What is the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund?

It is an anti-Israel Islamic children's charity.

With branches and volunteers in more than ten countries, the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund (PCWF) describes itself as "an enterprise that was established by a group of individuals whose goals are to improve the living standards of the children of Palestine in the refugee camps inside Palestine." The organization's mission is "to provide the children of the refugee camps with better educational opportunities, health facilities and a bright future without violence, hatred and discrimination." PCWF professes to be "not connected with any militant or political association of any kind, … a non-political, non-religious enterprise whose aspirations are purely humanitarian."

PCWF was founded by Bob Rossi, who along with Margaret Stephens (a.k.a. Margaret Phillips), published the Northwest Ethnic Voice, a now-inactive Oregonian newsletter that endorsed a "Call to Action" by the anti-war group International ANSWER, which is closely tied to Ramsey Clark's International Action Center and the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.

In January 2002, PCWF initiated a "Book Campaign" to collect donated educational books, videos, cassettes, and software for Palestinian students of all ages, particularly in the fields of mathematics, natural science, and social studies.

Through PCWF's "Sponsor a Child" program, sponsors send $10 per month to help pay for a given Palestinian child's food, education, clothing, and medical services. This program is coordinated by the Holy Land Trust, a Christian nonprofit organization through which all money received on behalf of the children is processed. According to World Net Daily Editor Joseph Farrah, Holy Land Trust not only promotes such anti-Semitic themes as "the standard lines about Jews robbing the homes of Arabs, stealing their land and brutalizing them in a repressive state of military occupation," but "even rationalize[s] terrorism."

PCWF also oversees a Union of Health Workers Committees project, which "provides medical services to needy children in Gaza and all other Palestinian cities." This program recruits "experienced medical personnel to go to Gaza and other Palestinian cities to work and train the existing staff and provide professional and moral support" on a volunteer basis for periods ranging from two weeks to six months. It also solicits donations of medical equipment and supplies, ambulances, medicine, and any material relevant to the operation of emergency rooms and hospitals.

Another PCWF program sells embroidery and clothing fashioned by Palestinian women in order to raise funds for the necessities of life in Gaza and the West Bank. Among the items that PCWF has sold was a T-shirt inscribed with a poem in praise of suicide bombers, which read as follows:

My Homeland
The youth will not get tired
Their goal is your independence
Or they die
We will drink from death
But will not be slaves to our enemies
We do not want
An eternal humiliation
Nor a miserable life
We do not want
But we will return
Our great glory
My homeland
My homeland

PCWF Director Riad Hamad, who the FBI has investigated on a number of occasions, has called it a misconception to assume "that most of us Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist."

To help finance the education of deserving Palestinian children, PCWF has established a "Rachel Corrie Scholarship Fund" in honor of its namesake, a young International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was accidentally killed in April 2003 while attempting to interfere with Israeli anti-terror activities.

The PCWF website provides links to the websites of such anti-Israel organizations as Holy Land Trust, Betselem, SUSTAIN, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Media Watch, Al-Awda Chicago, Northwest Ethnic Voice, and Women in Black.

PCWF praises the Palestinian-American rapper Iron Shiek as "one of the most brilliant new artist/activist[s] to take his message to the microphone." "His bold and insightful rap-style challenges traditional views on Palestinians," says PCWF. Maintaining that Israel's influence in the Palestinian territories is far more objectionable than are suicide bombings, Iron Sheik accuses Israel of practicing "apartheid," and graphically describes his desire to physically assault former Israeili Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. PCWF ordered 100 of Iron Shiek's CDs for a recent fundraiser.

In 2002, PCWF sponsored a drawing contest for children between the ages of six and fourteen, entitled, Why I love Palestine. The clear objective of the contest was to support the destruction of the Jewish state. Almost without exception, the judges rewarded entries that featured fierce and violent hatred of Israel. The overall winner was Bushra Ahed, whose picture depicted a bonfire, in the shape of a map of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, consuming the Star of David with the word "Israel" written inside the flag. Another entry, that of Jihad Alajarmeh, depicted a Palestinian flag dropping flames on an Israeli flag and immolating Israelis standing next to it.

PCWF identifies as its "Affiliated Groups" such anti-Israel organizations as Rabbis for Human Rights and the Union of Health Workers Committees in Gaza -- the latter of which accuses Israel of maliciously destroying Palestinian ambulances without cause (making no mention of the frequent exploitation of ambulances to transport Palestinian terrorists into Israel).

Source: Discover The Networks