CAIR-Ohio Director Moderated Event Featuring Treasury-Designated Hamas Official
CAIR-Ohio's Khalid Turaani moderated October 22 panel in Arabic with European Hamas official, Majed al-Zeer, one week after congressional letter citing CAIR-Hamas ties
“We write to request an investigation by the Department of the Treasury into potential ties between the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas, pursuant to 31 C.F.R. § 594.201(a)(3),” wrote Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Elise Stefanik in an October 14, 2025 letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Eight days later, CAIR-Ohio Director Khalid Turaani moderated an online event in Arabic featuring individuals with documented connections to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, including a prominent Hamas official in Europe sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury one year prior.
The Al-Zaytouna Centre Event
The Beirut-based Al-Zaytouna Centre hosted a two-panel online conference on October 22, 2025, titled “Palestinians Abroad and Regional and International Strategic Transformations in the Light of Al-Aqsa Flood.” According to the organization’s official website, Turaani chaired the first panel of the event, which was conducted via Zoom. “Al-Aqsa Flood” is the name Hamas gave to its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The second panel featured Majed al-Zeer, a senior Hamas member in Europe who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government, and Sami al-Arian, who was convicted of conspiracy to provide services to the designated terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and subsequently deported from the U.S.
Both sessions were uploaded to YouTube, where they remain publicly accessible with full video documentation — part one and part two.
Event Rhetoric and Additional Participants
Jewish Onliner analyzed the Arabic-language event and found that speakers on Turaani’s panel expressed hope that the Turkish army would deploy to Gaza and potentially engage the Israel Defense Forces in combat.
Al-Zeer claimed during his remarks that solidarity and “the resistance” were key to maintaining momentum in what he described as a “strategic shift” in how Europe and the world view the Palestinian issue. Al-Arian stated that “the overall Palestinian situation is much better strategically than it was before the Flood,” referring to the October 7, 2023 attacks.
The event also featured Ziad el-Aloul, a member of several Hamas-affiliated organizations in Europe, including the European Palestinians Conference and the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad. The latter organization was endorsed by former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and designated as a terror group by Israel in 2021 for its work on behalf of Hamas.
Material Support to Terrorism Implications
Federal law prohibits providing “material support or resources” to designated foreign terrorist organizations or their representatives. The statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, defines material support broadly to include “any property, tangible or intangible, or service,” including the provision of “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” and “personnel.”
In the landmark 2010 case Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court upheld the material support statute’s constitutionality and ruled that even coordinating activities with or providing platforms to designated terrorist organizations constitutes prohibited material support—even when the activities appear to involve only speech or advocacy. The Court held that such coordination and support could be criminalized without violating the First Amendment.
Under this legal framework, providing a platform to a Treasury-designated Hamas official, coordinating an event featuring such an individual, and moderating discussions involving designated terrorists could potentially constitute material support. Courts have upheld that providing a platform, coordinating events, or facilitating communications with designated terrorists can constitute material support.
Jewish Onliner reached out to CAIR-Ohio for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Twenty Years of Terror Allegations Against CAIR
The Al-Zaytouna event occurred against a backdrop of longstanding scrutiny of CAIR. In the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation trial — the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history — federal prosecutors named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator as “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.” The Holy Land Foundation was convicted of funneling over $12 million to Hamas. Hamas is one of the Palestinian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Cotton-Stefanik letter to the Treasury Department earlier this month explicitly referenced this history, stating that “evidence showed direct financial interactions between CAIR and the now-defunct Hamas-linked charity.”
In 2014, the United Arab Emirates officially designated CAIR as a terrorist organization, a classification that remains in effect. Cotton had previously sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long in August 2025 requesting an investigation into whether CAIR’s activities warrant stripping its tax-exempt status. The October letter to Treasury expanded this scrutiny, specifically requesting investigation into “whether CAIR maintains financial links to Hamas that constitute violation of U.S. sanctions.”