The daughter of Palestine Chronicle editor in chief Ramzy Baroud works for American Muslims for Palestine, a leading anti-Israel group that has defended Hamas terrorism and spearheaded anti-Semitic campus protests—activism that prompted Israeli terror victims to sue the group for providing "substantial assistance to Hamas."
The Palestine Chronicle, a little-known nonprofit based in Washington state, was thrust into the spotlight this week after Israel revealed that one of its writers, Abdallah Aljamal, held hostages on Hamas’s behalf. Its editor in chief, Baroud, is a U.S.-based writer who defended Hamas in the wake of Oct. 7 and worked for the Qatari-funded Al Jazeera outlet. He also has bylines on two Iranian regime-controlled websites that the U.S. government says were run by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Washington Free Beacon first reported Monday.
Baroud's daughter has followed in those pro-Hamas footsteps, a Free Beacon analysis found.
Zarefah Baroud works as a digital media associate for American Muslims for Palestine, a leading anti-Israel group. Its executive director, Osama Abuirshaid, visited anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University and George Washington University to encourage participants, while its founder and chairman, University of California, Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, has argued that it's "about time we had an intifada in this country" and called for Israel's dismantling.
The group—alongside Students for Justice in Palestine, another anti-Israel organization Bazian founded—is also being sued by Israeli terror victims who allege the organizations provide "substantial assistance to Hamas and its affiliates" and work "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas."
The Baroud family’s vast connections to leading anti-Israel groups and publications known to traffic in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories is likely to increase pressure on the Palestine Chronicle as lawmakers and outside legal groups begin to examine its tax-exempt status in the state of Washington, as well as its nonprofit parent group, the People Media Project.
Already, House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) has called for the People Media Project to be stripped of its privileged tax status. Rep. Kevin Hern (R., Okla.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, Congress’s largest GOP caucus, said on Tuesday, "The Palestine Chronicle should not receive tax benefits if one of its so-called journalists, likely a member of Hamas, held Israelis hostage."
Zarefah Baroud says on her LinkedIn profile that she is "pursuing a career in journalism." She has bylines with Al Jazeera, the CounterPunch conspiracy theory website, the Socialist Worker, and the Palestine Chronicle, her father’s publication. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in "Palestine studies" at the United Kingdom-based University of Exeter, according to her profile.
In addition to her work for American Muslims for Palestine—an organization the Anti-Defamation League describes as "the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training and education to students"—Baroud has promoted her participation in a host of events demonizing Israel and accusing the Jewish state of genocide.
Last month, she touted an invitation "to speak at the first ever Global Anti-Apartheid Conference for Palestine in South Africa," according to a LinkedIn posting. "It was truly a powerful and grounding experience to learn from and connect with our South African comrades in struggle as well as organizers from around the globe," she wrote. "May our next conference convene in a liberated Palestine, InshAllah."
In an Al Jazeera article penned in 2022, Baroud recounted a trip she took to the Gaza Strip, Hamas’s home base.
"No article could ever fully encapsulate my experience in Gaza, but I attempted to capture parts of it here," Baroud wrote on LinkedIn.
The article, headlined, "Two months in the home Israel has denied me," described Baroud’s entry into the Gaza Strip’s Rafah neighborhood, currently one of Hamas’s last remaining strongholds.
"I had never had the honour to visit my homeland, Palestine, due to the brutal Israeli military occupation, and in the context of Gaza, the illegal Israeli siege, which deny our right of return," she wrote. In another Al Jazeera piece from 2021, Baroud asked, "When will Israel stop torturing Palestinian prisoners?"
Baroud also promoted her participation several years ago in American Muslims for Palestine's so-called Palestine Convention. The group "seeks to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state" and "has its organizational roots in the Islamic Association of Palestine, an anti-Semitic group that served as the main propaganda arm for Hamas in the United States until it was dissolved in 2004," according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Baroud also has participated in an event held by Samidoun that focused on the "history of resistance" by Palestinian women. Samidoun is designated as a terror group by the Israeli government for its alleged links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Baroud did not respond to a request for comment on her work submitted via LinkedIn.
With the Palestine Chronicle—and the Baroud family—now facing scrutiny on Capitol Hill, it is likely that lawmakers will begin to trace the funding sources and individuals who help keep these anti-Israel networks alive in the United States.
The Washington Examiner reported last year that many of these groups raise funds by relying on a so-called dark money loophole that obfuscates funding channels and ties to potential terrorist groups abroad. One watchdog group, the Zachor Legal Institute, informed Congress last year that the funding loophole "appears to allow Palestinian terrorist groups to fundraise in the U.S. through unofficial proxies," according to the Examiner.
The Palestine Chronicle’s funding sources are similarly difficult to track.
The group has routinely filed shortened tax forms with the IRS because it claims less than $50,000 in contributions per year. But Washington state records viewed by the Free Beacon show that the website's parent company, the People Media Project, took in $91,017 in 2022, $59,230 in 2021, and $92,036 in 2020.
The outlet claims to be entirely funded by its readers.