Did The LDS Church Really Funnel $140M To Hamas And Other Islamist Organizatons?

This has gotten some traction and deserves a look. Context is required. The Middle East Forum wrote an investigative article claiming that the church was one of the major US donors to charities associated with Hamas and The Muslim Brotherhood. There are certainly some red flags, but we need to understand how the Middle East works. And this is not the first time these allegations have been made.

 Raw Transcript:

All right, welcome to Quick Show today. Today is January 27th, 2026. Back from
being out of town and uh ready to get going here on a almost daily show again.
We're going to talk today about did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints funnel a $140 million over the
last several years to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. That is what is
being reported by the Middle Eastern Forum in an article that they put out a few days back and we're going to cover
that. We need some context on this. We need to understand has this happened before with the church? Have they been accused of this before? What has been
their reaction? Because there is no reaction or statement from the church this time on this article that came out.
We've seen faithful Latter-day Saints online and and and other uh others
involved in the in the Israeli Palestinian conflict especially report
on this and talk about this. Uh what does this mean? What is actually
happening? We're going to cover all of these things as best that we can. I think it's an important thing to get the
context correct as to what is going on because there are issues. There are red flags definitely here, but there are
also some things that we can pull from that looks at the intention, the motivation of the church in moving money
to these charity organizations for those in the Middle East. All right, this episode is brought to you by Gospel on
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All right. $140 million is a lot of money. Uh and you know, obviously the
church cares very much about its profile. It cares very much about its uh uh reputation.
And when you put yourself in the middle of a conflict, which they're doing here through humanitarian
uh exercises here, it's it's difficult because you're dealing with two different sides. You want to not it's
not that you're supporting one side of the other in terms of uh politically, but what you're doing is you're trying
to help those that are in need from the conflict. Often times that need, not surprisingly, comes in Muslim countries.
But let's look at the allegations from the Middle Eastern Forum. The Middle Eastern Forum is a uh pro-Israeli
organization here in the United States that typically is trying to check. It's kind of like a watch group over Islamic
extremism. Thank goodness they're there. But this is an interesting article. Let's see how they're kind of framing
this and how they're framing the church. It's it's kind of charged beyond where I think it should
be, but but let's take a look at it. All right, here is the headline. Mormon charities among top contributors to
terror aligned Islamist charities. That's red flag triggering. That is a
big message here. And they're trying to get something put across here. And this is what they do, right? They're watchd dogs. uh they're they're checking out
where money is flowing from and going into these Islamic uh charities, a
number of which not surprisingly do have connections with Hamas, the Muslim
Brotherhood, and other terror aligned, we might say. They've had some It's kind
of misty. It's kind of nebulous, of course, but uh it it looks like there's some alignment with a number of these uh
terror organizations that this these charities do have. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't do anything. I mean,
what if you could make sure that supplies, for example, could get to
individuals? We're going to go over that because this is not the first time that this allegation has been thrown out there.
The subheading is Globus Relief, which is a a Latterday Saint affiliated at
least. It's not under the church, but it's an affiliated charity in Salt Lake, right? Globus Relief, Lifting Hands, and
the LDS church itself, that's their humanitarian arm, have
handed millions to charitable fronts for dangerous Islamist
movements. Remember, there's a difference between Islamic and Islamist. Islamist are those that have a usually
those that you're going to find that are focused on a global jihad. And you can see the date on this. This
was just last week, January 21st, 2026. And here's how they start the article
out. A study of nonprofit donors to a dozen leading Islamist charities aligned
with foreign Islamist movements reveals that Mormon 501c
charities, this is not they're not all under the church, but uh including the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself are among Islamist extremists leading benefactors.
