamic Action 

Front. But the international Muslim Brotherhood doesn't 

really have, you know, decision-making power or sway over 

Hamas, and so it is in no position to reign in Hamas. 

There have been senior Muslim Brotherhood officials who 

have been quite praiseworthy of Hamas, including of Hamas 

terrorist attacks.

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Q. Does the Muslim Brotherhood operate covertly or overtly?

A. By and large it operates overtly, because in most places 

it is not an illegal organization, and because in most of 

those places it is not engaged in violence.

Q. You testified earlier that Hamas is an Islamist 

institution versus a secular institution, or non-religious 

institution. Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist or secular?

A. Islamist.

Q. Now, how long has the Palestinian branch of the Muslim 

Brotherhood been in existence prior to becoming Hamas in 1987?

A. Many, many years. Since the formation of the Muslim 

Brotherhood in the 1920s, there was always a strong influence 

in the Gaza Strip. As early as the War of 1948, there were 

Palestinians who fought in that war under the rubric of the 

Muslim Brotherhood. And Hamas leaders often describe the 

activities of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood 

in that war. 

They became much more active, however, as did grassroots 

activity at large, after the 1967 War. Prior to 1967, in Gaza 

in particular, they were cracked down on. They couldn't 

operate very openly because the Muslim Brotherhood was banned.

Q. Cracked down on by whom?

A. By Egypt. And in fact one of the key founders of Hamas, 

Sheikh Yassin, was arrested by the Egyptians before Gaza was 

controlled by Israel. 

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After 1967 two things happened. Two things happened 

because now Israel controlled this territory. The first was 

they were no longer under Egyptian control and that freed 

their hand. The second was that the Israelis, wanting to 

counter the influence of the secular Palestinian terrorist 

groups that were at that time the most active in the years 

following the 1967 War, were very willing to reach out to the 

religious elements within Palestinian society and help their 

growth as an antidote to the Palestinian secular groups that 

were at that time very much engaged in violence. At that 

point the Islamists were not.

Q. Up until -- Leading up to 1987, talking about the time 

period beforehand, what was the Palestinian branch of the 

Muslim Brotherhood doing?

A. The most significant thing they were doing was building 

social welfare institutions--charities, zakat committees which 

are charity committees through which practicing Muslims can 

donate that portion of their livelihood that they are 

religiously required to donate, establishing mosques, 

establishing the movement at a grassroots level, building 

supports at a grassroots level. 

Even as it also had leaders and activists outside Gaza, 

not only in the West Bank which was where Hamas was slowly 

beginning to develop, but outside in particular in Kuwait 

where a large Palestinian diaspora was living, studying in 

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particular, and many future Hamas leaders, including Khalid 

Mishal who is now the head of Hamas, were very involved in the 

foundations of Hamas from Kuwait where they were very involved 

with the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait.

Q. You used a couple of terms I am going to ask you what you 

mean by. You said diaspora?

A. Diaspora means outside the home country. In this case, 

for a Palestinian that would be outside the areas of Israel, 

the West Bank, and Gaza.

Q. You also used the term grassroots. What do you mean by 

that?

A. Grassroots means bottom up. Instead of, you know, a 

federal government, national government activity, it means 

individuals building charities, social service organizations, 

non-governmental organizations, and acting at the very local 

community level.

Q. What were some of these social organizations created by 

the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood prior to 

1987?

A. The most important were the Islamic Society and the 

Islamic Center, al-Mujama and the Jemaah. These were founded 

by future founders of Hamas. Again, as they describe it, they 

were already Hamas, they just hadn't named themselves and come 

out as Hamas until December 1987. These were both umbrella 

organizations that helped oversee the development of other 

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mosques, charities, social service organizations on the ground 

in the Gaza trip.

Q. What was the purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood, the 

Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, having these 

social services?

A. This is the key to the strategy. This is why it is at 

the foundation of our triangle. This is how you reach people. 

This is how you build a base of support within a population. 

This is how you get people to come into your institution or 

your mosque so that you can preach or proselytize to them. 

Providing services is a very powerful way of building a base 

of support.

Q. So in 1987 what happened to cause the Palestinian branch 

of the Muslim Brotherhood to call themselves Hamas?

A. A lot. The local Palestinian population in the Gaza 

Strip and the West Bank, as opposed to the outside leadership 

in the form of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization 

headed by Yasser Arafat, which was always outside the 

territories until the 1990s, first in Jordan, then in Lebanon, 

and then in Tunisia in North Africa. But the domestic 

leadership had had enough of the Israeli occupation; started 

doing things like refusing to pay taxes to the military 

occupation, and other forms of non-violent protests. But 

there was a lot of tension on the ground, there were 

occasional skirmishes. And there had already developed one 

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smaller Palestinian Islamist terrorist group that had begun to 

carry out military attacks named Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or 

PIG. That put a lot of pressure on the Palestinian Muslim 

Brotherhood, on the PLO, because they were losing ground and 

support to this more violent organization that seemed very 

legitimate. 

In December 1987 the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried 

out an attack against an Israeli. And a few days later an 

Israeli truck driver lost control of his truck and the truck 

rammed into a bunch of Palestinian civilians on the street, 

killing many. Rumors spread very, very quickly that this was 

an intentional Israeli retaliatory attack for the Palestinian 

Islamic Jihad attack on the Israeli. Rumors spread that there 

was a tank involved, frankly, ridiculous things. But it had 

its effect, and riots ensued and they spread. And a massive 

grassroots uprising, which is what an Intifada is, and that is 

what is was called, the Intifada, began. It was a surprise to 

Hamas. It was surprise to the Palestine Liberation 

Organization based in Tunis. It was a surprise to the 

Israelis and the military authorities at the time. 

It was then -- Very quickly the issue became who was 

going to kind of take control of this grassroots uprising and 

who was going to get the credit for it and who was going to 

guide it, who was going the benefit politically from this 

opportunity. All the Palestinian entities tried to take 

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control, including the PLO from Tunis. 

And one of the recent interviews I just stated, Khalid 

Mishal, states clearly this was an opportunity then for Hamas 

to found itself officially and ride this wave and insert 

religion into the conflict so that the violence could have a 

religious context, because, as he explains, when you insert 

religion into a violent context, it empowers people. It helps 

drive people. It builds their stamina. 

And so Hamas was founded in December 1987 competing with 

the PLO and other Palestinian groups and trying to take 

control and ride this wave of the uprising to political 

success.

Q. Prior to the Intifada, was the Palestinian branch of the 

Muslim Brotherhood violent?

