Terror
Victims Take Palestinian Authority to Court
IPT News
January 12, 2015
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The Palestinian
Authority could face $1 billion or more in damages if a federal jury in New
York finds it liable for a series of terrorist attacks in Israel which
killed and injured American citizens.
The attacks took place between 2001 and 2004. According to the civil complaint, the terrorists were either on the
payroll of the Palestinian Authority or the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Their families later received martyr pay and other forms of support from
the Authority.
The case, brought under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, has vast potential
ramifications. In addition to hundreds of millions – if not billions – of
dollars in damages if the PA is held liable, it could affect U.S. political
and financial support for the cash-strapped Authority. In 2008, the
presiding judge rejected the defense's argument that the attacks were
acts of war rather than terrorism.
It took 10 years for the case to go to trial. But it comes as the PA is
in a precarious situation politically by its own actions. Israel is withholding $127 million in tax revenue and the United
States is considering its own sanctions after the PA tried to get
the United Nations Security Council to declare statehood without
negotiations and after the PA applied to join the International Criminal Court.
A last-ditch attempt to delay the trial was rejected last week by the Second Circuit of Appeals.
A significant judgment against the Palestinian Authority could give the
United States some leverage in getting PA President Mahmoud Abbas to back
off the unilateral moves, said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
"You're looking at a Palestinian Authority that has eroded a lot of
good will that was built up over the nine months of the Kerry negotiating
process, where Abbas largely came out looking like the good guy,"
Schanzer said. "I think that good will is now being eroded and I can
certainly see Congress looking to withhold additional funds."
But, Schanzer points out, until the case is resolved, it's premature to
guess what political fallout might result.
After rejecting a defense motion for summary judgment in
November, U.S. District Judge George Daniels ruled that the case could proceed to a jury trial,
rarely conducted under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act. If evidence showing the
PA had later promoted people tied to terrorist attacks or provided benefits
to terrorists and their families, a reasonable jury can find the Authority
liable, he ruled.
The attacks in the case include:
Muhanad Abu Halawa, a PA employee, and three others carried out a
machine gun attack on a car which wounded Varda, a father, and Oz Joseph
Guetta, his son, when the boy was just 12 years old. Varda Guetta later
identified one of the shooters as a member of the PA's Force 17, a commando
unit which guarded then PA-leader Yasser Arafat. Others in the attack later
implicated the same man, Fawzi Murar, whose family received martyr payments
after he died the next year.
Two elderly women were killed and 45 more people injured in a machine gun attack in downtown Jerusalem's Jaffa
Street. The shooter, Said Ramadan, was a PA police officer. The attack was
planned by Ahmed Barghouti, whose cousin Marwan Barghouti was a senior official in the
PA's controlling Fatah party. PA records indicate that PA employees
involved in the attack continued to receive pay and promotions. Ramadan was
killed in the attack, but PA documents described him as a martyr who died
"performing his national duty."
Wafa Idris became the first
known female Palestinian suicide bomber, killing an 81-year-old man and
wounding 150 others on Jaffa Street. Among the injured was lead plaintiff
Mark Sokolow, his wife and daughters. Idris worked with an official in the
PA's military intelligence office in planning the attack. That official
later was promoted. Idris received martyr status which brought monthly
payments to her family.
Three people are killed and 80 wounded in a suicide bombing on downtown
Jerusalem's King George Street. The bomber was a PA police officer who had
been arrested for plotting a terror attack a month earlier, but released by
Palestinian security officials. He was assisted by a lieutenant in the PA's
General Intelligence Service, who received money for the attack from Marwan
Barghouti. The lieutenant, Abel Karim Aweis, later admitted his role in
Israeli court. He stayed on the PA payroll and was promoted four times afterward. The bomber's family
received martyr pay.
Nine people, including five Americans, were killed in a bombing at a Hebrew University cafeteria.
Hamas took credit for the attack, but it was "planned and carried out
by Marwan Barghouti, Ahmed Barghouti" and other PA employees, the complaint says. As in the King George Street
bombing, PA officials arrested the bomber before the attack, only to
release him. The bomber, Abdullah Barghouti, was provided a safe house and
bomb-making materials by his relative, PA official Marwan Barghouti.
The PA's Ministry of Detainees' Affairs later gave Abdullah Barghouti's
family monthly payments.
Eleven people were killed and 50 wounded in a suicide
bombing on a Jerusalem bus. Four PA police and security officials later
admitted to participating in the plot and making the bomb. The PA paid the
families of the suicide bomber and those later jailed for their
participation in the attack.
To prove their case, attorneys for the victims plan to show the jury
internal PLO and Palestinian Authority records seized by Israel during
incursions into the West Bank. Among them is a 2002 report about West Bank operations sent to the head
of the PA's General Intelligence Service. In it, one squad is lauded for
"high quality successful attacks" and praised as "the most
disciplined."
"Its men are very close to us (i.e. to the General Intelligence)
and maintain with us continuous coordination and contacts," the report
said.
Another exhibit indicates the PA was spending "$5-$10 million per
month for its expenses in the confrontation against Israel. Some of this
sum is in money and some in goods – fuel and arms."
The view in Washington is that the PA today is vastly different from the
one run by Yasser Arafat during the years covered by the Sokolow
lawsuit. Abbas is credited with ending the intifada in which these attacks
took place and with eliminating the entities which organized terror
attacks.
"Nevertheless, it is still the government," Schanzer said.
"And the government is responsible."
The current PA, its officials and media arms, also continue to glorify terrorists by naming public places in their
honor and praising recent attacks.
Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, is working with the victims. In a recent release, center director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner
said evidence obtained during the discovery process shows that the PA and
PLO continue to provide "benefits for terrorists who carried out the
attacks ... This clearly demonstrates the PA's wide policy of providing
incentives and financial rewards for terror acts."
In pre-trial filings, defense attorneys cast the attacks as the responsibility of a
"variety of disparate Palestinian individuals and groups ... with no
apparent connection to one another." Many of the exhibits shouldn't be
admitted into evidence, they argued, saying they can't be authenticated or
are little more than "rank hearsay."
They indicated they could call top PA officials to rebut the
allegations, including former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Brigadier General Khaled Abu Al-Yaman,
head of the PA's General Intelligence Service operations department, along
with GIS director Major General Majed Faraj.
The Manhattan federal court trial is expected to last several months.
Related Topics: Civil
suits, Terror
Financing, Sokolow
v. PLO, Palestinian
Authority, Mahmoud
Abbas, Jonathan
Schanzer, U.S.
District Judge George Daniels, intifada,
Muhanad
Abu Halawa, Ahmed
Barghouti, Marwan
Barghouti, Wafa
Idris, Abel
Karim Aweis, General
Intelligence Service, Hebrew
University, Civil
suits, Terror
Financing
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