That is a very charged allegation, right? a very charged allegation
and it's a little misleading while there's still some truth in it. There is apparently at least $140 million that
has been sent over this is over the last it looks like the last couple of decades at least uh has been sent over to
Islamic charities and sometimes these charities are are they have their own
agenda right and so there's you can see how money can be funneling Hamas is a great example of this let's say that
you're wanting to get to the Ministry of Health right in in Gaza well who runs
that Well, God, Hamas runs it. And so, you have a number of, you know, charities that are saying, "Hey, we want
to help out the Palestinians in this conflict. They're they're devastated. They don't have homes. They don't have
uh anywhere to sleep. They don't have food or water sometimes. What What can we do to help?" Well, of course, you go
to the health ministry in Gaza. Well, Hamas runs that. It would be extremely naive to think that that if you're
giving money, and we have to bring this issue up. if you're giving actual money
to to uh to to Hamas that they're going to be using that and keeping that from
sometimes from the Palestinians and using it for perhaps terror terrorism
and and so that can be very, you know, naive and a misguided approach
for some people, some organizations that are trying to help out the Palestinian people in a very difficult time. And
it's true of other organizations as well. A number of these organizations that the church has contributed to have
been banned, for example, by the State Department, the US State Department. Some have been put on terror lists,
terror watch lists. So, it gets a little dicey. There are some red flags, but I do want to cover a few things here that
put some things into context at least a little bit. All right, this is about globish relief. This is the Well, they
describe what globish relief is here. It says, "One top Mormon charity appears to serve as the single largest domestic
501c grantor to American Islamist humanitarian aid
charities tied to the designated terrorist organization Hamas among other violent extremist
organizations." All right, this is true. They they have been tied to it one way
or another. Sometimes these ties are, oh, there was something, there was money given by this charity to Hamas back in
2006 when they very first started. And so it's like, do you do you even know who Hamas is? Do you know what they're
going to be doing? Do you know how they're going to be running the country? It was a political party that was taking power right at that time. Still a red
flag, but let's put a little context into this. Sometimes, or rather, sometimes this is not
necessarily overtly at least nefarious. But here's this next paragraph. Globus
Relief, a Salt Lake City-based charity established and run by senior Latter-day Saint members, handed over at least 119
million of support to 10 radical Islamist recipients according to electronically
filed 9990 tax return data. So, this is public information. So, the money has
gone over there. Now, it says $119 million, but I one thing that we've got to
consider here, is it money? Is that all money that's going over there? Or is that $119 million of equipment? Is that
$119 million of syringes and bandages and medicine, and uh you know, whatever
else, food, water, milk, and and the article does not do a very good job of
this, right? It does a little bit, but it doesn't do a very good job of discerning or or line iteming exactly
what is being sent over there. It acts as if it's just $119 million. Here's a big wire transfer that you get every
once in a while or a dump of cash on pallets into Gaza or wherever else it
might be. Uh that's need we need to we need some more information on this to understand exactly what's going on here.
Now, it goes into some specifics on Globus and and who they've given the money to here. Globus top grantee,
Islamic Relief, is a leading Islamist charitable institution whose branches
have been described by the Dutch and German governments as components of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Right. The
Muslim Brotherhood movement is a very very dangerous movement. It is the
primary problem with the immigration in Europe and what the radicalization there. The UAE,
right, an Arab Muslim country, just a couple of weeks ago, said, "We are no
longer giving money to UAE students that go to the UK," as an example.
You know why they don't give money for for school for schooling? You know why they don't do it anymore? Because they're not going to pay for the
radicalization of their own citizens. In other words, they're fine here in the UA in our in the Arab country, but when we
send them to the UK, they become radicalized by the Muslim Brotherhood and we're paying for it. So, they're
like, "No more, right? They know what the Muslim Brotherhood is. They know how to deal with them." And and yet the West
does not understand who the Muslim Brotherhood is. And they allow them in. They allow them to organize. They allow them the rhetoric that they offer up and
the protests, everything else that they do to try and destabilize government, to try and destabilize democracy and to
force an Islamic way of life into Europe. That's what their goal is. It's
not some idea of, oh, well, we're worried about this. This is Islamophobic. No, it's what they are
they are about. It's what they want. Now, you can't tie all Muslims to this. You can't do that. I know several
Muslims. I work with several Muslims and and that's that's just not the case. And
so we can't you can't put everybody into the same bucket on this. But there are organizations that are nefarious and
there are organizations that do not have Christianity, the West, freedom,
liberty. They do not have this at the top of their list. And they are associated with a number of these
charities that the church is funding. Now again, associated, what does that mean? Well, it means that the charities
have maybe given money to some of these organizations at one time or another or there is
involvement somehow with top officials from these movements and these these uh uh bad actor organizations that have
sometimes been involved with these charities. They sit on the board or they're whatever it is, right? There's some kind of adjacency here and
connection with these charities that the church has given money to. And that's certainly a red flag. As an example, it
alleges, and this is true, uh, Islamic Relief, this is one of the charities,
uh, Islamic Relief branches have repeatedly partnered with senior terrorist officials in Gaza. Again, what
does that mean? Do they have checks and balances on how
they deliver money or resources or other things? It's it's very difficult.
