The Lone Wolf is the New Face of Terror — So Where's the Silver Bullet?

On the afternoon of Oct. 31, Halloween, the 24/7 news channels once again interrupted their scheduled broadcasts with ominous music and the words “Breaking News,” with live shots of yet another crime scene. This time the bloody scene was New York City, lower Manhattan to be exact, and a few steps from Ground Zero, where on Sept. 11, 2001, the world witnessed the most catastrophic terrorist attack in history. The New York attacker, 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, a so-called ISIS loyalist, had hoped to kill scores of people by plowing his rented truck into a bike path along the West Side Highway and then, according to reports, targeting pedestrians and motorists on the Brooklyn Bridge. Those who naively boasted a few short weeks ago that “ISIS had been defeated,” must come to the realization that these sorts of low-tech attacks — Paris, London, Belgium, San Bernardino, Nice, Istanbul, Barcelona and Manhattan — are the new and deadly face of terrorism. Seemingly lone-wolf assailants, employing the crudest of weapons, such as vehicles, household chemicals, handguns and kitchen knives, are the devastating threat to national security we are facing. Rather than having been delivered a knockout blow, ISIS’s leaders and its extremist followers have merely changed strategies, transformed themselves and adopted to a new reality and political environment. To borrow the term from Silicon Valley, they have successfully pivoted. Our rage over these tragic attacks must be tempered and followed by a sobering dose of resilience and purposeful innovation. We in the west cannot allow terrorists or those who liken themselves as martyrs in a greater struggle to dictate the course of our day-to-day life. In Israel, a nation that has endured endless years of terrorist offensives — including a six-year suicide bombing offensive during the second Intifada, which resulted in nearly 1,000 dead, and more recently a deadly wave of knife stabbings and car ramming attacks — the security services recognized that the fast-changing and unsophisticated methods of these attacks required a response that was just as quick to adopt and unconventional enough to consistently surprise and devastate the terrorist organizations. Resilience is required in the face of unspeakable horror. And so is disruptive innovation. In 1996, a retired general and a future head of the Mossad named Meir Dagan came to the conclusion that the conventional means to fight terror had to be augmented by a new multidimensional battlefield centered on the financial resources that enabled terrorist armies to carry out their horrific attacks. Dagan created a financial warfare task force code-named “Harpoon” that mobilized all of Israel’s resources to target the money men, bankers, banks and sources of revenue that fueled the terror fires: charities were shuttered and state sponsors of terror, in Iran and the Persian Gulf, found that financing bloodshed against Israel was becoming cost-prohibitive. It was a bold new start-up in the then-staid field of counterterrorism. Dagan was certain that if you choke off the funding, the oxygen of terrorism, you could suffocate the terrorist groups’ operations. His new task force enlisted soldiers and spies, accountants and hackers, customs agents and con men, as well as private law firms, to target the financial institutions that had blood on their hands; Harpoon set its sights on the money men, the white-collar pencil pushers who moved money around the Middle East, as if these bean counters and bankers were the ones wearing the explosive vests on their own chests. Despite its many skeptics and critics, Dagan’s battlefield analysis worked. Deprived of the resources needed to pay for the logistics infrastructure that supported the terror cells and the suicide bombers, groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah were forced to stop the terror once their pockets were empty. The financial warfare playbook, first pioneered by Harpoon, has come to be adopted by virtually every western country in the world. But the terror didn’t stop. It never does. Instead of well-trained and highly indoctrinated foot soldiers carrying out shooting attacks or suicide bombers striking buses, individuals armed with knives began stabbing and killing civilians. Cars were used as compact-sedan cruise missiles to ram into crowds of civilians. These attackers — first striking in Israel and then spreading to cities in Europe and now New York City — were called lone wolves. But there really is no such thing as a lone-wolf attacker. Sure, one man might pull the trigger, ram a car into a crowd of pedestrians, or begin hacking people to death on a city street corner, but there is an apparatus behind the violence — the fire-branding speech of a cleric, web pages full of online hatred designed to spark the imagination of a mind full of void and rage, or the means to purchase a weapon or rent a truck. There are accomplices and people who hope to profit from the bloodshed. The act of murder is a final cog in a well-oiled machine. That machine, the apparatus behind the bloodshed, is what must be targeted as a proactive and preventative measure to ensure that men and women radicalized overseas or in their adoptive homes lack the resources to act on their homicidal desires. Western law enforcement and intelligence agencies face a daunting task in approaching the war on terror this way. In many cases, the forensic trail of cash is small and insignificant. But the paradigm of using a financial perspective as an effective tool to fight terror has been proven. Similarly, the new tactics of the terrorist organizations must be studied and their vulnerabilities identified and exploited. Those battling these slippery and sometimes brilliantly diabolical terror networks need a persistently unconventional mindset to innovate new methods, utilize novel technologies and employ creative strategies, as the Harpoon task force did, just to keep these no-frill attacks like lethal car rammings from turning pandemic on us. As the terror groups continue to adopt, to transform and to surprise, those of us being targeted by the terror groups need to vigilantly innovate and disrupt at a fast pace right along with them. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is an Israeli activist and civil rights attorney. She is the president of Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law center based in Tel Aviv that has represented hundreds of terror victims in lawsuits around the world. She is the co-author of “Harpoon: Inside The Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters,” by Hachette Books.