A. Yes. Not to the same extent, but even before December 

1987 Hamas, then operating as the Palestinian wing of the 

Muslim Brotherhood, engaged in small scale attacks. Sheikh 

Yassin, the paraplegic spiritual leader and one of the 

founders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the leader of the 

Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip, was arrested 

in the early 1980s for his role in weapons procurement and 

small scale attacks. Khalid Mishal, the head of Hamas, was 

very open in these interviews about how important the military 

activity was to Sheikh Yassin, the political leader. 

But it wasn't until December 1987, when Hamas was founded 

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as such, that they began operating a military wring conducting 

attacks against Israelis, soldiers and civilians alike, on a 

regular basis. Until then the main security wing within 

Hamas, within the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood was an 

internal security meant to prevent informants, meant to 

protect the security of the organization. 

Q. Right after the Intifada started, December '87 and 1988, 

what sort of -- You said there is a grassroots uprising 

against the Israelis. In what form did this uprising take?

A. Primarily stone-throwing. That was the major image; some 

molotov cocktails and stuff like that, but primarily it was a 

lot of civil disobedience which had already started, refusing 

to pay taxes and et cetera. But what was new about the 

Intifada, shops with were being closed in a coordinated 

manner, businesses were being shut down, it made the military 

occupation difficult, which was obviously the intention, and 

stone-throwing primarily against the Israeli military, and 

molotov cocktails.

Q. Did Hamas engage in the stone-throwing, or did they 

commit some other types of acts against the Israeli military?

A. Hamas promoted the grassroots violence certainly, but 

Hamas wanted to kick it up a notch, and so you had already in 

the late 1980s, for example, kidnappings of Israeli soldiers 

or police officers, usually kidnappings and subsequent murders 

of those individuals. Sheikh Yassin, who I mentioned, had 

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been arrested around 1983 and had been released in a prisoner 

exchange was rearrested because of his role in some of these 

kidnappings in 1989, for example, of the soldiers Ilan Sa'adon 

and Avi Sasportas.

Q. When Hamas was formed, were the members of the 

Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood -- did they 

automatically become Hamas members?

A. Yes. Hamas was the Palestinian branch of the Muslim 

Brotherhood. That doesn't mean that every member of the 

Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood or every member of Hamas was 

involved in every type of Hamas activity. 

Some people were still involved primarily in political 

activity, some in social activity, and some in military 

activity. But what Hamas did is it built this structure so 

that all three wings were complementary. And it would not be, 

as Hamas developed, at all uncommon for someone to serve time 

in one and then another of the wings of Hamas.

Q. So as the members became Hamas, the members of the 

Palestinian branch, the social institutions you described 

earlier that were formed prior to 1987, did those stay with 

Hamas post 1987?

A. It is not just that they stayed with Hamas. As the Hamas 

leaders themselves describe it, they were already Hamas. It 

changed in name only. These were Hamas institutions. They 

remained Hamas institutions.

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Q. So Hamas tries to capitalize on the Intifada. Would that 

be a correct description?

A. Yes.

Q. And what is their goal in doing so? Why are they doing 

so?

A. To broaden and expand the violent resistance to the 

Israeli occupation and create grassroots support for that 

violence in an effort to broaden Palestinian support for 

efforts to defeat Israel.

Q. Why was it important, though, for Hamas not to cede the 

leadership of the Palestinian people over to the PLO or some 

of these other groups?

A. Ever since the conference in Rabat, Morocco in 1974 where 

the Arab world gave the PLO the official title of 

responsibility of being the sole legitimate representatives of 

the Palestinian people, Hamas strove to challenge that. This 

was a golden opportunity. The PLO was a leadership in exile, 

and people, even Fatah and PLO members on the ground, were 

getting tired of their lack of impact, and that is why they 

started this grassroots rebellion. 

Here you have Hamas, which is not based some place in 

North Africa, but is on the ground and would be able, they 

hoped, to oversee and guide and channel this anger and 

frustration.

Q. Was there also a tension because PLO was secular and 

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Hamas was Islamist?

A. Certainly. That was only one of the reasons why they 

were at loggerheads. Already at that point the PLO had begun 

to maker early signs of being willing to recognize Israel, 

which it later did. And that, of course, was anathema to 

Hamas, as it made clear in its constitution, its covenant, its 

charter, that was released in the months after its founding.

Q. Since you mentioned the charter, let's talk about that. 

Have you reviewed it?

A. I have.

Q. What language was it published in?

A. It was published in Arabic, and then appeared in English.

Q. Who published it in English?

A. It was published here in the United States by the Islamic 

Association for Palestine, and it appeared in English in 

multiple means, but the one that I and most academics use is a 

translation produced by Yale University that is available on 

the internet.

Q. If you can look at what is marked I believe as Hamas 

Charter 2 in front of you. 

A. Yes.

Q. What is that document?

A. This is a copy of the Hamas charter in Arabic. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I would offer into evidence 

Hamas Charter 2. 

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MR. CLINE: No objection.

THE COURT: Admitted. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, do you see the screen in 

front of you?

A. I do.

Q. What is on the screen? 

A. It is the cover of the charter that I am holding.

Q. Of the exhibit before you?

A. Yes.

Q. And this is in Arabic. Is that correct?

A. It is.

Q. What is it a depiction of this drawing on the right side 

of the booklet?

A. This is part of the region that we have been 

describing--Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

Q. It is not delineated the Gaza Strip and West Bank, is it?

A. No, because for Hamas this is one singular area not to be 

divided.

Q. Okay. Now, I believe you mentioned is there one 

particular English version that is accepted by scholars, such 

as yourself?

A. Yes. There are multiple versions, but the one that most 

people use, because when you are translating from any language 

there are many words that can be translated slightly 

differently, the one most people use is one put out by Yale 

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University by the law school.

Q. If you can look in front of you, there should be 

something marked Hamas Charter 1. 

A. Yes.

Q. What is that document?

A. It is the covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, 

the Avalon Project at Yale Law School translation.

Q. Is that the translation you referred to a moment ago that 

is commonly referred to by scholars?

A. Yes.

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, at this time I offer into 

evidence Hamas Charter 1. 

MR. CLINE: No objection.

THE COURT: Admitted. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, did you assist in creating 

a PowerPoint of the Hamas charter that would aid the jury in 

your testimony?

A. I did.

Q. And do you have before you Demonstrative No. 9? I 

believe this one is No. 9. 

A. This one is.

Q. And what is that?

A. This is the PowerPoint that I helped prepare of the 

official Hamas charter. 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, at this time I would offer 

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into evidence as a demonstrative Demonstrative No. 9. 