including Hamas Pullet Bureau member Gazi Hammad. Weeks after the October 7
attacks, Hammad promised that Hamas would repeat the attacks time and again until Israel is annihilated.
Now again, you're talking about the Middle Eastern forum here that's reporting on this. This is a Israeli support group. This is a watchdog
looking over Islamic uh or Islamist extremism. All right. Then it goes back to global
globist relief, right? It says it has handed over and this is key. They do delineate this a little bit here. Globus
Relief has handed over I think they the number before was $119 million total. So
a good portion of that could be cash. But it says Globist Relief has handed over $64 million of non-cash support to
Islamic Relief. And and I want to go through this again. This is a difficult issue because look I if it's non-cash
against if it's medical supplies, if it's food, if it's water, whatever it might be, the intent here obviously is
to help people that are suffering regardless of their political position. And that's the right thing to do. The
question is is the organizations that this has to go through and those that are in charge of this, does Hamas say,
"Hey, we're not we're taking this away. We want this to look as bad as possible." Well, they could be doing that, right? No one's going to be
surprised by that. But the church is maybe is trying to do its best as a steward of the globe in in trying to
help and relieve suffering and and hunger and pain etc. And I think they
have some ways of doing that. They have some checks and balances on this. It says the Mormon Aligned Charity also
provided some $2.5 million to Human Appeal, a British headquartered charitable organization which funds
groups in Gaza associated with Hamas. Okay, what does that mean associated with Hamas? and once openly appeared to
advertise involvement with the Union of Good, a designated terrorist fundraising
operation for Hamas. Okay, so it it says appear to advertise. Again, it's it's a
little leading, right, in in what it's saying here. I'm just trying to be honest on on how this is showing up here
in this article. It is it is biased. That doesn't mean it's not true, but but
it is coming from a biased source here. Another $16 million of globish relief grants was provided to Muslim Aid.
That's the organization, a prominent extremist charity whose UK headquarters once admitted to funding Hamas Hamas
front organizations. Globus also provided over $10 million to
United Muslim Relief, also known as United Mission for Relief and
Development, which has funded Hamas Proxies in Gaza, and whose staff have
called for the killing of Jews. All right, so those are all red flags. Those are all red flags. Again, I I think the
church goes into these things trying not to be political, not trying to uh they're trying to be neutral in this
kind of situation. What they're trying to do is help people out. So, it gets very messy. There are other
things that it line items out here with with Globus and their partnerships and
uh their their charities, including $3 million to Life for Relief and Development, $2.5 million to the Hamas
involved American Near East. Again, Hamas involved. What does that mean? Is everything that would be going to Gaza
Hamas involved? It probably is. So, how do you help people?
If you want to help people, that's one of the main places on the globe for a period of time that that people need
really need this kind of help, survival help. How do you get this to them? All
right, here's another Mormonrun charity. I I'm not sure how Lifting Hands is. I
don't know if that is actually the church. The church maybe sponsors this, but another Mormon run charity, Lifting
Hands International, has provided over $19.5 million to Helping Hand for Relief
and Development. HHRD, the chief US charitable arm of the violent South
Asian Islamist movement, Jamat AI Islami. Okay, that is uh a movement that
does have some issues, right? It is it is an Islamist organization or or a movement. It has several chapters in
places like Pakistan and and India. Uh and it overall it is a a fundamentalist
Islamist movement. So, how much do you take that into consideration
when you're talking about actually helping people out, even if they're your enemies? How what how much do you take
that into consideration? What does it matter? What would matter to me is are you
getting the food and the water and the supplies to those people? Actually, that's all that would matter to me
because I think you still help those people out. So, so that's a question. I'm going to get to that in just a minute.