Copyright © 2017 Shurat HaDin, All rights reserved.

Video: Bankrupting Terrorism One Lawsuit at a Time

Over 500 people joined HonestReporting at its Jerusalem headquarters on April 5 to hear Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center. For 19 years, Ms. Darshan-Leitner has led the international efforts to cut off terror groups’ financing and has fought the boycott-and-sanctions movement through the courts.

We are sick and tired of sitting in the military courts watching the defendants from Hamas who are looking at the judge smiling at him and promising him that they will win. They will not win – we will win because we are fighting for our national survival.

Speaking after the  event, HonestReporting CEO Joe Hyams said:

The importance of Nitsana Darshan-Leitner’s work in achieving justice for the victims of terror and cutting off the financial supply lines to terrorists cannot be overstated. It was a privilege to be able to host Nitsana and bring hundreds of people to hear her.

By working together through multiple channels, be they legal, media or others, organizations such as HonestReporting and Shurat HaDin ensure that Israel haters will be held to account.

New York Terror Trial Targets Palestinian Authority, PLO

Opening statements are set for Tuesday in the latest international terrorism trial to come to New York, pitting U.S. terror victims and their families against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

An appeals court cleared the way for trial this week, refusing to override a judge's ruling that the case can be heard in federal court in Manhattan. Taking the lead for the plaintiffs is Arnold & Porter partner Kent Yalowitz, who'll try to persuade jurors that the Palestinian leadership groups directly and indirectly sponsored or encouraged seven deadly terrorist attacks.

The trial promises to be emotionally intense: Expected to testify are eyewitnesses and several plaintiffs in the case, Sokolow v. PLO, including injured survivors and families of those killed in the attacks in and around Jerusalem between 2000 and 2004. The plaintiffs are seeking $1 billion, though damages could be trebled under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991.

The judge has set aside six to eight weeks for the trial, which is unfolding in a climate of ongoing terrorism concerns that can only favor the plaintiffs. This week, for example, saw the gruesome Paris killings of more than a dozen journalists, police officers and others by violent jihadists, as well as jury selection in the U.S. trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev.

The trial also erupts at a sensitive time for the Palestinian Authority, which won United Nations approval this week to join the International Criminal Court. A verdict finding that the Authority supported terrorist attacks could stain the Palestinians' accelerating, unilateral quest for statehood. And a large damages award could financially cripple the Authority, which is already deeply in debt.

The families initially tapped Brooklyn solo practitioner Robert Tolchin to lead the case in conjunction with an Israeli law center, Shurat HaDin, focused on defending Israeli interests and pursuing terrorism-related claims. The Israeli group's chief, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, roped in Arnold & Porter's Yalowitz to lead the trial team in the spring of 2013. (Darshan-Leitner, who was not available to speak at press time, formally filed war crimes complaints against three PLO leaders before the ICC in the Hague on Wednesday.)

Yalowitz has handled several high-profile cases during his 25-year career at Arnold & Porter. In the so-called Winstar cases, he's helped a group of bank clients recover nearly a quarter of a billion dollars so far from the United States government. Those cases arose when the U.S. reneged on regulatory and tax promises made to buyers of defunct savings and loans in the late 1980s. He also won a case on behalf of a New York State judge, Margarita López Torres, in a landmark voting rights challenge to the state's method for electing trial court judges. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overturned that decision.

In the terror victims' case, lawyers for the plaintiffs have marshaled and translated thousands of Arabic and Hebrew documents—largely collected by Shurat HaDin—which they hope will help illustrate the alleged complicity of Palestinian leaders in the attacks. They plan to put on about 40 witnesses, including victims, eyewitnesses, and experts on terrorism, terror injuries and damages. Plaintiffs will also present a paper trail that they say shows the Palestinian authorities continued to pay salaries to those convicted in the terrorist acts, Yalowitz said. The defendants are expected to put forward roughly 20 witnesses, including PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi and other high-ranking Palestinian officials.

After first refusing to appear in the cases, the Palestinian defendants eventually tapped U.S. counsel to aggressively litigate their defense. Since mid-2007, they've looked to Mark Rochon, litigation chair at Washington, D.C.-based Miller & Chevalier, a firm best known for its tax controversy practice.

Neither Rochon nor Miller & Chevalier's Laura Ferguson, an appellate expert on the defense team, were available for comment because of the upcoming trial, according to a firm spokesman. A&P's Yalowitz described their approach to the case as "relentless," pointing to a crush of motions, appeals, and most recently, a mandamus petition challenging U.S. District Judge George Daniels' ruling that he has personal jurisdiction over the case. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied that petition on Tuesday, setting the stage for trial.

Ferguson has handled at least three other significant cases for the Palestinian entities. In 2012, she was counsel of record in Mohamed v. Palestinian Authority, persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm two lower court decisions dismissing claims for lack of jurisdiction. That case was filed by the family of a U.S. citizen of Palestinian background who was tortured and killed in the West Bank in 1995.

