Netanyahu's Prophetic 2005 Warning about Terrorist Rockets from Gaza

The US government may give its opinion about whether the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority must post a multimillion-dollar bond, which they have resisted doing, while they appeal a jury's finding that they supported terrorist attacks in Israel. The US Department of Justice disclosed its potential interest in the case in a letter filed Monday in Manhattan federal court, six months after 10 American families won a $655 million verdict against the PLO and Palestinian Authority. If the Justice Department actually files a so-called statement of interest, it would mark the US government's first formal role in the diplomatically sensitive lawsuit, which was filed in 2004. The Justice Department said it would decide by August 10 whether to make a statement of interest to the court and declined to comment further to Reuters. ~~~~~ On Tuesday, lawyers for the families urged a federal judge to add $165 million in pre-judgment interest to what they won at trial. The families had won $218.5 million in damages, a sum automatically tripled under the 1992 US Anti-Terrorism Act -- in this case to $655.5 million. Defense lawyers said adding the requested interest would, after tripling, boost the total award to $1.15 billion. "This could be the end of the Palestinian Authority," Mitchell Berger, its lawyer, said in court. "And that's why we're here to argue over the judgment." They have also argued that any judgment should be stayed pending appeal with no requirement to post a bond. The families have requested that the defendants be required to deposit $30 million per month with the court. US District Judge George Daniels did not rule, but signaled he would not impose interest on the award, although he would require a bond pending the appeal. "There needs to be some meaningful demonstration that the defendant is ready and willing to pay the judgment," Daniels said. ~~~~~ The jury in the case found the PLO and Palestinian Authority liable over six shootings and bombings between 2002 and 2004 in the Jerusalem area, attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas. Those attacks killed 33 people, including several US citizens, and injured more than 450. One of the attacks was the July 2002 bombing at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem that killled 5 American students and others, and injured over 100. The suit against the PLO and Palestinian Authority and another against the Jordan-based Arab Bank had been stalled for years as the defendants challenged the American courts’ jurisdiction. Recent rulings found that the cases should go forward under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a law that allows victims of US-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation for pain and suffering, loss of earnings and other hardship. ~~~~~ Last year, a Brooklyn jury decided that Arab Bank, based in Jordan, should be held responsible for a wave of Hamas-orchestrated suicide bombings that left Americans dead or wounded. The lawsuit was based on claims that the financial institution knowingly did business with Hamas after it was officially named a terrorist organization in 2003. It was the first time a terror-financing claim against a big bank had gone to trial under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The jury found that Arab Bank knowingly provided material support to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah by facilitating millions of dollars in direct transfers to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorist operatives from the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Intifada al Quds and the Al-Shahid Foundation, and that Arab Bank knowingly provided material support to Hamas by maintaining accounts for a dozen Hamas-controlled organizations in the Palestinian Territories. The damages portion of the trial is ongoing. ~~~~~ Dear readers, these verdicts add a new dimension to the never,ending Middle East conflict. Terrorist organizations now know that US courts are watching their actions. Big banks are now on notice that knowingly handling terrorist funds can result in liability. And that may to some extent counterbalance the European effort to make Israel the bad guy in the Israel-Palestine relationship -- a European position divorced from all reality. Consider. Israeli military records show that since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, terrorists have fired more than 11,000 rockets into Israel. Over 5 million Israelis - 70% of the Israeli population - are currently living under threat of rocket attacks because most rockets launched from Gaza into Israel are capable of reaching Israel’s biggest cities, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. More than half a million Israelis have less than 60 seconds to find shelter after a rocket is launched from Gaza into Israel. In addition, since 2005, more than 375 terrorist attacks carried out inside Israel have killed at least 375 and wounded 3,500. These rocket and bomb attacks are fortuitous - without provocation on the part of Israel. While European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is in Teheran to talk about the P5+1 nuclear deal, she should also raise with Iranian leaders their continuing supply of rockets to Hezbollah and Hamas -- to be fired from the Golan Heights and Gaza into Israel. Israel occasionally intercepts rocket shipments going to Lebanon from Iran, but the onus should be on Iran to stop making rockets available to recognized terrorist groups. This is just one more opportunity -- along with repatriating American hostages being held in Iranian jails and an Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist -- missed by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry in their rush to cut a deal that will one day allow Iran to put nuclear tips on those rockets aimed at Israel civilians. In 2005, after 65% the Israeli people had voted in agreement with Ariel Sharon's Disengagement from Gaza, on the hope of a achieving peace, Sharon's Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resigned and urged the Knesset to reject the Disengagement : "Only we in the Knesset are able to stop this evil. Everything that the Knesset has decided, it is also capable of changing. I am calling on all those who grasp the danger: Gather strength and do the right thing. I don't know if the entire move can be stopped, but it still might be stopped in its initial stages. Don't give [the Palestinians] guns, don't give them rockets, don't give them a sea port, and don't give them a huge base for terror." Netanyahu was right then in his realistic analysis of a Gaza freed from Israeli control. He is right now about an Iran freed from meaningful international control. The rockets fired almost daily from Gaza into Israel are just one part of the abundant proof.