Okay. Another organization, Med Global, right? 990 tax returns published by Med
Global, an Illinois based charity, which is something the church gives to, indicate that in 2017, LDS Charities was
the largest single donor on Med Global with a $200,000 donation. And in 2019,
LDS Charity was the sole listed 501c 501c donor to Med Global. That was the
only donor the entire year with a transfer of over $1.9 million. Who is
Med Global? Well, the f it was founded by Zaher Salul. Med Global is an
Illinois based charity, particularly active in Gaza and Syria. It is the the
Salul is the former president of the radical Hamas aligned mosque Foundation. You can look that up. Sal's social media
exhorts Jews to speak out or be considered complicit in violence against Palestinians. Okay. So what I mean that
that is, you know, I'm not sure about the the the mosque foundation, but to to to say that
you're going to speak up for the Palestinian people, that's not a surprise. I I don't think that's
something that should even be listed in here. Honestly, that doesn't make any sense to me. Then lastly, LDS Charities
also funds and partners closely with Rama Worldwide, a Michigan charity which
has engaged in financial transfers with a designated Kuwaiti terrorist organization and signed contracts with
members of Hamas's pilot bureau. Okay. So,
I I don't think at all that we're looking at malice here at all. I think that what we're looking at is if
anything, it's maybe they're being very effective in getting what they need to the people on the ground. That would not
be surprising to me. In fact, it would be it would make me pretty proud if that's if they were able to do that. The
question is, is all of that stuff getting to the people? And is is there
money or equipment being siphoned off or held off uh from the people that the
church or affiliated organizations are donating to these Muslim charities? Here
we can see the Rama Worldwide uh post here and you can see the trucks and
trailers, the semis here with all of the boxes of supplies which is what I think
the church is primarily focused on right there in aid to individuals. A medical
convoy is what it says down the side here. Now this is also important to look at. LDS charities also partners with
terror tide Islamic Relief whose European branches. Though Swedish government this month reportedly stopped
funding over extremist fears, officials of the LDS church have invited Islamic
relief leaders to Salt Lake City. And then in followup, the problem is not
limited, it says to LDS charities across the United States, officials from the LDS church have partnered with other
Islamist organizations of concern. Again, how do you look at that? I mean, it's uh you're reaching across the
divide. You're trying to help individuals. You're trying to uh create relationships. You're trying to have a
positive influence for good. Is it better to close up and and bundle up
into the corner and and and stay back or if you've got the opportunity there? I mean, the
church has a lot of opportunities because we have a lot of members of the church that have ins with people in
different parts of the world. And so you try to take advantage of those relationships to try and create some
type of relationship there that is going to benefit the church and help forward the gospel in some way or help us to
help others in some way. Now look, I understand discretion is is key here and
and getting involved with individuals here where you're stepping in a little, you know, got one toe into the snake pit, so to speak, because of of the
adjacency uh to terrorist organizations. Is is is this the right thing to do? Is
it the right thing? That is there a problem with what we're doing? Does it look good? It doesn't look good. That's for sure. It doesn't look good. Uh but I
think that the church's position seems to be seems to be that it is trying to
benefit the world wherever they can. That is their mission, humanitarian mission. and and so they're looking for
ways in parts of the world where there may not be any other way to help out the
people to get supplies to them to get blankets to whatever it might be. Uh and
and and sometimes you might have to work with organizations that have at one time or another and maybe do have some
affiliation with some terrorist organizations. I I What are your thoughts on that? in Michigan, a hot
spot obviously leaders from radical mosques such as the Muslim Unity Center in Michigan, a regular host of radical
imams or again that's according to the the Middle Eastern forum here organize
regular local events with LDS officials, regular local events with LDS officials
and have been invited by LDS leaders to meetings in Salt Lake City. So, you
know, you've got an investigative reporter here who's trying to find out every little thing they can about any
interaction between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members and and any organization that is
unaffiliated or is not pro-Israel. We've got to keep that in mind. I'm not
saying there aren't red flags. There are red flags here and and there are issues here that that,
you know, might not make the church look very good. and and as it's coming out, if more and more people are uh media
outlets are going to be putting this out there, we'll see. I mean, our are that
there's already chats online and different things where people are questioning what is going on? Why is this happening? Now, this one is
concerning also. And again, I'm just trying to be as transparent as possible here. I support the church. I have to
hope that they are doing the right things with this just like you and I would do to support them. Uh there are a
lot of people involved with this. Maybe there's some bad decisions that are made sometimes. But here you have, meanwhile,
Muhammad Ali Alahi, a leading advocate for the brutal Iranian regime, has
attended multiple events with LDS leaders. A congressional letter to the United States Attorney General in 2023
signed by nine representatives. Okay. What was the political motivation behind this? Who knows? noted that since
moving to the US, Lahi has had seemingly non-stop contact with senior regime
officials in Iran. According to investigative journalists, Lahi's mosque has been a significant purveyor of
extremist propaganda in line with the Iranian regime's views. All right, red
flag, red flag, red flag for sure. There are a few other connections here, right? the Council of American Islamic
Relations. You've probably heard of them as CARE. Uh a very questionable organization.