Ferguson also won rulings upholding defense wins for the Palestinian entities in 2010 and 2011 in two other appeals. One was a dismissal of an Alien Tort Statute lawsuit that had been lodged by a Palestinian alleging he was tortured by the Palestinian Authority and PLO on suspicion of being an Israeli spy. The other case was brought by the family of an Israeli citizen who was killed driving in the Gaza Strip.

According to Yalowitz, decisions in other recent cases on the terror docket in New York, particularly the verdict in Linde v. Arab Bank, have helped set the stage for the current case.

"The work that Gary Osen [lead plaintiffs' lawyer in the Arab Bank case] and others have done over the years has really been precedent-setting, developing the contours of the law in ways that have been very helpful," he said.

Yalowitz declined to say how much the case has cost the plaintiffs' side so far—plaintiff families "are not in any position to help pay for this," he said—or to comment on who is paying expenses.

Use Your Legal Skills to Defend Israel - and Earn CLE Credits

'The best defense against Palestinian lawfare is offense' Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin is suing Abbas and Mashaal at the ICC, and will pursue others if need be.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, chairwoman of Shurat HaDin -- Israel Law Center (photo credit: Courtesy Shurat HaDin) A small legal team in the Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center has been busy compiling damning files against Palestinian Authority leaders, documenting their supposed involvement in terror activities in recent years. The purpose of this endeavor, Israel Law Center chairwoman and founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told The Times of Israel this week, is to deter the Palestinian leadership from joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) and legally pursuing Israeli leaders at The Hague, as Palestinians have been threatening to do for months. In September, Darshan-Leitner and her team launched this proactive approach by filing a lawsuit against Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal at the ICC for Hamas’s execution of suspected collaborators with Israel during Operation Protective Edge. On November 10, they filed a second suit against PA President Mahmoud Abbas for attacks carried out by his Fatah movement from Gaza. Both leaders are Jordanian nationals, and therefore fall under the court’s jurisdiction. “The crimes of the [Second] Intifada are crimes against humanity. Daily, systematic rocket fire directed at civilian populations is an international crime,” she said. “We’re preparing indictments against PA leaders for the day the PA applies for membership in the ICC. We’re essentially warning PA leaders that ‘the moment you become members, we’ll be waiting for you there with a handful of indictments on war crimes, directed at you personally.'” Members of Fatah’s Husseini Brigades preparing to launch a rocket at Israel. (photo credit: Fatah Facebook page) Darshan-Leitner stressed that the purpose of the war crimes complaints against the Palestinian officials was to deter them from joining the ICC, to “tell them they’re playing with fire.” If that purpose is met, she noted, the ICC can stall the case proceedings, or the Israel Law Center can withdraw the complaints altogether. “But the moment they join, it’s game over. It will be like sniper fire.” Judging by Abbas’s recent statements, Darshan-Leitner’s tactic may be working. Addressing the Arab League on November 29, Abbas began his speech by informing the gathering of “an Israeli claim pending against me personally at the ICC now. “The Israelis beat us to it and filed the first claim against us,” Abbas continued. Israeli officials contacted by The Times of Israel at the time had no idea what Abbas was referring to. Darshan-Leitner acknowledged that her group was working independently of the Israeli government, which, she claimed, “was sticking its head in the sand. “The Israeli government is acting like an ostrich. I can’t really explain its ineptitude. You can’t wait around here. The state is looking for good defense arguments [against criminal action], but I’m not sure it will ever have the chance to use them. We know that Israel has so far refused to cooperate with any international tribunal, such as the Goldstone Fact Finding Mission [following the Gaza war of 2009], or the Schabas Commission [following Operation Protective Edge in 2014]. “I imagine Israel won’t cooperate too closely with the ICC either, so I don’t know why it’s bothering with these defense arguments. Who will listen to them? These European judges, whose positions on IDF soldiers are well known? We have 15 jurists working at the international department of the State Attorney’s Office. What are they working on? Nothing.”The lawsuits against Palestinian leaders had no diplomatic significance for Israel but merely “deterrent significance,” Darshan-Leitner adamantly argued, explaining why her organization was not cooperating with the government. The lawsuits against Palestinian leaders had no diplomatic significance for Israel but merely “deterrent significance,” Darshan-Leitner adamantly argued, explaining why her organization was not cooperating with the government. “Everyone in the world knows that Abbas and Mashaal are war criminals,” she said, noting that this was the first time a legal claim was being filed by her office against Palestinian political figures. Founded in 2003, the Israel Law Center has been quite successful in winning significant compensation from international courts in terror-funding cases. In May 2012, a US court ordered the Syrian government to pay $330 million to the family of Danial Wultz, a 16-year-old American national who was killed in a 2006 Tel Aviv suicide bombing carried out by Islamic Jihad. The organization has filed lawsuits over the past decade against international banks involved in terror funding, including the Bank of China, UBS, LCB and the Arab Bank. It has targeted states including Iran, Syria, Egypt and North Korea, as well as world leaders ranging from former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami to former US president Jimmy Carter. In some cases, Darshan-Leitner argued, lawfare can even save lives. Ahead of a planned flotilla set to leave Greece for Gaza in May 2011, the Israel Law Center, in collaboration with the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the Israel Defense Forces, sent threatening letters to insurance and satellite communications companies informing them that they would bear criminal responsibility under US law for any service rendered to the pro-Palestinian activists. “Eventually, we caused the cancellation of the flotilla,” she said. “In the first flotilla [from Turkey in May 2010] there was a big battle on board, people were killed and soldiers injured. It was a disaster. So ahead of the second flotilla, we decided not to wait. You can’t just wait and remain on the defensive. Defense is no good when it comes to anarchists; they need to be attacked in advance.” Copyright 2014 Times of Israel. All rights reserved.