MR. CLINE: Your Honor, no objection. 

I wonder if we could have an instruction on the proper 

use of a demonstrative.

THE COURT: Demonstrative No. 9 is admitted. 

And members of the jury, a demonstrative exhibit means it 

is not in evidence such that you won't be able to take it back 

with you when you retire to deliberate, but can consider it in 

the courtroom, and of course whatever you recall of it you can 

rely on your memory. 

MR. JONAS: Thank you, sir.

MR. JONAS: If we can put on the screen the first 

page of the PowerPoint. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) Doctor Levitt, we see on the left side, 

is that the cover of the charter?

A. Yes.

Q. On the right side there is a date. What is that date?

A. That was the date that it was published.

Q. August 18th, 1988?

A. Yes.

MR. JONAS: If we could turn to the next slide?

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) And before I ask you a question about 

this, Doctor Levitt, how is the charter broken up?

A. Into sections and into articles.

Q. Chapters?

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A. Chapters, exactly.

Q. And with your PowerPoint slide and your testimony today, 

are we going to go through every single chapter?

A. No. That would take a very long time.

Q. So we are just hitting some highlights?

A. Exactly.

Q. On the screen we see something that is marked as 

"introduction." Would that be the beginning of the charter?

A. Exactly.

Q. It states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist 

until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others 

before it." And that is a quote attributed to the martyr Emam 

Hassan al-Banna. Who is that individual?

A. Hassan al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood 

in the 1920s in Egypt, who we mentioned earlier.

Q. This quote says, "Israel will exist and continue to 

exist," and it goes on and talks about Islam obliterating 

others before it. Who are the others that they are referring 

to?

A. When Islam was first founded, it was -- it conquered 

territories, as many peoples and religions did at the time in 

the middle ages, ancient times. Here you have a quote, 

attributed to the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, put into 

the introduction setting the context for Hamas' charter, and 

what they choose to open with, and I think is pretty clear, is 

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their position on Israel and what Muslims need to do about it. 

If Muslims don't obliterate it, it will continue to exist, and 

they need to obliterate it. Obliterate it is pretty clear.

MR. DRATEL: Objection, Your Honor; non-responsive 

at this time.

THE COURT: Overruled. Go ahead.

BY MR. JONAS: If we can go to the next slide, 

please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is a continuation of the 

introduction. It says, "this covenant of the Islamic 

Resistance Movement (Hamas) clarifies its picture, reveals its 

identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about 

its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption, and joining 

its ranks." What does that mean?

A. This document is going to lay out what Hamas is all 

about--what it believes, what it wants to do, how it wants to 

do it--and hopes to gather support among others for these 

ideas, goals, strategies.

MR. JONAS: Next screen. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) The top part of the screen on the right 

refers to a quote from an Article 2. Would that be what you 

referenced earlier about how this covenant or charter was 

divided up?

A. Yes.

Q. It says, "The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the 

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wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine." Care to 

comment on that?

A. I think it is pretty self-explanatory.

Q. That supports what you said earlier about the history of 

the organization?

A. Exactly. Hamas describes itself as the Palestinian wing 

of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Q. The bottom half of the screen on the right side is a 

quote from Article 3. It says, "In all that, they fear Allah 

and raise the banner of jihad in the face of the oppressors so 

that they would rid the land and the people of their 

uncleaniness, violence, and evils." 

First of all, who is Allah?

A. Allah is God.

Q. Who is "they" that would fear Allah?

A. These are the Muslims who are properly practicing, doing 

the right thing; those that fear God will raise the banner of 

jihad in the face of those who oppress them to rid the land of 

those who don't belong there, of people who are there but, the 

way they are describing it, unclean, vile, and evil, meaning 

people who are occupying land that they believe is theirs.

Q. Is there a particular people they are referring to here?

A. In this case it would be the Israelis.

Q. The term jihad, what does that mean?

A. Jihad has two meanings. Jihad can mean fighting against 

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one's enemies, against infidels, a violent confrontation. 

Jihad can also mean personal self-improvement. And 

distinguishing between the two requires what is usually a not 

terribly sophisticated logic test, common sense test. 

When you find the word jihad in the context of 

obliterating, fighting, it is pretty clearly about a violent 

jihad; and when you find jihad in the context of improving 

one's self and becoming a better person, it is about 

self-improvement. This is a violent jihad.

MR. JONAS: Next screen, please.

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is a long quote from Article 6. 

"The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished 

Palestinian movement whose allegiance is to Allah and whose 

way of life is Islam." 

Why don't we just break it down. What does that mean? 

A. The Islamic Resistance Movement is Palestinian, it is 

national, but it is a national movement whose first allegiance 

is to God. It is a religious movement. And it really sets it 

apart by being both a nationalist and a religious movement.

Q. "It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch 

of Palestine." 

What does that mean?

A. Its purpose is to raise the banner of God over every inch 

of Palestine, not parts of Palestine.

Q. When they say every inch of Palestine, what land mass are 

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they referring to?

A. The Palestine land mass that they have on the cover, on 

the other side of the slide, which includes what they would 

describe as all of historic Palestine, what is today Israel, 

the West Bank, and Gaza.

MR. JONAS: Next page, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is from Article 7. "The Prophet 

Allah, bless him and grant him salvation, has said, 'The day 

of judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, 

killing the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and 

trees. The stones and trees will say, "O, Muslims, O, 

Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill them. Only 

the gharqad tree will not do that because it is one of the 

trees of the Jews."'" 

What does this statement mean?

A. It is a phrase from Muslim tradition, and I am not in a 

position to comment on its religious significance, but its 

inclusion in the Hamas charter is very telling and at face 

value speaks for itself. "The day of judgment will not come 

until Muslims fight the Jews, killing the Jews, and stones and 

trees -- the Jews will hide behind stones and trees, and the 

stones and trees will say, 'Come and kill them. There is a 

Jew behind me.'" This is Hamas' covenant. It is its charter, 

What its about. That is what it said in its introduction. 

What includes in here is something that is not just about 

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Israelis, it is about Jews, and so this now is something 

larger. And this is clearly not a self-improvement jihad. 

This is a kill the Jews jihad.

MR. JONAS: Next slide please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This one is entitled "The Slogan of the 

Islamic Resistance Movement." I want to be clear. Did you 

put that yourself, "The Slogan of the Islamic Resistance 

Movement," or is that from the charter?

A. This is all from the charter.

Q. It says, "Allah is its target, the profit is its model, 

the Quran its constitution, jihad is its path, and death for 

the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes." 

