Pretty amazing story in the New York Times today, Palestinian Authority Is Ordered to Post $10 Million Bond in Terror Case. I will expound when I have time. Read it.
“An administration which claims to be fighting terror is planning to weigh in favor of the terrorists. If our government actually came in favor of convicted terrorists, it would be a really sorry statement about the way our government treats terror.”
Kent Yalowitzhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/nyregion/palestinian-authority-is-ordered-to-post-10-million-bond-in-terror-case.html?_r=0
The Obama administration sides with terrorists and against the interests and lives of its own citizens as well as a United States federal jury's decision. Anybody surprised?
In a widely watched terrorism lawsuit that drew the attention of the Obama administration, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday that the Palestinian Authority would have to post $10 million and an additional $1 million monthly to appeal a huge damages award for its role in six terrorist attacks in Israel that had killed and injured Americans.
The bond amount was much lower than lawyers for the victims had sought and matched the amount that lawyers for the Palestinian Authority said in court on Monday that the defendants could pay.
Just two weeks ago, the Obama administration weighed in on the case, expressing concern in a submission to the judge that requiring too high a bond could cause economic and political harm to the Palestinian Authority and the broader peace process.
The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization in February were found liable in the attacks, which occurred between 2002 and 2004, after a lengthy civil trial brought under an antiterrorism law that provided for a tripling of the jury’s damages award of $218.5 million, for a total of $655.5 million.
The lawyer for the victims’ families, Mr. Yalowitz, originally asked that the Palestinian Authority be required to make payments of $30 million a month while pursuing an appeal, and on Monday he suggested that $20 million a month would be appropriate. Mr. Yalowitz said that the amount proposed by the defendants should “outrage” the court, given that the authority was still paying millions to convicted terrorists imprisoned in Israel. Another of the families’ lawyers, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, in a statement from her office in Israel, said, “This is a very serious blow to the terror victims who spent 11 years litigating” the case.
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| Sbarro bombing aftermath 2001 |
The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.
The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court.The verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial during which the jury heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more than 450 were injured.The plaintiffs also included the estates of four victims who had been killed in the attacks, which occurred on the street and at a crowded bus stop, inside a bus, and in a cafeteria on the campus of Hebrew University.
“It was a terrible thing to see,” one plaintiff, Robert Coulter Sr., 78, testified as he described watching a news report about the cafeteria bombing and realizing his 36-year-old daughter, a New Yorker on a business trip, was one of the victims.
“They brought a body bag out on the TV station, right on it, and went right down to where she was laying and I knew it was a girl, had blond hair,” Mr. Coulter recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s Janis.’ ”
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all sides.”
But citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and had made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.Palestinians plan to appeal the jury decision and ruling.
Upholding the verdict Monday, U.S. District Judge George Daniels rejected complaints from the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority that the trial inappropriately excluded evidence about the political and social context of the attacks.The case is "not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Daniels said from the bench.This kind of behavior is far too common with this administration, we apparently live in a time of great moral relativism, where the slider of what constitutes right and wrong is seemingly built on shifting sands. We aren't going to look at the past record of the Iranians because that was ten years ago and ancient history, everybody knows they lied, right. Ditto the Palestinians and Maalot, Munich, Achile Lauro, Merkaz Yeshiva and many more similar incidents.
Forget red lines and promises, it's a brave new world, everything now is about expedition and capitulation. This case is an outrage but I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this point.
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| Klinghoffer |
2 comments:
This is a nice pice of journalism. It has the facts right and expresses a clear viewpoint on the issues. Particularly regarding moral relativism which is very much a part of the entire business of statecraft. You are not obligated to be evenhanded in your opinion of the case but what this article does that I have not always seen in others here is that it expresses the known facts and the interpretation of those facts in a way that makes it possible to tell which is which. That is quite good and elevates this article above the sort of stuff often found in the blogosphere.
Blathering on he said: The thing I like the most about this article is its persuasiveness. It manages to combine outrage at the damage done to victims with a portrayal of politically motivated decisions that increase the insult and damage. That is really effective. From my biased point of view I think showing the human suffering of Jewish folk is more effective than joining in the general middle eastern rage process. Everyone there seems to hate everyone else and the various strains of rage seem to take over the debate. The 2000 year process of persecuting Jews has to be interrupted and I think most of the US population wants that to happen regardless of political affiliation. If the US can find it in itself to continue as the only country really working toward this end then everything should be done to support the effort. I prefer doing so as a response to the suffering and misery that has been caused by millennia of convenient political expedients rather than in response to a call to smite the bad guys even though I fully realize that the two imperatives are linked.
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