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center 10 Hata'as St. Ramat Gan, 52512 Israel Phone: 972-3-7514175    |    Fax: 972-3-7514174 info@israellawcenter.org http://www.israellawcenter.org Blog: http://israellawcenter.wordpress.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShuratHaDin Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ShuratHaDin

Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: EoZ research reaches The Hague in Shurat HaDin vs. Mahmoud Abbas

Two weeks ago, Shurat HaDin  brought a war crimes complaint against Mahmoud Abbas to the International Criminal Court.

The complaint starts this way:

THE COMPLAINANT submits to the Prosecutor this communication concerning Abbas’s criminality in actively promoting indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilian locations. Abbas is a citizen of Jordan. In addition to being President of the Palestinian National Authority and Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Abbas is Chairman of the Central Committee of Fatah, a Palestinian militant faction. Al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade (hereinafter AAMB) is a military group within Fatah. Abbas thereforeis in de jure and de facto control of Fatah and of AAMB. He is responsible for the war crimes of those groups, in violation of Articles 8 (2) (c) (i) and 28 (2) of the Rome Statute.

When it gets to the details, the complaint says:

Members of Fatah and AAMB have directed rocket attacks in the 2014 conflict with Israel. In July and August, 2014, Fatah and AAMB fired rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities. AAMB’s rocket fire was so prolific, sustained, and saturating that AAMB exhausted its supply of rockets and is using the current ceasefire to re-arm. Constituent elements of Fatah fired over 2,000 rockets at Israeli civilian targets during the 2014 conflict. AAMB fired 620 rockets over the days of the war, the Abu Nidal Brigades shot 532 rockets and mortars at “the Zionist enemy,” and the Abdul Kader Husseini Brigades fired 864 rockets and mortars at Israel.

The highlighted part is footnoted to this Algemeiner article, which in turn referred to my research here.

In a small way, I personally helped build a case against the war criminal Mahmoud Abbas. 

YNET: PA ordered to compensate Israeli family over deadly attack

Palestinian Authority transferred weapons, money used by terrorists who carried out attack that killed 3 members of the same family in 2001.

YNET| October 6, 2014

By AGENCE FRANCE PRESS

A Jerusalem court has ordered the Palestinian Authority to compensate an Israeli family after finding it indirectly responsible for an attack that killed three of its members.

The decision from September 22 states that the PA had transferred weapons and money used by the terrorists who carried out an attack on a highway which killed the three Israelis in 2001.

Yaniv and Sharon Ben-Shalom were returning home from Jerusalem, where they spent Shabbat with Sharon's parents to their home in Ofarim with their two daughters - Efrat, 20 months old, and Shahar, 8 months old - and with Sharon's brother.


Yaniv Ben Shalom

Palestinians opened fire from a passing vehicle, killing Sharon and Yaniv. Sharon's brother Doron Sviri was fatally wounded by a shot to the head, and died the following day.

The PA knew of the potential dangers of using the arms and did not warn the users, so it therefore "owes damages to those who were hurt", read the ruling, distributed on Sunday.

The district court added that popular Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti, serving multiple life sentences for his role in attacks on Israelis, "knew about the attack and was briefed on it after it was carried out".


Sharon Ben Shalom

A spokeswoman for the court said the trial, which began in 2009, was still ongoing and the judge had yet to decide on the amount of damages the PA would be ordered to pay.

Other courts in Israel have in the past ruled that the PA pay damages to Israelis, but according to Haaretz newspaper the PA tends to reach out-of-court settlements with plaintiffs.

There was no immediate reaction on Monday from the Palestinian Authority to the latest ruling.

Copyright 2014 YNET. All rights reserved.

Starve Hamas of Money Globes| July 25, 2014 By NITSANA DARSHAN-LEITNER

Israel must use the economic weapon against Hamas
 

Desperate people do desperate things. Facing severe economic distress and on the brink of starvation, people will do anything in order to survive, if only for one more day. This is the reason that Hamas decided to embark on a suicidal war two weeks ago. It has fired hundreds of salvoes of rockets at the civilian population of Israel, endangered the lives of civilians on its territory, perpetrates war crimes by using the civilian population as a human shield, and adamantly refuses any cease-fire proposal, because it has reached the worst economic situation it has experienced since it was founded. Hamas's leaders realized that they had no way out of these economic straits, and so they will continue firing and fighting until Israel, or Egypt, or the world, surrenders.

