Law must trump politics
By Ed Morgan, National Post
…the federal court issued a request for a governmental “statement of interest” in order to determine whether any “separation of powers” issue — where the judicial branch backs off a case for fear of treading on the executive branch’s turf — is truly at stake. The State Department has been contemplating its response and, given the amount of aid to the PA it routes through U.S. financial institutions, is reported to be leaning toward the Palestinians.
Leslye Knox’s husband Aaron was killed when a bomb exploded at a bar mitzvah in the town of Hadera, Israel. Yishai Ungar’s parents, Yaron and Efrat, were killed in a drive-by shooting on an Israeli highway on the way to a family wedding. The two American citizens share more than celebrations-turned-tragic. They share a commitment to using the law to repair their lives.
Each won a large award after suing the Palestinian Authority (PA) under U.S. anti-terror legislation — $175-million in the Knox case and $116-million in Ungar. In both judgments, individuals under the command of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat were identified as the perpetrators of the attacks, and the PA was held responsible for sponsoring them.
As a result of creative maneuvers by the families’ lawyers, attempts to collect the judgments have met with some success. They froze several U.S. bank accounts belonging to the PA’s parent body, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and one holding pension funds for PA civil servants. They also brought enforcement proceedings in Israeli courts, seeking to legally divert Palestinian excise taxes that Israel collects and remits to the PA. At one point, the plaintiff families managed to lien the Manhattan building used by the PLO as its United Nations mission headquarters. A New York court eventually vacated the lien, but the message was sent that the assets of those who sponsor terror remain at risk.
Knox and Ungar now face another legal challenge. The PA, with new lawyers in tow, has applied to a federal court in New York to quash the judgments, stating they will vigorously defend cases they had previously ignored. But the PA’s claim that the lawsuits were previously unanswered is patently false. The PA was represented all along by no less a legal figure than Ramsay Clark, the Carter Administration’s attorney general.
Clark recently told the court that in 2003 he visited Arafat personally and was instructed to ignore the litigation. Nevertheless, for years Clark put up a strenuous defence, arguing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court that the PA has sovereign state status and deserves immunity in other states’ courts. Clark lost that argument, and now seeks to avoid the consequences by pursuing a different tact.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad put forward the new strategy when he labelled the judgments an obstacle to continued Palestinian participation in the peace process. That view was endorsed by PA President Mahmoud Ab-bas, who wrote directly to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling for U.S. government intervention.
This past month, the PA was in court arguing that the judgments could potentially bankrupt it and interfere with American foreign policy. With that in mind, the federal court issued a request for a governmental “statement of interest” in order to determine whether any “separation of powers” issue — where the judicial branch backs off a case for fear of treading on the executive branch’s turf — is truly at stake. The State Department has been contemplating its response and, given the amount of aid to the PA it routes through U.S. financial institutions, is reported to be leaning toward the Palestinians.
This would set a precedent that threatens judgments in numerous U.S. cases against foreign entities, including sponsors of terror, state practitioners of torture and human rights abusers of all shapes and sizes. The Knox and Ungar lawyers met last week with the U.S. Department of Justice, trying to get the one branch of government that worries about civil rights to weigh in on the side of the rule of law for U.S. citizens killed abroad.
The suits against the PA now boil down to a contest between the foreign policy interests of the United States and the civil rights of Americans. As a consequence, the State Department’s Middle East desk is facing off against the Justice Department’s litigation policy branch.
For the sake of terror victims everywhere, here’s hoping the court comes down on the side of law over politics, or Justice over State, and that it helps ease the plaintiffs’ enduring losses.
Ed Morgan is a law professor at the University of Toronto. He testified as the plaintiff’s expert on the international legal status of the PA in the Ungar case.
‘The fake allies’
America has no business aiding Israel. The attempts to achieve for Israel
closer ties with the US are a disservice to Jewish people. American will
never-ever pursue Jewish interests as they are irrelevant to US voters and
establishment. America embargoed weapons shipments to Israel during the
Independence War, threatened intervention on Egypt’s behalf in the 1956 war,
had operational plans for landing its troops in Sinai to defend Egypt in 1967,
barred Israel from preemption in 1973 and only shipped Israel weapons after
we’ve won the war, forced Israel to abandon Sinai, and pushes us to the
suicidal peace process. America gives more aid to Egypt and Palestine than
Israel, fought for Kuwait but never for Israel, and spent more in Iraq than the
total aid to Israel since inception.