That says a mouthful. What does that mean?

A. This entire conflict, Hamas' entire agenda, is put into 

the context of a religious struggle. God is its target, doing 

God's work. The Prophet Mohammad is its model. The Quran, 

which is the Muslims' Bible, if you will, is its constitution, 

and the way it is going to do this is jihad is its path. 

Killing the Jews is pretty clear what kind of jihad it 

is. And here we have again death for the sake of Allah is the 

loftiest of its wishes. This is not self-improvement.

Q. Something that we will talk about in a few moments but I 

want to briefly touch upon here, what is Hamas known for in 

terms of the military activity?

A. Hamas is known for a variety of types of attacks, but 

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perhaps it is most infamous for suicide attacks in which a 

person actually does kill one's self in the process of 

killing others.

Q. Does this quote here from Article 8 feed into giving 

inspiration to people who become suicide bombers?

A. This is part of the radicalization propaganda that 

carrying out this suicide bombing is not actually suicide by 

the bomber, it is self-sacrifice on behalf of the nation; that 

it is part of death for the sake of Allah, which is the 

loftiest of wishes for a Hamas member.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) The next one is entitled "Strategies and 

Methods." 

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land 

of Palestine is an Islamic waqf consecrated for future Muslim 

generations until judgment day. It, or any part of it, should 

not be squandered. It, or any part of it, should not be given 

up." 

Starting with the first sentence, what is an Islamic 

waqf?

A. An Islamic waqf is an Islamic endowment, something that 

is ordained by God for the Muslims, meaning this is sacred 

land; this is land that God has said has to be in control of 

Muslims. It is not within the prerogative of any individual, 

says Hamas, to give it up to somebody else for future 

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generations until judgment day. And then it says, "It, or any 

part, of this land should not be squandered, shall not be 

wasted, it, or any part, of this land should not be given up, 

which obviously is mutually exclusive and in direct conflict 

with the two-state solution which requires to compromise and 

have part of the land for a Palestinian country and part of 

the land for a country of Israel.

Q. The bottom quote says, "This is the law governing the 

land of Palestine in the Islamic sharia, and the same goes for 

any land the Muslims have conquered by force." 

I want to stop there for a moment. You mentioned earlier 

in your testimony about Hamas' goal in taking over this whole 

land mass, Israel, is that they would operate under Islamic 

law. 

A. Correct.

Q. And does this quote go to that?

A. Very much so. 

Q. It mentions Muslims have conquered by force. "The same 

goes for any land the Muslims have conquered by force." 

What does that mean?

A. This is a principle that is common among Islamist 

ideology that any land that historically had been conquered by 

Muslims becomes that waqf, that endowment, and must be 

redeemed if it is taken over by somebody else and must have 

Islamic law applied there.

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Q. Does that mean they are looking beyond Israel in that 

respect?

A. The way I read this is that they are saying the situation 

with Israel is like the situation elsewhere. Hamas is not 

saying it needs to go and conquer formerly Muslim lands like 

Spain, but it is saying the same way this principle would 

apply to any other formerly Muslim land it applies no less to 

this case here of Israel.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is from Article 13. It is entitled 

"Peaceful Solutions, Initiatives and International 

Conferences." 

"Initiatives and so-called peaceful solutions and 

international conferences are in contradiction to the 

principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any 

part of Palestine is abuse directed against the part of 

religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is 

part of its religion." 

The first sentence talking about initiatives and peaceful 

solutions, what does that mean?

A. Again, I think it is pretty self-explanatory. Any 

effort, any international initiative, any international 

conference, any peaceful solution, is in contradiction to the 

principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is 

dedicated to resolving this conflict by violently defeating 

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Israel and instituting an Islamic state in all of historic 

Palestine. 

And then again, Hamas puts this into a religious context. 

"Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part 

of the religion." These other Muslims who claim that they are 

willing to share and divide this territory are, by Hamas' 

definition, not being good Muslims. 

And then they put Hamas' nationalism in the context of 

religion as well. True, Hamas is both Islamist and 

nationalist, but the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance 

Movement is part of its religion, not the other way around.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is a continuation of the same 

article. "There is no solution for the Palestinian question 

except through jihad." 

Which jihad are they referring to?

A. Again, the context is quite clear. There is no solution 

for the Palestinian question except through violent jihad. I 

don't think they are implying that through personal 

improvement they will obliterate Israel or the Jews. 

Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all 

a waste of time.

Q. Has Hamas ever engaged in a peace conference or peace 

talks?

A. It is interesting. Hamas is not engaged in peace talks 

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for the purpose of a two-state solution. Hamas has engaged in 

talks with other elements of Palestinian society, and in 

recent times, even through third parties with Israel for a 

temporary cease fire, but has never been willing to agree to a 

permanent solution and has violated the cease fires.

Q. Has Israel recognized the cease fires that Hamas has 

proposed?

A. Tacitly, in the sense that there have been situations 

where Israel wanted a period of calm from Hamas attacks; for 

example, after constant Hamas shelling of Israeli civilian 

communities within Israel proper from within Hamas controlled 

Gaza. But it doesn't sit down at the table with Hamas and 

negotiate with them because Hamas has committed to Israel's 

destruction.

Q. Have they ever backed away from this quote?

A. No.

Q. No?

A. No.

Q. You mentioned earlier that Hamas took over Gaza, and you 

just mentioned about attacks from Gaza. So the fact that 

Israel withdrew from Gaza, has that placated Hamas in any way?

A. Not at all. Attacks continue from Gaza in the form of -- 

primarily in the form of rockets and mortars fired at Israeli 

towns. These rockets and mortars are very crude. You can't 

aim them, so it is not like they are being fired at 

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specifically military targets. Some have fallen in homes.

MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, can we have a time frame? 

THE COURT: He asked for a time frame.

THE WITNESS: Israel withdrew in 2005. Hamas rocket 

attacks have continued with very little break since then. 

Some of these have fallen in homes. Some of these have fallen 

in kindergartens. There have also been small number of 

attempts to infiltrate suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip, 

but Israeli military measures have thwarted almost all of 

these. 

MR. JONAS: The next slide, please.

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is from Article 15. "The Jihad for 

the Liberation of Palestine is an Individual Duty." That is 

the title. 

The quote, "The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim 

land, jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim." 

What does that mean? 

A. Again, this has all being put into a religious context of 

a religious obligation. This is not a religious obligation 

that applies to the Muslims generally. This is an obligation 

that applies to you as a Muslim. Every individual has an 

obligation to participate in this violent jihad, the day that 

the enemies take any type of Muslim land.