For the entire 26 years of its existence, Hamas has always found creative ways of financing its death industry. From an insignificant small-time charitable organization, with little influence or support, in the first intifada Hamas became the most influential and popular force in Palestinian society. From being an opposition movement to the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas became the strongest organization in the Palestinian Authority. It developed welfare mechanisms alongside a trained military wing. Both wings grew to huge dimensions, bringing together hundreds of charitable societies and hundreds of thousands of members. Hamas needs tens of millions of dollars to support these two wings. In the first years of the second intifada, it managed this quite easily. Charities such as CAIR and HLF (Holy Land Foundation) in the US, Interpal in the UK, and CBSP in France, raised millions of dollars for it. This money, together with money raised in Syria and Saudi Arabia, was transferred freely to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip through Jordanian and European banks.

In Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, documents testifying to these cash transfers fell into the hands of the IDF. The documents showed that many charities were raising millions of dollars for Hamas and for the families of the martyrs (that is, suicide bombers), and were transferring the money to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank via the Arab Bank and other banks. In February 2004, IDF forces entered banks on the West Bank and confiscated from their safes $40 million that belonged to Hamas activists and Hamas-sponsored charities. Most of the branches that the IDF raided were of the Arab Bank. At the same time, victims of terrorism filed huge lawsuits against the Arab Bank and European banks operating in New York, citing the fundraising and the transfer of money to Hamas. These lawsuits caused far-reaching shocks in the global banking system. Because of them, no bank would agree to provide banking services to Hamas or to the charities associated with it. Many banks, such as Lloyds and Barclays in London, closed bank accounts of charities where there was a suspicion that they were assisting families of martyrs in the West Bank.

All the international banks closed their branches in the Gaza Strip, for fear that their money would serve Hamas in Gaza and would be channeled to financing terror. So the Gaza Strip was left without an international banking system, that is to say, without a means of bringing money in.

Buying the people

This matter had to be dealt with immediately, and obliged Hamas to find alternative ways of bringing money into Gaza. These were found in the shape of banks that did not see themselves as bound by the West's rules forbidding money laundering and forbidding the financing of terror. The Bank of China, for example. When the money transfer route via the Arab Bank or European banks was blocked, the heads of Hamas approached money changers in Lebanon and Jordan, and asked them to transfer millions of dollars to accounts at the Bank of China that were opened especially for this purpose. The money would be received from Hamas's representatives in Syria and transferred to the Bank of China, from where it was supposed to be transferred to the Gaza Strip. Since the money could not be transferred directly to banks there, they would buy goods with it, and export the goods to the Gaza Strip. There, Hamas activists would sell the goods and obtain the cash to finance terrorism. Huge lawsuits were filed in New York by terror victims against the Bank of China as well, but the bank refused to cut off the money transfer route to Hamas, on the grounds that Hamas had not been declared a terrorist organization in China, and so it was committing no crime under Chinese law. The bank has continued to provide banking services to Hamas and aid in financing Hamas, possibly to this day, and certainly until 2012.

There was also another way, the way of the tunnels. In 2006, after Israel bowed to US pressure and abandoned the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the tunnel industry burgeoned, and by this means Hamas smuggled millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip. This money was earmarked first and foremost for supporting the needs of the population "from the cradle to the grave". Hamas provides free education, health, welfare and religious services to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. This is intended to buy their loyalty, so that it can continue firing on Israel from their lounge rooms and schoolyards and mosques. This money was also intended for buying tens of thousands of long-range rockets and military equipment, for constructing hundreds of concrete-lined subterranean tunnels that, in their safety and sophistication, would not shame developed western countries, and for paying wages to tens of thousands of its people.

Egypt closes its gates

In 2011, the ground stared to shake under Hamas's offices in Syria. Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, looked for somewhere else to go. He invited the Emir of Qatar to visit the Gaza Strip. The Emir came, and offered Hamas billions of dollars for rehabilitating the Gaza Strip, in exchange for Hamas moving its offices to Qatar. The organization welcomed the offer with open arms. Qatar became its main, and eventually its only, financer. The hundreds of millions of dollars that Qatar transferred did not go to the rehabilitation of Gaza, but to the construction of a concrete-floored underground city and to the smuggling of thousands of rockets and military equipment into the Gaza Strip. Hamas had never felt better.

Two months ago, the party ended. With the election of General Sisi as president of Egypt, following the deposing of President Morsi, darling of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, the Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed. The movement was declared a terrorist organization, and its heads were put on trial, and sentenced to death. Hamas, a protégé of the Muslim Brotherhood, became a bitter enemy. Egypt closed all access from its territory to the Gaza Strip. Hamas was left with no way of transferring goods and cash into Gaza. Qatar saw Hamas's distress and was prepared to send tens of millions of dollars, but it had no way of doing so. The Arab Bank, via which money had been transferred, was requested by the US, under pressure from Israel, to stop. Qatar turned to the UN, and sought the assistance of UN envoy to the Middle East Robert Serry in transferring at least $20 million to pay Hamas activists their wages. Serry tried various ways of transferring the money, but failed. He also earned a sharp rebuke from Israel in the wake of this affair. In its distress, Hamas turned to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), arguing that now, since Hamas is part of the Palestinian unity government, the Palestinian Authority ought to pay the wages of its workers, who are now Palestinian Authority employees. Abu Mazen flatly refused. The last thing he would think of doing would be to strengthen Hamas.

