What is despicable, is that our government is continuing to canvass and allow legal refugees who have ties to terrorism ---
US nonprofits may aid Israeli terror U.S.-based pro-settler non-profits also support acts of intimidation, land theft and violence against Palestinians. During his free-wheeling days as a Washington DC lobbyist, Jack Abramoff’s laundered $140,000 from the Chippewa Tribe through his Capitol Athletic Fund to the Beitar Illit settlement, according to a 2005 story from The Texas Observer. The money purchased “sniper scopes, camouflage suits, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and shooting mats” for a “sniper school” run by a former-IDF officer. The Orthodox Jewish settler who ran the school “talked of a fifth column of Jewish warriors that will someday issue its own ‘call to arms.’ He also regaled Abramoff with accounts of sniper positions his group set up to cover IDF soldiers as they worked, “neutralizing’ terrorists, and watching ‘the dirty little rats’ on the Palestinian side of the fence,” wrote Louis Dubose in The Texas Observer. In this case and others involving different U.S. charities supporting similar projects, settlers benefit from tax-deductible donations and other forms of official support in their acts of intimidation, threats and even terror against Palestinians. For those few who are convicted of their crimes and imprisoned, there are Israeli NGOs like Lehava and Honenu which advocate for terror attacks and/or support the perpetrators and their families when they are behind bars. The Nana article linked above notes Honenu gave $60,000 directly to convicted Israeli Jewish terrorists and another $10,000 to their families. These NGOs receive government funding to support their general mission and their work with the families of terrorists. The Israeli state also implicitly endorses and subsidizes the mission through tax deductions on donations. One of the important precedents SHD established is charging Palestinian organizations with culpability for terror through their funding of payments to the families of shahids who carried out terror attacks. SHD targets Arab banks which offer financial services to individual terrorists and national bodies which provide them with financial support. Such behavior is mirrored precisely on the Israeli side. What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. Further, Israel has sent its agents around the world to murder (and in some cases kidnap) individuals associated with Palestinian militant groups. Though Israel claimed that some of them are guilty of planning and carrying out terror attacks, many have either had no connection to terrorism or only very peripheral involvement. The Mossad assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabouh in Dubai. His crime was that he was a weapons procurement officer who arranged for the shipment of Iranian weapons to Hamas. Since 2007, the Mossad has also assassinated five Iranian nuclear scientists. Though Israel has never accepted responsibility directly for these acts of state terror, its leaders expressed approval of them and even said that whoever did them should be applauded. Numerous foreign intelligence agencies and journalists confirmed the likelihood of Israeli responsibility. NGOs and lawyers should force the Israeli government to prove or disprove this claim in a U.S. court. If the Israelis refuse to do so or attempt and fail to do so, they should be held to the same standards SHD is demanding of Arab banks and states in U.S. courts. Arab Victims Face Far Higher Hurdles in U.S. Courts Than Israeli Victims Though the theory behind this proposal is sound, executing it will be a different matter. Gadeir Abbas, a former staff lawyer for the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told MintPress News that there are significant hurdles confronting those seeking to hold Israel accountable for acts of terror. First, he noted that Israel is a state, which therefore enjoys sovereign immunity from various types of tort cases. Since Palestine statehood isn’t recognized by the U.S., its political organs, like the Palestinian Authority, have no such protection. Abbas raised the example of Rachel Corrie. She was a young American volunteering on behalf of the International Solidarity Movement to defend Palestinian homes in Gaza that were being demolished by the IDF. An armored bulldozer manufactured by the U.S. Caterpillar Company and driven by an IDF soldier ran her over and killed her. “When you have the U.S. government actually paying for the Caterpillar bulldozer which killed Rachel Corrie, it poses an almost insurmountable obstacle to suing Israel in a U.S. court,” Abbas said. “Add to that a built-in prejudice against Arab or Muslim victims who are often seen in the U.S. media as perpetrators, rather than victims of terror. Alternatively, American and Israeli Jews have not, until recently, been seen as perpetrators of terror. So it becomes easier for judges and juries to rule in their favor as victims.” In the resulting lawsuit filed by her parents, a U.S. court ruled that since the tractor had been purchased under a U.S. government program (and paid for by the government itself), this indicated our country had approved the sale and use to which the IDF put the vehicle. It therefore dismissed the federal suit as a violation of the foreign policy prerogatives of the executive branch. When the Corries followed suit by filing in an Israeli court, it heard the case but refused to find any culpability on the part of the IDF for Corrie’s killing. This, Abbas noted, is part of the high barriers faced by those seeking to hold Israel responsible for acts of terror and homicide against U.S. citizens. The former CAIR attorney did indicate that lawsuits against individual Israeli officials rather than the government itself might be more successful. An even more promising strategy would be to identify non-state actors such as settlers or NGOs who might support their crimes. But it would be critical to be able to prove that any party sued, whether an NGO or a bank, knew in advance that the activities it supported were illegal (which could include violations of international law). Despite these caveats, Abbas considers this a promising avenue worth pursuing, especially if victims and survivors come forward wishing to do so. Another lawyer with considerable experience in the field of corporate litigation told me that no major American law firms would touch such a case. First, it would poison relations with many Jewish clients or even corporate clients with a large Jewish customer base. Second, no matter how vigorous the defense mounted by the Palestinian Authority, the Arab Bank or the government of Iran, Israeli banks and government bodies would mount an even more ferocious defense, hiring the most prominent, aggressive legal team to represent them. Any legal nonprofit taking up this project would face extensive criticism from the Israel lobby. Despite these complications, Israeli targets present a deep-pocketed opportunity for a willing lawyer. The Israeli government registry for nonprofits notes Darshan-Leitner’s last recorded salary in 2012 was $110,000, quite a tidy sum in the Israeli nonprofit world. Her cottage industry has flourished and her associated attorneys have earned major fees for their work. To avoid the stain of personal benefit, those working on this project on behalf of Arab victims should eschew profit to the greatest extent possible. Expenses and reasonable fees should be covered. Any assets seized or settlement funds should be distributed to victims and NGOs working on their behalf. NGOs and law firms must hold individual Israelis, financial institutions and the state itself accountable for anti-Muslim terror. The major Israeli banks have American subsidiaries, which make them even more liable. -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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