A Palestinian university that Hamas once described as a “greenhouse for martyrs” has received roughly $2.2 million in taxpayer-backed handouts from the U.S. government over the last decade, records show.
Between 2009 and 2023, taxpayers in the United States footed the bill for more than a dozen grants to the West Bank-based An-Najah National University, according to federal funding documents reviewed by the Washington Examiner. The college reportedly serves as a recruitment hub of students into terrorist factions, including Hamas, the student wing of which secured the majority of seats on An-Najah’s council last year.
The awards to An-Najah, which have come almost entirely from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, are a window into how the U.S. has long implemented taxpayer-backed programs overseas that boost terrorism-linked entities. To many members of Congress and national security experts, it is high time for government officials to reassess the federal handout system to ensure the U.S. is not bankrolling violent groups targeting Israel and other U.S. allies.
“Not a single taxpayer dime should go to any university or organization that supports terrorism, and it’s no secret An-Najah National University has a reputation for developing members of Hamas and other terrorist groups,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told the Washington Examiner — adding the U.S. “must take action immediately to halt all funding to An-Najah National University” and other schools affiliated with Hamas.
‘Greenhouse for martyrs’
Chartered in 1977, An-Najah is located in the West Bank’s Nablus, a city approximately 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Months before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack last year on Israel, Hamas’s student wing at the university won the student council elections, according to multiple reports.
The student council “is known for its advocacy of anti-Israel violence and its recruitment of Palestinian college students into terrorist groups,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Hamas officials have described An-Najah as a “greenhouse for martyrs.”
Earlier this year, Israeli security forces arrested nine Hamas-affiliated students in a raid at An-Najah over their alleged plans to carry out terrorist attacks, the Times of Israel reported.
And in 2011, Israeli forces arrested 11 students at An-Najah for the “transfer of funds and organizing rallies in support of Hamas, in addition to incitement campaigns under the supervision and direction of senior Hamas officials,” according to an Israeli military-led investigation reported by the Jerusalem Post.
“Some of the most notorious Hamas terrorists have held senior positions in the An-Najah faction, including Qais Adwan, a former Islamic Bloc leader and head of the An-Najah student council, who was also the head of the Qassam Brigades in the northern West Bank,” according to a 2007 report by Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute think tank.
‘Academic boots on the ground’
Still, U.S. funding has flowed to An-Najah through a combination of primary awards from the State Department, USAID, and the Interior Department, as well as sub-awards, the Washington Examiner found.
In 2023, the State Department routed almost $300,000 to An-Najah by way of a $16 million primary award in 2021 to the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute think tank, records show. The Aspen Institute, in April of last year, announced that An-Najah would receive funding “to discuss a range of climate change issues and strategies to address them when designing and implementing new buildings” alongside Arizona State University.
The Aspen Institute did not return a request for comment. A spokesperson for Arizona State University said it does not endorse all of An-Najah’s activities “because ASU does not know all of the activities of An-Najah or any other university.”
“ASU has many university partners,” the ASU spokesperson said. “Since 2023, ASU has had an architectural design collaboration with An-Najah National University.”
Moreover, the State Department directly sent roughly $342,000 from 2016 to 2018 to An-Najah to address “the disconnect between the skills of Palestinian university graduates and the needs of the private sector,” according to federal records.
The State Department partnered in 2024 on an online courses initiative with An-Najah, the school said in March.
The State Department’s other grants to An-Najah have been earmarked for sanitation and waste initiatives, American symposium’s, and touted library donations, according to financial disclosures. Meanwhile, USAID’s grants from 2013 to 2015 to the school totaled $1.2 million and were routed through America-Mideast Educational and Training Services in Washington, D.C., records show.
The nonprofit group, also known as Amideast, hosted a 2023 English language conference with An-Najah. Amideast and An-Najah have collaborated on other projects in recent years, such as a USAID-linked education program with the Open Society Foundations, a progressive grantmaking network funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros, according to Amideast.
Amideast did not return a request for comment.
To Iftah Burman, a geopolitical expert at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, investing in Palestinian universities is wise only if the funding can be regulated and “academic boots on the ground” benefit the interests of the U.S.
“Otherwise, this funding simply frees up budget extras to be redirected towards assisting extremist student foundations that encourage Islamist ideology in a separatist Arab world,” Burman said. “If Oct. 7 has taught us anything, it’s that, left unchecked, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad will go to any lengths to radicalize the hearts and minds of young people — especially in universities.”
Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, longtime U.S. funding streams to Palestinian territories have faced significant scrutiny and, in some cases, been cut off due to Hamas ties. Members of Congress have raised concerns over U.S. funding to Al-Quds Open University, a Gaza-based school that likened the Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel on Oct. 7 to “righteous martyrs.” Moreover, lawmakers have investigated the Biden-Harris administration for funding a separate Gaza-based group accused of “cooperating with” and “supporting” terrorists, for instance.
‘Height of arrogance’
In the telling of Gerald Steinberg, a politics professor at Bar-Ilhan who runs the watchdog group NGO Monitor, An-Najah should certainly be blocked from receiving U.S. funding.
His organization found that An-Najah hosted a 2018 event featuring course instructors and students behind terrorist attacks. One student in attendance was Wael Hijazi Abu Shahadem, who reportedly helped plan a 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed six people. Yasser Abu Bakr, one of the instructors, was responsible for a 2002 terrorist attack in which a 9-month-old baby was killed, Israel Hayom reported.
NGO Monitor also found that Yousef Abdel-Haq, who was identified in a 2014 Al Jazeera report as a professor at An-Najah, has also been dubbed a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader by Arabic news sources.
Abdel-Haq was previously a board member for the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which saw one of its recent Gaza fundraisers slashed by payment processors over a Washington Examiner report on its ties to the PFLP terrorist group.
The UAWC, an Israeli-designated terrorist group, was identified as the PFLP’s “agricultural arm” in a 1993 report prepared by Middle East expert Glenn Robinson for USAID. An-Najah and the UAWC have a history of collaborating together on climate-related initiatives, including with a Palestinian coalition that, in turn, has included numerous members affiliated with the PFLP.
“Any institution that contributes to terrorism and incitement should be automatically prevented from receiving taxpayer funds,” Steinberg, the NGO Monitor president, told the Washington Examiner.
Victoria Coates, the former White House deputy national security advisor for Middle East and North African Affairs from 2019 to 2020, said she was unaware of federal funding to An-Najah. To Coates, the support must be slashed — and should have been years ago.
“This was happening without political oversight from the Trump administration,” Coates, now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Washington Examiner. “We need to pass a prohibition on this kind of spending. It is the height of arrogance for the United States to think they can effectively funnel funds through such an institution in a Hamas-controlled area.”
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“The desire to contribute to Palestinian higher education is understandable and laudable,” Coates added, “but we don’t have the expertise or granularity to do that.”
The State Department, USAID, and the Interior Department did not reply to requests for comment.