So Hamas was under economic siege. This is why most of its cease-fire demands are to open access points: from Egypt to open the Rafah crossing, and from Israel to enable it to build an airport and a seaport, so that it will obtain free passage for money into the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, it will collapse.

Israel's opportunity

This should be Israel's goal. Hamas is currently much weakened, on the brink of economic collapse. This is an opportunity to topple it completely. In addition to IDF operations designed to damage Hamas's infrastructure and kill its commanders, Israel should exert heavier economic pressure on Hamas in order to bring about its elimination. Unfortunately, Europe and the US have already started to open their check books with the aim of rehabilitating the Gaza Strip. But, as in the past, this money will fall into the hands of Hamas terrorists and will revive them. There is no way of ensuring that the money will not be used for the purposes of terrorism. This money will encourage Hamas to continue fighting, now and in the future, and it will continue to murder Israelis.

The rockets fired from the Gaza Strip led the Israeli government to make the terrible decision to order a ground operation, incurring heavy loss of life. This is the time for the Israeli government to use the additional weapon in its arsenal, and to act in every way possible to hit Hamas economically. Israel should insist that banks in China, Turkey and Qatar must not continue to finance Hamas; that governments such as that of Qatar, which have friendly relations with Israel and the US, must not pour hundreds of millions of dollars like gasoline on the flames. Just as the Israel Air Force cannot do all the work by itself, and Israel was compelled to launch a ground operation, so the ground assault cannot do all the work by itself. The only way of completely eradicating Hamas is through a critical blow to its financing. Operation Protective Edge must enter the economic arena.
 

The writer heads the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center organization which combats financing for terrorism.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 25, 2014

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013

Shurat HaDin Calls on IDF to Safeguard Israel's Civilians not Hamas'

Dear Baruch,

As the the IDF operation against the Hamas and Islamic terrorist regime in Gaza continues, thousands of Israeli reserve soldiers are being called to their bases in the South of the country. At the same time, rockets fired by the Palestinians in Gaza continue to target Israeli civilian communities all across the Jewish State. The country remains very unified and strong but the constant state of alarm and the warning sirens sounding throughout the day have disrupted the lives of millions of Israelis.  Repeatedly throughout the past 24 hours, we in the Shurat HaDin offices in Tel-Aviv have had to take shelter in our building's protective area in response to the sirens and the reports of missiles fired towards the Gush Dan region. It is very startling to hear the alarms go off and then the sounds of the aerial explosions, as the Iron Dome system intercepts the terrorists rockets.

It is shocking that in 2014 no other Jewish community anywhere in the world has faced these sorts unrelenting terrorist attacks attempting to murder their woman  and children. And for too long we have been willing to put up with it.

One of the reasons that the Israeli Air Force has had such trouble taking out the terrorist commanders and their rocket crews is because they are deeply embedded within the Gaza civilian population. The terrorist learned from the brutal beating they were administered by the IDF during Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and have changed their tactics.  Today, the Hamas leaders operate solely from inside schools, mosques, apartment buildings and hospitals. The rockets and their launchers are also hidden away inside of these civilian centers. It is virtually impossible for the IDF to strike at the launchers without endangering the lives of the Gaza civilians who act as human shields for the terrorist infrastructure.  They just cannot get a clear shot. Each alleged civilian causality is widely publicized in the international media to brand the IDF as war criminals. This, at the same time Hamas and Islamic Jihad deliberately target Israeli civilians!

The IDF has tried to cope with this challenging sirtuation by adopting policies of restraint designed to minimize the Palestinian civilian deaths. Perhaps most troubling is the "knock on the roof" policy enacted by the IDF to warn the terrorists before the Air Force strikes. The IDF  has been telephoning  the terrorists' homes and warning them to get out before they are bombed. Sometimes the IDF fires a small warning shot before a larger bomb is dropped in order to allow whomever wants to escape to flee. Frequently, the terrorist utilize this Israeli warning to send children up to the roofs of their houses to compel the IDF not to rocket them.

Unfortunately, these IDF warnings and the "knock on the roof" policies have resulted in numerous terrorist leaders being able to flee before the army can target them. Since the start of  Operation Protective Edge, Israel has destroyed the homes of Hamas military brigade commanders, political leaders, rocket manufacturers, field officers and buildings that housed explosive factories but has not managed to kill these dangerous terrorists themselves. This means the leaders then have the opportunity to organize and order further missile attacks on Israeli cities and towns. The result is they have additional opportunities to murder our civilians.

Shurat HaDin is calling on Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and the IDF senior leadership to discontinue these misguided policies. As long as the terrorists are embedded in the Gaza civilian population, hide in civilian homes and hospitals, refuse to wear military insignias and launch missiles from heavily populated Gaza neighborhoods, the IDF has a right and a moral obligation to carry out the targeted killings of the terrorist leaders and missile crews without warnings. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are in clear violation of international law and the IDF has an operational necessity to hit the terrorists before they kill any additional Israelis. There is no need to warn the terrorists before the IDF strikes them and no moral reason to give the Palestinian civilian population a preference over the Israeli civilian population's safety and protection. The IDF was formed to protect Israel's civilians and it is to Israelis it owes its first obligations. As the great sage Hillel said: "If I am not for myself, who is for me?"