Meanwhile, employs a prominent Mormon attorney. Interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune, Carolyn Homer claims she finds
common ground with Muslim partners on issues such as alcohol feminism. She is herself proclaimed. I don't know.
There's a lot of feminism in with care in in some of these groups, but um you
know, the abstaining from alcohol feminism, that's an odd thing for her to bring up as a Mormon thing. If that's
true, uh again, that is not in quotes. And polygamy, that's very odd. Uh
very, very odd. Okay. She says, "I have been incredibly hopeful and inspired by the Mormon
community's outreach to the Muslim community for more than a decade. LDS welfare has partnered with Muslim relief
services. Okay. Again, I think that's good. I think it's great that we do this. The question is is are we
entangled in with organizations that are nefarious somehow?
And then it ends with this, which I I disagree with, right? I hopefully I I'm
hoping that this is not true. It says the LDS church and associated institutions sought not unreasonably
greater engagement with Muslim communities. Instead, American Mormons
embraced America's Islamists. Wow.
Uh I don't know that this is true. Maybe it is. Maybe this is the avenue they've
taken. I mean, I'll give you an example. you have uh for example I know I know at
BYU as an example that you have very Muslimleaning
you know as far as the conflict whether it's Gaza or beyond you have very Muslim
Palestinianleaning uh um professors and and faculty and
admin there uh in in certain areas where that matter that discuss these things
whether it's the Kennedy Center or it's uh even other areas that is the le
that's where they lean toward and you can see this easily online. You can see who they invite to speak. You can see
the the standing ovation for certain individuals on one side who they give awards to. Um it it's pretty clear what
what's going on there. There's also some talk that those that go to the Jerusalem Center, and if you've been there, you
can you can say better than what I'm saying here, but there is some some
reporting here that says that at the BYU Jerusalem Center, most students leave there with a a Palestinian supporting
uh worldview basically over over supporting Israel. I don't know if
that's true. Again, a lot of this reporting is biased, so I don't know if that's true. I don't claim that that's
true. I don't know. Uh but you know, if you've been there recently, that would
be interesting to for you to comment on that and and and whether that's true or it's not true. And I don't think it's
beyond from other sources, right? It's it's likely that a number of those
individuals in in scholarship and and those connections that they have with the Middle East from church schools are
possibly involved in in making decisions on these things. I do have that from
from a couple sources. A little more context on this. There's definitely been a move by the church to build bridges
with the Islamic world. You remember back in 2022, you may or may not have seen this, but the church released a new
pamphlet, a 35page pamphlet, right? Uh on
understanding between Muslims and Latter-day Saints. And so, this was a pamphlet that was not just for Latter-day Saints, but was for Muslims
also to understand Latter- Day Saints. You know, very extensive. I mean, it took a lot of time and and uh they they
put a lot of effort into this. I've browsed through all of this. It's pretty cool. And I think it's a great thing to do. We should have an understanding, an
awareness. Remember, I I always believe in awareness. And so that should be something that should not be a red flag.
