George Washington University Report Documents Ties Between U.S. Groups and Designated Terrorist Organization PFLP

A paper released Monday by George Washington University researchers documented connections between U.S. activist groups and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The State Department designated the PFLP a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

Washington Examiner reported the findings. The report identified Jewish Voice for Peace, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, Within Our Lifetime, and the Palestinian Youth Movement as groups tethered to the PFLP political movement through shared events, narratives, and support for convicted members.

Authorities have linked the PFLP to plane hijackings, deadly bombings, a 1972 mass shooting, a 2014 synagogue massacre, and attacks during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel. The PFLP’s attacks have killed dozens of Americans globally.

The four organizations did not respond to Washington Examiner requests for comment. U.S. Palestinian Community Network, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Palestinian Youth Movement each supported former Israeli prisoner Rasmea Odeh after her conviction in Israel for involvement in fatal PFLP bombings.

Jewish Voice for Peace invited Odeh to speak at a 2017 membership meeting as a Palestinian organizer. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Odeh in 2017 for fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship while concealing the convictions linked to two deaths.

The activist network has used similar narratives to legitimize PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat, whom Israel holds in prison for leading the group and for ties to a 2001 assassination of an Israeli official. Much of the collaboration occurs through Samidoun, a Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network that the Treasury Department sanctioned in October 2024 as a fundraising front for the PFLP.