Thousands of  young Israeli soldiers do not have to risk their lives going into the terrorist enclaves of Gaza simply because the IDF wants to show the world how ethical we are.  The IDF must place Israel's own interests above and beyond everything else. Hamas started this war, let them be responsible for safeguarding their own civilians. Discontinue the telephone warnings and the "knock on the roof" policies that allow the terrorists to fight another day.

Let us pray that this will end soon,

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner

Israeli Lawyer Blasts Hypocrisy in Presbyterian Divestment

The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) voted last month to divest from companies that supply equipment to Israel. The decision means pulling church investments in Caterpillar, Motorola and HP to the tune of $21 million.

But, as it turns out, this very same church and its related organizations receives benefits and tax breaks from Israel totaling millions of dollars, and presumably would be none too pleased to lose those perks.

Israeli human rights lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of Shurat HaDin Israeli Law Center, demanded that Interior Minister Gideon Saar immediately cancel all benefits enjoyed by the PCUSA in Israel.

“The church’s decision was made under the influence of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, despite its claims to the contrary,” insisted Darshan-Leitner. “An entity that adopts such policies is a political body,” and as such cannot enjoy the tax-free benefits afforded to religious institutions.

An examination of the case revealed that in Israel the PCUSA enjoys tax exemption on property and buildings owned by the church and on imported “religious articles.” It also is able to obtain clergy visas and entry permits for employees and invited guests, and to open non-profit bank accounts.

Darshan-Leitner said these benefits must be cancelled forthwith, and Israel must cease providing to the PCUSA all assistance that it would normally provide to a legitimate religious institution.

Copyright 2014 Israel Today. All rights reserved. 

Join Shurat HaDin in Demanding the Expulsion of All Hamas Leaders and Parliament Members from the West Bank

Shurat HaDin joins in with all Israelis and the world Jewish community in offering its condolences to the families of the three boys brutally murdered by the Palestinians in their failed kidnapping attempt. For years we had legally fought for lengthy prison sentences for convicted terrorists, lobbied for the IDF and security services to have a free hand to act and strenuously opposed the reckless prisoner releases that have resulted in damaging Israel's security and fueled the escalation of terrorist attacks against innocent citizens. We continue to oppose against the negligent provision of financial aid to the Palestinians by the United States and Europe which continues to fund the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorism and kidnappings.  Once again the world has been shown that the Palestinians have no red lines and that they have lost all ability to restrain their culture of extremist violence, racism and cruelty. In the course of the recent IDF and security services search operation hundreds of  terrorist leaders, cell commanders and Islamic "spiritual leaders" were arrested on suspicion of  having relevant information concerning the kidnapping or providing support to the terrorist organizations. Already, the Left-wing groups in Israel and the so called "human rights" organizations are calling for the release of these criminals. They are claiming that Israel has no legal basis to charge or detain them.  We, however, do not want them returned to their homes. Shurat HaDin is calling for them to be removed from the area and barred from ever returning. Shurat HaDin has launched a legal campaign in Israel to demand that the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad be expelled from the West Bank. Their on-going presence and ability to operate near Jewish population centers has facilitated the type of tragedies that led to the murder of Baruch Mizrahi z"l on Passover eve and the murder of the Naftali Frenkel z"l, Gilad Shaar z"l and Eyal Yifrach z"l.  These terrorist pose a clear and present danger to the safety of Jewish children and they must be not allowed to continue their kidnapping and murder operations from the West Bank. We have written to the Israeli Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff demanding that the terrorist leaders not be allowed to go free, but rather be irrevocably deported to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon. We are preparing to file a petition in Israel's High Court of Justice on behalf of all Israeli citizens to compel the Prime Minister and the IDF not to allow these dangerous murderers to be released from prison and return to their activities. Hamas and the other terrorist organizations must be made to pay a real and devastating penalty for this latest terrorist outrage. We must deter and stop them from carrying out future attacks.  We need your help! We are asking you to donate to this campaign to expel the Hamas and Islamic Jihad from the West Bank. Shurat HaDin needs to raise $50,000 to cover the costs of the publicity campaign and the costs of fighting in the High Court of Justice. As we prepare to attend the triple funeral scheduled for this hour we ask our friends and supporters to show your solidarity with the 3 families and the Jewish community here in Israel. TO MAKE A DONATION VIA PAYPAL PLEASE CLICK HERE.   We owe it to these three boys to ensure that other Jewish families (G-d forbid) will not suffer the tragedy that the Frenkel, Shaar and Yifrach families have suffered. Please donate today.

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center Israel Law Center 10 Hata'as St. Ramat Gan, 52512 Israel Phone: 972-3-7514175    |    Fax: 972-3-7514174 info@israellawcenter.org http://www.israellawcenter.org Blog: http://israellawcenter.wordpress.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShuratHaDin Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ShuratHaDin

Terrorism Victims Move to Seize Iran's Internet Domain Names

They’re fighting terror — one IP address at a time.

Sixty victims of terror and their family members​,​ who are looking to collect a total $1.2 billion in legal judgments against countries like Iran, Syria and North Korea​,​ are taking the unprecedented step of trying to seize those nations’ Internet domain names.

