The Middle Eastern Children's Alliance (MECA), a California nonprofit that designs K–12 curriculum material, has fiscal and personnel ties to U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, according to a new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).
"Our investigation of MECA has yielded evidence suggesting it holds fiscal and personnel ties to US designated foreign terrorist organizations, chiefly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), alongside a host of extremist anti-government actors based in the United States," reads the report by the NCRI, released on Monday.
MECA states on its website that it has sent more than $31 million in aid to children in “Palestine,” Iraq, and Lebanon since 1988. The nonprofit further purports to provide financial and professional assistance to community organizations in the West Bank and Gaza, fund university scholarships for Palestinians, and develop educational programs about the Middle East. MECA states that its "founding advisors" include Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Edward Said, and Maxine Waters.
The supposedly humanitarian organization has expressed its support for violence against Israel. The day after October 7, MECA declared its support on social media for the attack: "We are witnessing the people of Gaza rising up to respond to decades of Israeli settler colonial violence. The US [government] bears responsibility for its political, economic & military support of this brutal apartheid regime. Join us to stand in solidarity with Palestine."
The NCRI report identifies deeper relationships between MECA and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been a designated foreign terrorist organization since 1997 and participated in the October 7 attack on Israel.
MECA's current director of Gaza projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, previously served as the deputy director of the Union of Health Work Committees, which was recognized as the "health organization” of the PFLP in a 1993 USAID report. In 2014, El-Farra was reportedly denied an exit visa by Israel for "security reasons." El-Farra and Barbara Lubin, MECA's founder and current executive director, have both met with Leila Khaled, who joined the PFLP when it was founded in 1967 and became the first woman to hijack a plane.
A media advisory released by MECA in 2011 listed Leena Al-Arian as its communications coordinator. Al-Arian is the daughter of Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist who was sentenced to 57 months in prison for "conspiring to violate a federal law that prohibits making or receiving contributions of funds, goods or services to, or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)."
"Based on my 23 years of providing counter-terrorism information to authorities, I am confident that enough evidence exists to justify investigations into MECA," Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst and investigative researcher on extremist groups at Capital Research Center, told National Review via email. "Investigations and prosecutions can take a very long time, but there's something that can be easily done right now. Revoke their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status for violating IRS code by inducing or encouraging criminal acts, which would include exalting acts of terrorism like the October 7 attacks perpetrated by MECA's PFLP associates."
In addition to personnel ties, MECA has awarded funds to Gaza-based charities Afaq Jadeeda and Never Stop Dreaming — organizations that the NCRI report says are "connected to the PFLP's military and political wings." Both Afaq Jadeeda and Never Stop Dreaming have collaborated with the Union of Palestinian Women Committees, which has staff and organizational links to the PFLP.
The NCRI report states that Atia Abu Jamal, who lists himself as working for both Afaq Jadeeda and Never Stop Dreaming on social media, is a suspected PFLP militant who was photographed as a pall-bearer at a funeral with PFLP flags for a "martyr." In 2023, Jamal was given an award by El-Farra of MECA.
In a social media post in 2023, Afaq Jadeeda eulogized PFLP General Central Committee member Mansour Thabet, whom it identified as a founder of the organization. That same year, Afaq Jadeeda similarly eulogized a slain PFLP militant and recognized him as the son of one of the organization's board members.
In 2016, Afaq Jadeeda shared footage from its "Intifada Camp," during which young children wearing keffiyehs in a theatrical show broke through a paper Star of David and performed a dance that involved shooting motions. In 2017, Afaq Jadeeda shared images on social media of its programming that showed young children pointing toy guns at the Israeli flag and at other children; in some images, kids waved the Palestinian flag, wore keffiyehs, and held signs that said "Freedom for Palestinian prisoners." The children also appear to mimic prisoners held in Israeli custody, wearing large white blindfolds and holding their arms above their heads.
According to tax filings, MECA has also awarded grants to Freedom Theatre, which describes itself as "a theatre and cultural centre in Jenin refugee camp, occupied Palestine" and further states "we do not take a neutral position on the issue of Israeli apartheid, colonisation and military occupation." A co-founder of the Freedom Theater is Zakaria Zubeidi, a former leader of the Jenin al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who has been jailed in Israel several times. His brother, Abdulrahman Zubeidi, is currently listed as the chairman of the Freedom Theatre's board.
The NCRI report further states that MECA has awarded grants to subsidiaries of the PFLP, such as the Union of Health Workers Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees.
MECA's 2022 Form 990 states that it awarded a grant to the Union of Agricultural Work Committee (UAWC). The Dutch government stopped €8 million in funding to the UAWC and initiated an external investigation into the organization's PFLP ties; the minister of development stated that the government funds were used to pay the salaries of two senior UAWC employees who were arrested for the murder of a 17-year-old Israeli in August 2019, according to an announcement by NGO Monitor.
"MECA's pattern of funneling aid to known terrorism-tied entities is beyond the realm of chance," Mauro told National Review. "I believe it is by design."
The NCRI report is not the first to identify ties between MECA and terrorism. A special report titled "Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement" by the Capital Research Center, published in 2024, designated MECA a "pro-terrorism" group and cited its endorsement of the October 7 attack.
MECA develops the "Teach Palestine Project" curriculum material for grades K–12. Although MECA does not disclose how many schools have adopted its materials, it has said that there has been a huge demand since the attack on Israel: "Since October 7, the Teach Palestine Project (TPP) has been flooded with requests from educators asking for support teaching about what's happening in Gaza and throughout Palestine," a MECA website states, adding that "on January 20, almost 100 teachers and teacher leaders from throughout California and beyond attended TPP's in-person conference in Oakland, California."
One lesson plan, titled "Stolen Land" and characterized as "an Introduction to the Middle East for young elementary school students," includes the following description from its author Marcy Newman: "My hope is that teaching about these walls opens up conversations that lead to activism on the ground and linking struggles. In the United States that can mean fighting Trump's anti-immigrant legislation and stepped up ICE raids. The Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against the Israel occupation is another way for students to get involved."
MECA's "Teaching Gaza (2023-2024): A Multiple Narratives Approach" curriculum materials state the following: "The events that have unfolded in Gaza since October 7th, 2023 are part of the longer history of Palestine/Israel and should be contextualized as such to give students the best understanding; even if that context is summarized. Hamas' actions on October 7th should not be the starting point."
MECA, Afaq Jadeeda, and Never Stop Dreaming did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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