Biden encouraged to prohibit the Palestinian 'terrorist' organization that is forbidden in Germany and Israel.

The Biden administration is being pressured to impose penalties on Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, an organization with ties to Iran's government and the U.S.-labeled terrorist group Hamas.

In November, Germany banned Samidoun, while Israel designated the Palestinian group as a terrorist organization in 2021.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, stated on Planet Chronicle Digital that if the U.S. wants to address the pro-Hamas mobs causing damage on U.S. campuses, it must take action to ban Samidoun and investigate their allies and supporters.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, Iran, Sweden, France, and Spain are among the locations where Samidoun has chapters.

In a November statement, Nancy Faeser, the German federal minister of the interior, announced that she had banned all activity in Germany by Hamas, a terrorist organization that aims to destroy the State of Israel. Additionally, she dissolved Samidoun Deutschland, an international network that spreads anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda while claiming to support prisoners in different countries. Samidoun also supported and glorified various foreign terrorist organizations, including Hamas. This action will put an end to such displays of hate in Germany.

Samidoun's antisemitism and disregard for human life were especially evident during the spontaneous celebrations in Germany following the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel.

The U.S. State Department spokesperson stated that they are aware of Germany's ban on Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, but they do not comment on any deliberations related to the U.S. terrorist designation process.

Unlike many of our foreign partners, the United States, under the First Amendment, cannot designate organizations based solely on hateful speech. As a matter of law, in order to designate any group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the Secretary of State must determine that it is a foreign organization that engages in terrorist activity that threatens the security of United States nationals or our national security.

Experts have pointed out that Samidoun's ties to Hamas and PFLP, which are U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, could result in a ban.

Experts have intensified their examination of Samidoun's part in the pro-Hamas campus demonstrations.

On May 16, Steven Stalinsky, a counterterrorism expert and the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), wrote on the Planet Chronicle op-ed page that a coalition of jihadi Gaza student organizations representing Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and others supported U.S. students. The coalition's statement of "solidarity" with the "Student Intifada in the United States," translated into English and published by the PFLP affiliate Samidoun on April 25, praised the American students who were "rising up to put an end to the Zionist-U.S. genocide" and commended their efforts to transform their universities into "Popular Universities for Gaza."

The international coordinator of Samidoun, Charlotte Kates, was featured in a video by MEMRI, where she praised Hamas' mass killing of approximately 1,200 people in southern Israel in October. On October 7, Hamas killed over 30 Americans and kidnapped more than 250 people.

On April 26 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kates declared, "We demand a free Palestine from the River to the Sea. We stand with the Palestinian resistance and their heroic and brave actions on October 7. As they said, long live October 7th! And we say today: long live October 7th!"

In Canada, Kates was arrested for her pro-Hamas terrorism speech, while in Germany, the NGO Palestine Solidarity Duisburg was dismantled and outlawed on May 16 for supporting Hamas and Samidoun.

Reul stated that the ban on the organization was timely and appropriate, as it sent a clear message that solidarity with Palestine often conceals hatred of Jews. The state will employ all legal means to combat antisemitism and ideological support for terrorism. The ban on the organization was a clear indication of the state's stance against extremism.

Despite the ban on Samidoun and its activities in Germany, the German-Jewish newspaper Jewish Review (Jüdische Rundschau in German) publisher Dr. Rafael Korenzecher believes that the half-hearted bans on Samidoun and Hamas, which still allow for too much leeway for anti-Jewish activities, are too late and are simply a diversion tactic by responsible political actors.

The number of Hamas operatives in North Rhine-Westphalia increased from 150 in 2022 to 175 in 2023, despite Germany's formal sanctioning of Hamas as a terrorist entity in 2003. Despite the ban, Germany became a hub for Hamas membership, recruitment, and fundraising.

Baden-Württemberg's Green Party governor, Winfried Kretschmann, has taken a relaxed stance on Hamas, refusing to ban the Palestine Committee Stuttgart, an NGO that supports Samidoun. Additionally, the capital city of Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, has made the contact information of the Palestine Committee Stuttgart available on its municipal website.

Professor Michael Wolffsohn, a renowned German-Jewish historian and commentator on contemporary antisemitism and Islamism, stated on Planet Chronicle Digital that the root cause of the "structural problem" in Germany is Angela Merkel's migration policy. Specifically, he pointed out that hundreds of thousands of Islamic antisemites were granted entry into the country without proper screening, while attention was primarily focused on right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism was downplayed as allies of the Islamists.

Wolffsohn cautioned that it is not only the federal government that needs to be considered, but also the state governments, municipalities, the police, and judicial authorities.

Nearly 4,000 German Muslims, leftists and ordinary Germans demonstrated against Israel in Munich, Bavaria last week, indicating a potential future of bleak prospects for Jews in Germany due to the rise of Jewish hatred since Oct. 7.

"The growing presence of illegal migrants from predominantly Islamic countries, where hatred of Jews and Israel is promoted by the state and is a fundamental part of their culture, poses an existential threat to Jewish life in Germany, according to Korenzecher."

Planet Chronicle Digital approached Samidoun for a comment.