Q. Does that include Muslims who live outside of Israel, 

West Bank, and Gaza?

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A. Yes. And Hamas will frequently articulate that if you 

are not going to come and do it yourself, support those who 

will.

Q. Are you familiar with the term economic jihad?

A. I am.

Q. What does that mean?

A. Economic jihad, it is not my term, this is a term that 

Hamas and similar groups have employed, jihad bin mal, jihad 

with money literally, and the pitch goes very much like this: 

If you cannot come and participate in the jihad yourself, then 

fund someone who will. And by doing so, you will fulfill that 

individual religious obligation you have to reconquer usurped 

lands.

Q. Does that funding and economic jihad have to be direct 

funding to somebody who is about to commit a suicide bomb or 

some other attack?

A. No. Who do you make that check out to? This is made 

through organizations that support Hamas, and it is not a 

typical for a fundraising pitch that would be used by Hamas or 

groups like Hamas, and in fact has been used.

Q. Does this quote, the first quote on the page that we have 

read, play into the economic jihad, what you are talking 

about?

A. Absolutely. You have this individual obligation. Here 

is a way for you to fulfill it without having to go over there 

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and pull the trigger yourself.

Q. The rest of the next quote on the page is, "In face of 

the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the 

banner of jihad be raised. To do this requires a diffusion of 

Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, 

Arab, and Islamic levels." 

I want to break this down for a moment. The first line, 

"It is compulsory that the banner of jihad be raised." What 

does that mean?

A. It is a requirement, it is compulsory that the banner, 

the flag, the concept, the principle of violent jihad be 

raised among the consciousness of the people; as if they do 

not have this as a priority, they are not going to be willing 

to engage in it. It takes self-sacrifice to go and put 

yourself at risk engaged in violence. To do this requires the 

diffusion or the spreading of the Islamic consciousness, of 

this Islamic religious ideas among the masses, among the 

people. You have to make people aware of their Islamic 

obligations for those obligations to mean anything to them. 

If you tell someone they have an obligation but they don't 

subscribe to that world view, it doesn't mean anything. But 

if you are able to bring people back to Islam, this form of 

Islam, and then tell them they have an Islamic obligation, 

that is a very powerful means of recruiting and mobilizing 

people. 

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And this, they say in their charter, should be done at 

the regional level in the Arab and Muslim worlds, at the Arab 

and Islamic worlds--we should be soliciting the help of fellow 

Arabs, of Muslims, it should be done throughout the region.

Q. So when you say regional Arab and Islamic, is regional 

being Palestinians?

A. Regional is beyond Palestinians. In other words, they 

are saying there is an individual responsibility on Muslims, 

not on Palestinians, to help free Palestine and create a 

Palestinian state in all of this territory defeating Israel; 

not just the Palestinians. That may be nationalist in the 

sense we may be Palestinian Islamists, but we are not in this 

alone. This is something for the Muslim world to do. The 

Muslim world has an obligation here.

Q. Has the Muslim world responded to what Hamas' charter is 

calling for?

A. Of course you can't really ask does the Muslim world act 

in a unitary fashion, but there are individuals and 

organizations, and countries even, that have and that 

subscribe to this similar ideology and say, yes, this is not 

just a Palestinian issue; this is a Muslim issue, and we need 

to support fellow Muslims in Palestine.

Q. Have these countries and individuals supported the fellow 

Muslims through violent means the way Hamas calls for?

A. They have supported Hamas' violent means primarily 

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through money.

Q. What are some of these countries?

A. Iran for example, at different times some of the Gulf 

countries. But the primary source is not any given country, 

but individuals and organizations.

Q. The rest of the quote is, "It is necessary to instill the 

spirit of jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would 

confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters." 

A. This whole premise is something that you need to convince 

people of. The normal world view of a human being is to go to 

work, make a living, provide for your family, get your kids 

through school, and live a life; not to engage in acts that 

could put you and your family at risk. 

If you want to get people willing to do this, you need to 

convince them to do it, and Hamas' primary means of doing that 

is by saying that this is a religious obligation on each and 

every one of you fellow Muslims.

Q. And how does Hamas do that to the Palestinian people? 

How do they get that word out there?

A. They get the word out through their propaganda, but their 

most effective means is through the Dawa, through the social 

welfare infrastructure that was at the bottom, the foundation, 

of that triangle. Dawa means proselytizing or preaching. 

Those services get people in. You get those people in and 

then you can convince them you have an opportunity to present 

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and convince them of this message.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is also part of Article 15. It 

says, "It is necessary that scientists, educators, and 

teachers, information, and media people, as well as the 

educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the 

Islamic movement, should take part in the operation of 

awakening." 

What does that mean?

A. If you are going to wake people up to this, if you are 

going to bring them back to the proper practice of Islam so 

that they will recognize their individual duty to jihad, it 

can't just be us Hamas. It can't just be the few leaders 

around Hamas. It needs to be across the spectrum of 

society--respected persons, scientists, teachers, media. This 

message needs to get out at a massive, mass grassroots level, 

because that is how you are going to get people getting this 

message from all different places, and it will permeate and it 

will eventually awaken the masses to this necessity.

Q. The rest of this quote is, "It is important that the 

basic changes be made in the school curriculum to cleanse it 

of traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result 

of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the 

region following the defeat of the crusaders at the hands of 

Saleh al-Din." 

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They are talking about school curriculum. What does that 

mean?

A. There is nothing more important if you are trying to get 

a message into society than to get it into the children, to 

get it into the schools. Schools have always been a focus of 

Hamas' attention. And it is, therefore, no surprise that 

after Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip one of the first 

things it did was replaced secular educators with Hamas 

teachers to get out moderate, pluralistic ideas that might, 

for example, support a two-state solution compromise and get 

in teachers who will preach Hamas' world view.

Q. Prior to Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip, did Hamas run 

schools?

MR. DRATEL: Can we get a time frame again, Your 

Honor? 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) You testified earlier that Hamas took 

over the Gaza Strip in 2005?

A. The Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In January 2006 

Hamas won elections and then -- and set up a government. 

About a year later in February 2007 that government collapsed, 

and a government that was made up of Hamas and others came to 

power. And then just a few months later in June of 2007, 

hamas turned its guns again on fellow Palestinians, violently 

taking over the Gaza Strip, and it was at that point that the 

Hamas -- the gloves came off and they just completely replaced 

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educators with their own.

Q. Prior to that time period, and let's talk about the 

1990s, did Hamas run schools?

A. Even before the 1990s. These social welfare 

organizations include kindergartens and primary schools, and 

throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Q. And did they employ what they are saying in this Article 

15 about the school curriculum supporting their position?

