The families of 20 Israeli terror victims have won a precedent-setting legal decision in the New York State Appellate Division (1st Dept.) in their case against the Bank of China (BOC). The Court affirmed that the civil action brought in 2008 by the Israeli victims of Palestinian rocket attacks and suicide bombings can proceed against the BOC in the United States.
The Appellate Division held that the trial court will apply Israeli law in hearing the case. The defendant had argued that Chinese law should apply as the BOC is headquartered in Beijing. Applying Israeli law, which differs from the Chinese law, would make it easier for the plaintiffs to prove that BOC officials had illegally violated banking regulations and U.S. criminal statutes by carrying out money transfers for Palestinian terror organizations.
The civil action, brought on behalf of the victims and family members of victims of terror attacks perpetrated between 2004 and 2007 in Israel, alleges that, starting in 2003, the BOC executed dozens of wire transfers for terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad totaling several million dollars. These transfers were initiated by the PIJ and Hamas leadership in Iran and Syria, were processed through BOC’s branches in the United States and were sent on to a BOC account in Beijing administered by a senior operative of Hamas and PIJ. From there, the funds were transferred to Hamas and PIJ leaders in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and used to carry out terrorist attacks.
Amnesty International was blasted on Wednesday by Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center for selecting “anti-Semite” Roger Waters, the former Pink Floyd bassist and a leader in efforts to culturally boycott Israel, to present it’s top humanitarian Ambassador of Conscience award.
“Once again, Amnesty International is signaling that its fight for human rights apparently does not extend to anti-Semitism,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement.
The Belgian Ministry of Education has been supplying primary school teachers with anti-Semitic material through the state-funded Special Committee for Remembrance Education, which provides teachers with ready-made templates for their history lessons, the Gatestone Institute reported Sept. 16.
The teaching material includes cartoons like “Never Again, Over Again” from political cartoonist Carlos Latuff, who is known for anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian motifs in his artwork. The cartoon, taught at to schoolchildren ages 6 -12, equates Palestinians to the Jews under Nazi tyranny.
Not for the first time, The Times has published what amounts to a call for the destruction of the Jewish state. The latest piece, which appears on the cover of the Sept. 15 Sunday Review section and is written by University of Pennsylvania professor Ian Lustick, argues the current state of Israel should be replaced by a unitary country that includes its neighbors in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The column is not all that different than an Op-Ed the newspaper published a few years ago by Muammar Qaddafi. And while that New York Times contributor is now remembered as a ranting madman who butchered his own people, and although Lustick is most definitely neither of those, the only real difference between their pieces is that Qaddafi’s Op-Ed calling for an end to Israel is less long-winded than Lustick’s 2431-word piece, is more coherent, and at least sounds more moderate.
“In his letter the president indicated that the US is ready to resolve the nuclear issue in a way that allows Iran to demonstrate that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
“The letter also conveyed the need to act with a sense of urgency to address this issue because, as we have long said, the window of opportunity for resolving this diplomatically is open, but it will not remain open indefinitely,” Carney said.
The head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission said: “The picture that the Iranian representatives are portraying regarding openness and transparency of their nuclear program… stands in sharp contradiction with Iran’s actual actions and the facts on the ground.”
The key issue was not whether Iran has “nominated new envoys, modified its diplomatic vocabulary… but whether it is addressing seriously and in a timely manner outstanding issues that have remained unresolved for too long,” Shaul Chorev told the annual meeting of the UN nuclear agency.
