Palestinian American Community Center (PACC)

PACC claims to be nonpolitical and nonreligious, although it expressed support for Palestinians following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. ^{2 3} The organization’s 2024 goals include increasing social media followers by advocating for Palestinians, advocating for a sovereign Palestinian state, sending at least one shipping container of relief to Gaza, prioritizing voter registration, and expanding education programming.⁴

Community Initiatives

Palestinian American Community Center maintains several community outreach initiatives and youth programming, including Arabic and English language classes for children and adults, traditional Palestinian Dabka dance classes, computer skills classes, citizenship exam courses, homework help for students, and financial assistance and food aid for impoverished families. PACC also offers Palestine-related education, oriented toward educating the young in Palestinian heritage to advocate for Palestinian sovereignty. ⁵ PACC also offers several small scholarships for high school and college-level Palestinian-American students. ⁶

Anti-Israel Initiatives

In addition to its operations as a community center, the Palestinian American Community Center opposes Israel. PACC’s Actions for Palestine campaign began in response to the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. ⁷ It offers a Ramadan guide to pro-Palestinian advocacy that claims Israel is perpetuating a “mass genocide against the people of Gaza.” ⁸ PAAC also released a report on its solidarity and advocacy for the Palestinian cause through an advocacy toolkit and a summary of its pro-Palestinian press coverage and community outreach. The report was covered by major outlets like Al-Jazeera, CNN, National Public Radio, and the New York Times. ^{9 10}

PACC also runs the Palestine Campaigns, a video series highlighting Palestinian-Americans’ stories related to the Nakba, or diaspora that resulted from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. PACC considers the 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas conflict to be a continuation of the Israeli Nakba against Palestinians. ¹¹

PACC’s publication is the Falastin Magazine. ¹² It is primarily a source of advocacy for an independent Palestinian state, and it included in the March 2024 issue a poem arguing for Palestine to be free “from the river to the sea,” a call for Palestine to take internationally recognized Israeli territory. ¹³

PACC also publishes monthly newsletters and annual reports to provide updates on outreach, development, and PACC’s efforts to support Palestinians in Gaza. ^{14 15}

PACC endorsed the March on Washington for Gaza that took place in March 2024 and funded 5 buses of 260 community members to participate. The event was sponsored by the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine which includes anti-Israel American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Students Association (MSA), Muslim Legal Fund of America, Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), Young Muslims, and national partner Act Now to Stop War End Racism (ANSWER), a radical-left anti-war movement. In total, 360 organizations were endorsers of the event including Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, CODE PINK, Communist Party USA (CPUSA), DC Communist Party, nationwide socialist and communist organization Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Green Party of the United States, radical left-wing League of Young Communists USA, and left-of-center Westchester People’s Action Coalition (WESPAC) Foundation.^{16 17 18 19}

Political Activism

Palestinian American Community Center has a form for student activists to work alongside Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a radical, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel advocacy group which creates student activism on college campuses and supports the BDS movement. ²⁰ SJP was one of the central organizers in the 2023 college campus protests that spread across the United States and has been accused of supporting Hamas. ²¹

PACC’s July monthly newsletter celebrated its role in assembling the July 24, 2024 protest in Washington, D.C. to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address delivered to the United States Congress. ²² During the protests, demonstrators burned the American flag and an effigy of Netanyahu. ²³

Leadership

Rania Mustafa is the executive director of the Palestinian American Community Center. She received a bachelor’s from New York University in 2014 in applied psychology and a master’s degree in Management from Harvard Extension School in 2021. She has been the director of PACC for over a decade. Before her time with PACC, she held various positions in nonprofit administration and teaching. ²⁴ In April 2024, she told a New Jersey-based outlet that “people in Gaza and Palestine are living out the worst sci-fi nightmare that could have ever existed.” ²⁵

Diab Mustafa is the president of the Palestinian American Community Center board. ²⁶ In a December 2023 New York Times article, Mustafa said that the pro-Palestinian college protests across America “give [him] hope” because “you should be able to march for Palestinian rights without being called antisemitic or a terrorist sympathizer.” ²⁷

Financials

In 2022, the Palestinian American Community Center reported $769,162 in revenue, $602,823 in expenses, and $1,083,742 in net assets. ²⁸

In 2021 and 2022, PACC received or was approved for over $250,000 in funding from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, a New Jersey-based grantmaking foundation that has supported left-leaning advocacy groups. ^{29 30 31}

In 2021, PACC received $37,500 from Islamic Relief USA, the independent American branch of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), one of the largest Islamic charities in the world. ³² In 2022, PACC received $50,525 from Reinvestment Fund Inc. and $25,000 from Princeton Area Community Foundation in 2021. ^{33 34}