A. Yes.

Q. It says, "...cleansing the traces of ideological 

invasion," and it talks about orientalists and the 

missionaries. Who are the orientalists and missionaries that 

infiltrated the region?

A. Westerners. There were missionaries, Christian 

missionaries that came through the Arab world. There were 

Westerners, Europeans, and Americans in particular, who came 

through with Orientalist or Western ideas and values, and this 

is Hamas saying that it is important to get rid of these 

competing ideas in order to be able to instill their own.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please.

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is from Article 18, and it is 

entitled, "The Role of the Muslim Woman." 

It says, "Women in the home of the fighting family, 

whether she is a mother or a sister, plays the most important 

role in looking after the family, rearing the children, and 

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imbuing them with moral values and thoughts derived from 

Islam. She has to teach them to perform the religious duties 

in preparation for the role of fighting awaiting them. That 

is why it is necessary to pay great attention to schools and 

the curriculum followed in educating Muslim girls so that they 

would grow up to be good mothers, aware of their role in the 

battle of liberation." 

What role do the Muslim women play in Hamas?

A. If only a few words were absent from here, they would be 

playing a role like we would want most mothers to 

play--gearing their children, imbuing them with religious 

values. But this is put out specifically in the context of 

fighting--"the women in the home of the fighting family in 

preparation for the role of fighting that awaits them, to be 

good mothers aware of their role in the battle of liberation." 

This is part of the purpose of a radicalizing Palestinian 

society, not only at the kind of elite level of these 

scientists and educators and media people at a massive level, 

not only in the schools, but in the home. And they are 

recognizing that parents, and in particular mothers, play a 

very critical role here.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) I am just going to read you this top one, 

Article 21. "Social and Mutual Responsibility" is the title. 

"Mutual and social responsibility means extending 

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assistance, financial or moral, to all those who are in need 

and joining the execution of some of the work. Members of the 

Islamic Resistance Movement should consider the interests of 

the masses as their own personal interests." 

What does that mean?

A. Here, too, this is presenting the goals of the 

organization as something that is a personal responsibility. 

This is going to take self-sacrifice, and, therefore, we have 

to help each other. And again, it would have been fine if it 

was helping each other, you know, under normal circumstances, 

helping people get by, extending assistance, financial or 

moral. But they are very particular. It is to those who are 

in need and joining in the execution of some of the work. 

This is not some other article. This is in the context of the 

Hamas charter about obliterating Israel. 

So if you find someone who might be inclined to 

participate in this obliterating Israel and needs some help to 

get by in doing so, then you should consider that your own 

personal interest to help that individual so that they can 

participate in Hamas' agenda.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is from Article 27. "The 

Palestinian Liberation Organization." Is that the PLO you 

testified about earlier?

A. Yes.

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Q. Why is it that Hamas is dedicating an article to the PLO?

A. PLO, especially when this charter came out, had many, 

many followers, and Hamas had to explain why it is something 

new that is worthy of followers at the expense of the PLO. 

This would be perceived by many as not uniting but breaking up 

the Palestinian national movement, and so they highlight their 

differences and explain why.

Q. Is it partly because, as you said earlier, in the early 

1970s the Arab world had deemed the PLO as the representative 

of the Palestinian people?

A. In 1974. And Hamas is making its pitch as to why it 

deserves an opportunity to play that role.

Q. It talks about the organization adopted the idea of the 

secular state, and you testified earlier that the PLO is 

secular, non-religious. Is that correct?

A. That is correct.

Q. So Hamas is recognizing that?

A. Yes.

Q. The last -- The bottom third of the page says, "The day 

the Palestine Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way 

of life, we will become its soldiers and fuel for its fire 

that will burn the enemies." 

Has the PLO ever adopted Islam as its way of life?

A. No, it has not. And because it has not, Hamas has been 

in conflict with it, and it with Hamas. As the first 

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paragraph states, "Secularism completely contradicts religious 

ideology." Hamas is clearly a religious ideology.

Q. Has there been tension with the PLO from the time Hamas 

was created up until today?

A. Yes.

Q. You mentioned earlier that when -- In 2007 when Hamas 

took over Gaza, turned its guns on fellow Palestinians. 

A. Yes.

Q. Was that the PLO, Fatah which was part of PLO that it 

turned its guns on?

A. Yes.

MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This says from Section E. Would that be 

a subsection of another article?

A. Correct.

Q. It is entitled, "Nationalist and Religious Groupings, 

Institutions, Intellectual, the Arab and Islamic World." 

It says, "The Islamic Resistance Movement hopes that all 

these groupings will side with it in spheres, would support 

it, adopt its stand, and solidify its activities and moves, 

work toward rallying support for it so that the Islamic people 

will be a base and a stay for it, supplying it with strategic 

depth and all human material and informative spheres in time 

and in place." 

That is a mouthful. What does that mean?

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A. Calling on these various cross-cuts of 

society--nationalists, religious groups, institutions, 

intellectuals, and the Arab and Islamic world, and it hopes 

that they will support Hamas and its ideology and its 

activity. They hope that these various types of entities will 

adopt Hamas' stand and solidify and enable its activities. It 

will be a base for it and provide it strategic depth in human 

material, meaning supporters, operatives, and the information 

sphere that they have talked about, this kind of battle of 

ideas, getting the idea out at a massive level, and furthering 

Hamas' agenda.

Q. The bottom half of the page says, "This should be done 

through the convening of solidarity conferences, the issuing 

of explanatory bulletins, favorable articles, and booklets 

enlightening the masses regarding the Palestinian cause." 

You testified Hamas has a website and issues communiques. 

Does it also issue explanatory bulletins?

A. It does, but here even more to the point is it is saying 

-- it is calling on all these other entities to do so as well, 

because they don't want to be the only ones doing it. Your 

message is much stronger when it is echoed by somebody else. 

So they are hoping everybody else will convene solidarity 

conferences, meaning in solidarity with the Hamas movement, 

and issue these bulletins and favorable articles and booklets, 

et cetera, as Hamas does, too, for certain.

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MR. JONAS: Next slide, please. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This top part is from Article 30. It 

says, "Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the 

confrontation of the enemy. Effective word, the good article, 

the useful book, support, and solidarity, together with the 

presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner 

higher and higher, all these are elements of the jihad for 

Allah's sake." 

Doctor Levitt, you testified about jihad having two 

meanings. Which of those two meanings would this section 

apply to?

