Muslim charities face discrimination as Palestinians are desperate for aid

As the people of Gaza face famine and the continued bombing of their homes by Israel, numerous Muslim charities and organisations are desperately trying to help keep Palestinians alive and help those in need.

However, many of these organisations have found over the past year that the banks they rely upon to help get this aid to the people of Gaza do not want to work with charities that are run by Muslims – especially if they are focused on Gaza. This has become referred to as “Muslim while banking”.

“We used to joke when we started our company that we had 99 problems and payments wasn’t one of them, and that quickly changed,” says Amany Killawi, co-founder of LaunchGood, a crowdfunding platform for Muslims. “I do feel there’s additional scrutiny on Muslim organisations.”

LaunchGood is one of many organisations that are trying to help people from Gaza who have found their payment accounts closed for no discernible reason over the past year. Killawi says she thinks these banks are afraid of receiving bad publicity for working with Muslim organisations while the highly contentious debate over the future of Israel and Palestine goes on.

“You have two problems in our space: Most banks are very risk-averse. They don’t want to support humanitarian work, even though it is all registered charities in good standing that have gone through vetting,” Killawi says. “The other issue you have is that there’s been a politicisation of humanitarian aid.”Killawi says pro-Israel actors will write “hit pieces” in the media about various Muslim organisations that are sending aid to Gaza, and this can cause banks to not want to work with them even if they’ve ultimately done nothing wrong. These charities are sometimes wrongly accused of aiding armed groups, and those in the financial sector may not bother to investigate such claims.

“I don’t think it’s conflict with US law because everything is legal. There’s nothing that violates their terms of use. My sense is that it’s adverse media,” Killawi says. “… Israel-Palestine is a touchy subject, to say the least. You have your average analyst out of New York who’s maybe never met a Muslim or worked with [a Muslim] organisation see that and decide to pull out.”

LaunchGood has not only experienced account closures related to financial services but other services as well. Killawi says Wise, which helps LaunchGood pay contractors, has kicked it off the platform. Cledara, a subscription service that helps LaunchGood keep track of its software, also unexpectedly closed its account.

Cledara did not respond to a request for comment.

Wise told Al Jazeera that it provides its services to customers “regardless of their personal characteristics, including their religious identity” and that they are “also subject to strict rules governing how we handle existing customer accounts.”