That's not a red flag. That is we're reaching out to other human beings and trying to understand them and wanting
them to try and understand us. But you can see that this is part of overall this this reach out, this bridge
building that's been going on now, especially for the last couple of decades with the Muslim world. And
because of that outreach and because of donations that have been given by the church previously, 20 years ago, more or
less, it this is not the first time that there's been an accusation or alleging of of the Latter-day Saints being
involved with uh uh Islamic Islamist groups or terror
funded groups. Here's from the Salt Lake Tribune in their archive. This is June 23rd, 2007.
And this would be uh I believe if I got this right I think that 2006 is actually when Hamas for example was running their
political campaign by you know partially throwing people off the roof who didn't agree with them. But this is so this is
in 2007 when Hamas has taken over uh Gaza here. LDS church rebutts terror
fund comments. officials site disaster relief charity work charity work
dismissed claims their funds might have gone to support Hamas militants. So this was back almost 20 years ago and and so
the church has been involved with this thing and it's not the first time that this accusation has been made. Just go over this a little bit because the
church has a statement on this that they're draw that the tribune is drawing from on this and see what they have to
say. This this came about from political motivations, right? a staffer on John McCain's campaign when Romney was
running the first time, but they put this out there that the church may be, you know, that that Romney is involved
with may have been funding uh Hamas terrorists. The LDS officials, this is the Tribune
in Salt Lake City, said their church had indeed sent money to an Islamic charity,
but strictly for humanitarian and disaster relief work and through a reputable organization. Again, when it
says money here, I'd like to know if there's actually cash that is involved here and how much of that is is cash at
the time. In the wake of the 2006,26204 tsunami, the devastated coastal
communities throughout Southeast Asia, the LDS church announced it had sent $1.6 million worth of emergency supplies
to areas affected by the tsunami through Islamic Relief USA. That is one of the groups that was mentioned in the current
Middle Eastern Forum article that we're covering here. The church responded by stating the following and I think this
is important. I would guess that this is still true with the aid and and the
charitable donations here that is being given. I hope. But the church responded by saying in quote in each case of the
of the donations, representatives of the church accompanied the shipments and
oversaw distribution. Right? So that's from the church's own statement on this. So that is nice to
hear, right? So if there are boxes that are going out there, there are at least representatives of the church that are
there and reporting back as to what is happening with the boxes. Now, what would they be reporting back in the recent Hamas conflict? Are they
reporting back that some of these are not getting to the people? I I don't know, but at least there's some kind of
oversight on this and and that you'd you'd expect that, right? You would expect that the church would do that and
handle that in that way. And this is the money that had already been given over the last three years, though. This is in
2007, so this would be from 2004. Islamic Relief USA spokesman Mustafa
Maboo said the LDS church's donation to his organization have exceeded $20
million over the past three years, making it the single biggest donating entity in the
United States to Islamic Relief. Okay. So, look, how do you handle, again, this is the question, how do you handle these
things? How do you uh uh because you're going to hear this coming out on different sources. I've seen a couple of
YouTube videos on this already. Um, but it's I I think what you have to say is
as a faithful member of the church is they're hopefully doing the right thing. They're hopefully out with a
humanitarian mission to help relieve suffering, relieve poverty, relieve uh
hunger and thirst and and you know bringing basic survival supplies and medical supplies to these places. And
sometimes you have to work with certain organizations that might at least be a little adjacent to some of this
terrorism because that's it might be the only way to do it. But somehow if you can help ensure
that those that equipment that those supplies are getting to the people with
boots on the ground, then then obviously that's that's a good way to go. And it
is the right thing to do if you can make sure they're getting it. It's the right thing to do. And maybe there are some
Israelis and others that are not happy with that, but it's the right thing to do.
The question comes up as to whether or not any of that if if there's cash, if that's being siphoned off and is
actually being used to fund nefarious organizations, terrorist organizations.
And you would think that the church auditing this is going to be very sure
that that is not happening. So as you hear this come up, just know that this has happened before. The allegations
have been out there. They've had boots on the ground. They've watched over the supplies. We don't know how much of this
is actually cash as compared to supplies and and actual food and water, etc.
And it's the right thing, at least the motive is right, to try and help those
individuals. The issue is the patrolling groups, the charities.
Does everything go where it's supposed to go? Thanks for listening.