A. This is in the context of the Hamas charter. The Hamas 

charter has been clear throughout that it is about a violent 

jihad. It has been very clear that this violent jihad is a 

personal obligation of each Muslim, and that every person 

should consider enabling someone else to participate in this 

jihad in their personal interest. But there are many ways to 

fulfill this obligation, Hamas is saying--not just by carrying 

of arms and confronting the enemy directly, but if you support 

that idea, those actions, like we just read in the last slide, 

through articles, through conferences, the effective word, the 

good article, the useful book, these too are good and 

important tools that count as part of the jihad.

Q. The bottom half says, "Whosoever mobilizes a fighter for 

the sake of Allah is himself a fighter. Whosoever supports 

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the relatives of a fighter, he himself is a fighter." Is that 

in line with the principle we talked about earlier of economic 

jihad?

A. That is economic jihad. That is the principle. Again, 

multiple ways to fulfill this obligation. Can't do it 

yourself? Enable someone else, fund someone else.

Q. And again, is the funding of someone giving someone money 

to become a suicide bomber or an attacker?

A. It can be, but it is not handing them the envelope. This 

is in the Hamas charter. Hamas is making the financial pitch 

here for itself. And if you mobilize our fighters, Hamas is 

saying in its charter, you will have fulfilled your obligation 

as a fighter. You will be a fighter yourself.

Q. But does the mobilization have to be of the fighters to 

satisfy what Hamas is calling for here, or can it be other 

parts of Hamas as well?

A. Certainly it can be other parts of Hamas. As Hamas has 

made clear, the jihad include these various types of 

activities. And Hamas is very clear that its social, 

political, and certainly military activities are part of this 

violent jihad.

Q. So if someone gives money to the social wing, branch, 

part of Hamas, the Dawa part, are they satisfying the call for 

jihad that Hamas is requiring here?

A. Of course. And not just at this obvious level, but also 

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money is fungible. So you have an organization that is 

involved in social welfare activity and political activity and 

military activity, all. You provide them an extra $10. That 

is $10 more they have at their availability and it frees up 

$10 they had for something else. So certainly it counts in 

every which way.

MR. JONAS: If we can go to the next slide. 

Q. (BY MR. JONAS) This is from Article 32. It says, "Egypt 

was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the 

struggle through the treacherous Camp David agreement." 

What does that mean?

A. Egypt had a peace deal, made a piece deal with Israel, 

and referred to as the Camp David agreement because it was 

finalized at the Camp David Presidential Retreat in Maryland 

in 1979. And by virtue of making this deal, this compromise, 

Egypt got back the Sinai, that big desert in the southern part 

of Israel that Israel had conquered in the 1967 War, and Egypt 

concluded a full peace deal. There is an Egyptian ambassador 

in Israel and an Israeli ambassador in Egypt. 

By doing this, Egypt, as far as Hamas and similar 

organizations are concerned, they are treacherous. They are 

traitors. They sold out.

Q. But does Hamas have any relationship with Egypt today?

A. Certainly. Hamas is very tactical, and its strategic and 

tactical decisions are sometimes separate. Hamas will meet 

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with Egypt if Egypt can deliver something it needs, even 

though strategically Hamas has very little respect for Egypt.

Q. The rest of that paragraph says, "They are trying to draw 

other Arab countries into similar agreements and bring them 

outside the circle of struggle." 

Is the "they" they are talking about Egypt again?

A. Yes.

Q. And has other Arab countries made peace agreements with 

Israel?

A. Jordan has. 

Q. How does Hamas consider Jordan, then?

A. Not so happy about it.

Q. The bottom half of that page says, "The Islamic 

Resistance Movement calls on Arab and Islamic nations to take 

up the line of serious and persevering action to prevent the 

success of this horrendous plan, to warn the people of the 

danger emanating from leaving the circle of struggle against 

Zionism." 

What is Zionism?

A. Zionism is the ideology that led to the creation of a 

Jewish homeland for the Jews and what became Israel. And for 

Israelis and Jews, for most people in the world, it is -- For 

Israelis and Jews it is a very good thing. For most people in 

the world it is not a good or a bad thing. 

Palestinians see Zionism see Zionism as the ideology that 

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stripped them of their land as see it as a very bad thing. 

And the context of radical Palestinian groups, and in many 

cases in non-radical Palestinian groups, Zionism is a very bad 

word. 

But the point here is that Hamas is calling on Arab and 

Islamic nations, who have not yet made this peace deal with 

Egypt, as Egypt had by the time this covenant came out -- 

Q. You mean peace deal with Israel?

A. Yes, the Israeli peace deal with Egypt. That they don't 

want anybody else to follow suit. They are warning people off 

of the danger that emanates from this horrendous plan of 

striking peace deals. Because imagine if all the Arab states 

struck a peace deal with Israel, struck these compromises with 

Israel. Where would Hamas be left? Hamas does not believe in 

compromise it would be left without this strategic depth. It 

would be left without this support from the Arab and Muslim 

worlds.

Q. The rest of that quote says, "Today it is Palestine. 

Tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan 

is limitless." 

Has Israel attempted to take over other countries?

A. No.

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I was going to move to 

another section. 

THE COURT: Is this a good breaking point? 

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Let's go ahead and recess for the day. Be back here at 

9:00 in the morning. 

Please let me remind you about the instructions we 

discussed earlier. Don't talk to anybody about the case. 

Don't let anybody talk to you about it or watch any reports 

about it. See you back at 9:00 in the morning. 

(Whereupon, the jury left the courtroom.)

THE COURT: All right. Anything we need to address, 

counsel, before we recess for the evening? 

MR. MYSLIWIEC: Yes, Your Honor. We filed a motion, 

docket No. 1183, I think first thing this morning, and it 

relates to a document that Mr. Levitt -- 

THE COURT: Everybody can have a seat, by the way. 

MR. MYSLIWIEC: It relates to a document that Mr. 

Levitt has in his possession. He testified about it at his 

Daubert hearing and also cited to that document in his book, 

which effectively was his expert report in this case. 

Based on Rule 705, and some other rules we have cited in 

the motion, we believe we are entitled to that document being 

produced. 

We requested the document from Mr. Jonas, and in fact Mr. 

Levitt testified that he was able to provide it at the Daubert

hearing. Upon requesting it before this trial, Mr. Jonas went 

back, spoke to Mr. Levitt, and he is refusing to produce it to 

the Defense on the grounds that it is confidential. 

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THE COURT: Mr. Jonas? 

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, I haven't had a chance to 

respond in writing because this was filed just before court 

started this morning. I am happy to respond orally.

THE COURT: Yes, go ahead.

