(IPT) A Yahoo bulletin board created in late 2005 by activists associated with a former Hamas-support network laid the groundwork for creating a replacement virulently anti-Israel group, an amended complaint filed in Chicago federal court on March 29 alleges.
The new complaint bolsters several allegations made in a 2017 lawsuit that the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and several of its activists are “alter egos and/or successors” of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and the American Muslim Society (AMS). Those were two names for one organization that was found liable for an American teen’s 1996 death in a terrorist attack.
The bulletin board was referred as a “transition” to a new organization, the complaint says. Among its organizers were Hatem Bazian and Magdi Odeh. Odeh had helped coordinate IAP’s first annual “Jerusalem Festival for English Speakers” held in Chicago in 1999. Bazian, chairman of AMP’s national board, was a featured speaker at several IAP events and shared a close personal relationship with IAP/AMS leader Rafeeq Jaber, listed as a defendant in the case.
