After the Ban on the Muslim Brotherhood, Texas Moves Against Hamas
After delivering a major blow to the Muslim Brotherhood by banning it, the state of Texas has now turned its attention to organizations that support Hamas.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that the state will join Virginia and Iowa in filing a legal brief against the nonprofit group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and other organizations he described as “extremist,” in order to “combat Hamas terrorism,” according to the US news outlet The Examiner.
Paxton wrote on his account on the social media platform X that “extremist terrorist groups like Hamas must be eliminated and dismantled, including their local support branches.”
He added: “Terrorism relies on complex networks and intermediaries, and the law must be enforced against those who knowingly provide material support. My office will continue to defend Americans who have been severely harmed by terrorism and ensure accountability under the law.”
Last November, Texas launched more assertive legal efforts against organizations that researchers and law enforcement agencies have long claimed are part of a domestic support network for Hamas in the United States.
On November 18, Governor Greg Abbott announced the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as terrorist organizations.
One month after that decision, Paxton filed a motion to defend the designation in court, in response to a lawsuit brought by CAIR chapters in Dallas–Fort Worth and Austin.
At the time, Paxton stated: “My office will continue to defend the governor’s lawful and well-founded declaration that CAIR is a foreign terrorist organization, as well as Texas’s right to protect itself from organizations with documented ties to foreign extremist movements.”
In its latest statement, Paxton’s office said that on October 8, 2023 — one day after Hamas’s attack on southern Israel — the groups AMP and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) announced that they were “part of” the “Unity Intifada” under Hamas’s “unified leadership.”
The statement added that “victims of Hamas terrorism have filed lawsuits against extremist groups under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act. Attorney General Paxton’s filing of the legal brief comes in support of the victims and was submitted to ensure that supporters of terrorism are held accountable.”
It stressed that all organizations that have acknowledged supporting Hamas, whether morally or materially, must be held accountable.
Last year, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares — whose name appears at the forefront of the brief — sought to compel AMP to disclose its sources of funding, a move that a judge ruled it must comply with on May 9.
According to the same report, AMP and NSJP did not begin providing material support to Hamas on October 8, 2023; rather, their material support allegedly extended over decades, whether through their current organizations or through predecessor entities.