That is only natural, as we cannot expect America to take care of the Jewish state.
Why would the WASP establishment care, if Jews don’t? Polls indicate the
American Jews overwhelmingly supports the peace process and opposes the war with
Iran. No one hates Israel like many American Jews: they want to prove to their
Gentile friends that they are not too Jewish, and so side with Arabs. They are
trying to show that Jews are exactly like others; but Jewish state is not like
other states. And so most American Jews support “democratic” Israel where
Arabs enjoy equal rights with Jews: that is, the right to breed and vote Jewish
state out of existence.
The support Israel now enjoys from America is a self-delusion. The US vetoed
many UN resolutions which condemned Israel. But the very likelihood of such veto
allows other UNSC members to behave more radically: they vote pro-Left pro-Arab
knowing that the resolution won’t pass. The US vetoes keep Israel in the UN
while a stream of empty anti-Israeli resolutions would have forced Israel out of
that barbarian conference, and end Israeli adherence to the UN-sponsored
nonsense such as the 1956 borders. The UN fails to enforce sanctions against
Iran, an international pariah; the chance of effective sanctions against Israel
is infinitesimal. If Israel doesn’t follow the South Africa’s path of
decades-long oppression of aborigines, but ends the Arab demographic problem
swiftly and ruthlessly, in a few years there would be no prospect of sanctions.
From 1948 to 1972, Israel survived while having no official sponsor. We played
with France, Germany, America, even the Soviet forefront Romania, and survived.
Arab loyalty is non-existent and allegiance – prohibitively expensive; many
countries would find it cheaper to buy regional influence by aiding Israel than
Arabs. America aids Israel to control her, and to brandish that control before
Arabs extracting concessions from them. The control over Israel gives America
great leverage in relations with every Arab country; aid to Israel is an
excellent investment. Not only the US, but other countries, too, realize that
and would ally themselves with Israel. In the show of absurd loyalty, Israel
sticks to America, but America sells her at every corner – for oil.
Russia cannot give Israel much aid, but can supply advanced weapons much
cheaper than America, and provide excellent support in the UN. Russia’s
military credibility among Arabs is much higher than America’s; Arabs don’t
hesitate terrorizing the American pawn, but would shrink from attacking
Russia’s client state.
There is also France, boiling with imperial ambitions but unable to vie the
Arab states away from America. Through an alliance with France, Israel can
extract diplomatic support and considerable aid from the EU.
China and India.
Israel pays with real concessions for the fictional American support. The US
needs to show the Arab clients its power over Israel, and kicks her around just
for fun of it: witness the squabble over a few dozen hamlets dubbed frightfully
“illegal outposts.” As if the Arab attacks on Israel from 1929 onwards have
anything to do with those hamlets erected as a protest against the Oslo
capitulation. American politicians sell Israel to placate Arabs, such as by
boosting the peace process after the Iraqi debacle. The Carter-Rice ilk uses
Israel to vindicate their silly theories, and Clinton pushed for the peace
process to cover his deviatory conduct. If not for US pressure, Israeli
governments won’t even think of giving the Arabs Judea and Samaria and
partitioning Jerusalem.
Incidentally, our tactical goals agree with a major aim of American
anti-Semites: divestment from Israel. For the utterly different reasons we, too
believe that Israel must abandon the US aid and live on her own. Financial
responsibility would signify the return to Israel’s fundamental political
doctrine: Only IDF is responsible for Israel’s safety. Israel doesn’t need
the Star Wars weapons to extinguish Palestinian terrorism; good old napalm would
do. Israel need not cutting-edge weapons against regular Arab armies: nuclear
bombs are good enough.
We have already tried relying on Assyria.
If, as the article says, “The suits against the PA now boil down to a contest between the foreign policy interests of the United States and the civil rights of Americans,” then the civil rights of Americans will lose. Anyone or any group who sides with Muslims is a Muslim or a Muslim group.
Who’s the terrorist?
laura the word croak could be changed to drop drad now!! pls…….
I wish ramsey clark would croak already.