‘THE IRANIANS MUST BE SHOWN THAT THERE IS A STEEP PRICE TO BE PAID FOR THEIR SPONSORSHIP OF TERRORISM.’

 - Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner

The victims, including American Seth Klein Ben Haim, who was injured in an Iran-sanctioned 1995 Palestinian attack on a bus in the Gaza strip, filed a federal court lawsuit Tuesday in Washington, D.C. against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

ICANN is a Commerce Department agency that controls the Internet’s global domain name system and collects fees from countries like Iran for its use of .ir and other IP addresses used by the Iranian ​government.

“This is the first time that terror victims have moved to seize the domain names, IPs and Internet licenses of terrorism-sponsoring states like Iran,” said victims’ attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.

“The Iranians must be shown that there is a steep price to be paid for their sponsorship of terrorism. In business and legal terms it is quite simple – we are owed money, and these assets are currency worth money,” she said.

In the past Darshan-Leitner has successfully seized $120 million in Iranian assets from sources like real estate, historic artifacts and bank accounts for victims.

Ned Rosenthal, an intellectual property lawyer who is not involved in the case, called the victims’ legal strategy “very creative and very aggressive.”

But Rosenthal and his colleague Beth Goldman were skeptical that the suit would ultimately prevail.

“I don’t know that ICANN even holds that kind of money or assets to pay out,” Goldman said, explaining that the power to control IP addresses and domain names often belongs to third party registries based in each country.
“It’s unclear what ICANN can do or what their authority is,” she added.

Rosenthal noted that if ICANN tried to shut down a domain name belonging to an ally like Great Britain’s .uk there would be massive pushback.

Other victims in this case include the children of the late Leah Stern, a Staten Island woman who was killed in a double suicide bombing by Hamas in Jerusalem’s open-air fruit market Mahane Yehuda in 1997.

Her family won a $300 million federal court judgment against Iran in 2003, though they’ve been unable to collect on the award.

A spokesman for ICANN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

American Citizens File Reply Brief in Suit Against the State Department Over Palestinian Aid

As the IDF and Israeli security branches continue their massive search operation for the 3 teenagers kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists last week, the 24 Americans living in Israel who had sued the United States Department of State over American aid to the Palestinians have filed their reply brief to the DC Court of Appeals.  In their civil action, filed in the United States District Court in Washington, DC, the plaintiffs alleged that aid money to the Palestinians is not being carefully scrutinized nor administered and as a result winds up funding Palestinian terrorism such as the kidnapping of innocent civilians by Hamas. The lawsuit was originally filed in November, 2012. On August 26, 2013, however, the District Court dismissed the case, ruling that the two dozen plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit as they themselves had not been harmed and that their claim of injuries and fear was too "speculative."  Moreover, the Court held that foreign policy matters of this sort were exclusively in the hands of the Executive Branch. The plaintiffs had argued that far from "speculative" they unfortunately maintained a solid basis for their fears of personally being harmed by the Palestinian terrorist groups.  As we have now seen, tragically, one of the kidnapped children, Naftali Frankel, 16,  is indeed an American citizen.  The appellants contend that the State Department has recklessly ignored congressional safeguards and transparency requirements which govern US aid to the Palestinian Authority ("PA").   The 24 Americans argue that as a result of White House non-compliance with federal regulations, funds have been flowing to terror groups like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. These Americans call on the US government to stop all funding to the Palestinians until the latter "fully comply with federal prohibitions against support for terrorism." It is estimated that since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the United States Department of State, via USAID has given over $4 billion to the PA. During the last four fiscal years, average aid has been roughly $600 million per year. Additionally, the United States gives approximately $200 million to the United Nations body UNRWA, each year, and during the fiscal years 2008 and 2009, UNRWA gave roughly $500 million of their funding to recipients in the West Bank and Gaza. Under the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Department of State is required to certify that the PA is committed to a peaceful co-existence with Israel before distributing funds, and ensure that no portion of the funding is used for terrorism. The plaintiffs are represented by NY attorney Robert Tolchin and Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. As the reply brief sets out: "Plaintiffs have made it clear that their challenge is not to the policies behind US Government aid to the Palestinians, but to Defendants’ failure to comply with the federal statutory limitations and conditions on such aid. Moreover, even if the Defendants have the best of intentions in providing such aid, their failure to take the required statutorily mandated steps to insure that US financial assistance does not end up in terrorist hands is actionable by Plaintiffs who are directly and concretely affected by Palestinian terrorism. The Defendants do not deny the applicability of such statutory limitations and conditions or that the Defendants are in violation of such statutory limitations and conditions. The Court should not be taken in by Defendants’ efforts to obscure the real issue behind the veil of their “foreign policy” justification." For a copy of the appellate brief click here. And click here for more information on the upcoming November 2014 Ultimate Mission to Israel.

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center Israel Law Center 10 Hata'as St. Ramat Gan, 52512 Israel Phone: 972-3-7514175    |    Fax: 972-3-7514174 info@israellawcenter.org http://www.israellawcenter.org Blog: http://israellawcenter.wordpress.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShuratHaDin Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/ShuratHaDin