MR. JONAS: Doctor Levitt has not testified about 

this document. This document is an index of material that the 

Israelis have in their possession which relates to the 

testimony of some of the Israeli witnesses that will come 

later on in the trial. These were items that were seized by 

the government of Israel during some military maneuvers in the 

West Bank. 

Doctor Levitt was provided this document as a researcher, 

not because he was testifying in this case. He received it 

years before we contracted with him.

The Defense has asked previously in the prior trial for 

Doctor Levitt's material that he relies upon in his book. 

Judge Fish dealt with this issue denying their request. It is 

ECF 549. It is an order dated February 23rd, 2007. 

I direct your attention the Court's attention to pages 5 

through 7 generally where Judge Fish discusses the Defense's 

request for material that Doctor Levitt refers to in his book. 

Doctor Levitt did not refer to this document in his 

testimony so far, and will not refer to it in his testimony 

tomorrow. It only came up in the Daubert hearing upon cross 

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examination by Ms. Cadeddu. He didn't refer to it on direct 

in his Daubert hearing. He did not create the document. He 

is not relying on the document. There is no basis for the 

Defense to get it. 

It was provided to him by the Israelis in confidence, the 

way many experts and scholars receive material. It is part of 

a larger body of work he has reviewed and accumulated over a 

course of time. There is no reason why they should be 

entitled to this document. 

THE COURT: Okay. 

MR. MYSLIWIEC: Your Honor, I guess that is exactly 

the point is that he reviewed this document in forming his 

expert opinion, and clearly Rule 705 says that the Defense is 

entitled to see the same material that the expert has seen so 

that it can effectively prepare for cross examination. He 

testified about this at the Daubert hearing, he cited to it in 

his report. As far as I am aware of -- 

THE COURT: He cited to it in his report or the 

book? 

MR. MYSLIWIEC: That is what I meant. Because, as 

you will see in the written motion, in their notice about Mr. 

Levitt being an expert, they indicated that the book is his 

report.

MR. JONAS: Your Honor, if I can address that. I 

don't mean to cut you off. The Government has never, ever 

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indicated that. The Defense on several occasions has taken 

something the Government said in order to be courteous -- And 

we had told them Doctor Levitt will not be filing a report. 

This was several years ago before the last trial. We said, 

"However, if you look through his book you can see where some 

of his testimony will be coming from," as an aid to them to 

prepare for cross examination. 

Believe me, I don't know if we will be that courteous 

again, given how they have taken the Government's words and 

have every time attempted to twist it against us by saying it 

is in effect his report. It is not his report. 

MR. MYSLIWIEC: Your Honor, maybe we can put that 

issue aside. The point is he has talked about this book 

repeatedly. The book deals with Hamas. It is clearly about 

his expert opinion on Hamas and he bases that expert opinion 

specifically on this document, which he cites to in the book, 

which -- I mean, just to make another point about it, if it is 

such a confidential document, why is he citing to it and 

describing it in a publicly available book? I mean, 

confidentiality is not a basis for not providing something 

under Rule 705. 

In addition to Rule 705, we have outlined a confrontation 

clause basis for it, a Rule 16 basis for it, and as Mr. Levitt 

testified here today, he is actually still a government 

employee when he was talking about working with I think it was 

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General Jones. He said he hadn't given up his employment in 

there. He is still on call. 

That means this document, in addition to being in Mr. 

Levitt's possession, is clearly within the control of the 

Government. 

So for those reasons it should be produced to the 

Defense.

THE COURT: What is your reason for not wanting to 

turn it over? 

MR. JONAS: Because they are not entitled to it and 

I am afraid -- For two reasons, Your Honor. One is they are 

not entitled to it, there is no basis for it; and two, I am 

afraid this is going to open a slippery slope where they are 

going to start asking for everything in his possession, which, 

by the way, is a two-way street. If we are going to go down 

that road, everything that their experts have ever accumulated 

we would be entitled to. And I am not saying we are. 

I just request that Your Honor review Judge Fish's order 

on this issue. 

THE COURT: I will. 

MR. JONAS: And Doctor Levitt is not a Government 

employee. Because he has been a consultant for General Jones 

on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not make him a 

government employee, and it does not make that document in the 

possession of the government. 

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And one other point, Your Honor, because we are going to 

go in circles real soon on this. This is a document that is 

an index listing other items that were seized from the Israeli 

military. It is those items that Doctor Levitt has reviewed. 

All the index is is a listing of those items. And I think 

this is a back door attempt to get another -- This is a back 

door attempt to find out what the Israelis took that the 

Defendants had other means of learning about that they chose 

not to pursue. 

This document cannot be used to cross Doctor Levitt. He 

didn't create it. And frankly, Your Honor, it is also in 

Hebrew. It is not going to help them. 

I think I have said everything I need to say, and I 

think, Your Honor, I would just direct you to Judge Fish's 

order. 

MR. MYSLIWIEC: Just on that last point, Your Honor, 

cross examination -- The right to cross examination involves 

questioning the witness about what he chose to consider and 

also about what he chose not to consider, and this index 

indicates documents, or should indicate documents, which he 

chose not to consider, and we have the right to cross examine 

about that and the right to know about it under Rule 705 and 

the other authorities I cited to.

THE COURT: All right. Let me take a look at -- And 

I read your motion that you filed this morning, but I read it 

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hurriedly, so let me take a look at that. 

And I take it you filed a response the last time and then 

Judge Fish did his order.

MR. JONAS: Yes, sir.

MS. HOLLANDER: Your Honor, I would just like to add 

these are documents within the government of Israel that we 

have no other way to get. We did file a motion earlier for 

request for letters rogatory, which I don't believe the Court 

has ruled on. But we don't have any other way to get these 

documents or to get this list. 

And Doctor Levitt, although he didn't write an expert 

report, I think that if you look at what the Government 

provided at that time, they said, "He is not doing a report, 

but you can rely on his book." And that is what we have been 

doing.

THE COURT: Okay. Let me take a look at that. 

Remind me in the morning.

We are in recess until 9:00.

(End of Day.)

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I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE FOREGOING IS A 

CORRECT TRANSCRIPT FROM THE RECORD OF 

PROCEEDINGS IN THE ABOVE-ENTITLED MATTER. 

I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT THE TRANSCRIPT FEES 

FORMAT COMPLY WITH THOSE PRESCRIBED BY THE 

COURT AND THE JUDICIAL CONFERENCE OF THE 

UNITED STATES.

S/Shawn McRoberts 10/16/2008

__________________________DATE____________

SHAWN McROBERTS, RMR, CRR

FEDERAL OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER

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