The last refuge of the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority is making an effort to avoid paying damages it incurred for fostering terror. The State Department is considering helping. Glenn Kessler reports in Palestinians Ask U.S. To Intervene in Suits Over Terrorist Attacks.

The State Department is considering supporting the Palestinian Authority in its quest to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments won by American victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel, according to Palestinian officials and defense lawyers involved in the cases.U.S. officials insist that no decision has been made regarding the complex litigation, which could force the Bush administration to choose between supporting compensation for victims of terrorism and bolstering the Palestinian government as the United States presses for a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The outrage here is that the PA continued to receive foreign aid despite the fact that its leaders were still tainted with terrorism. Now the PA is crying for relief for its own failure. (Actually “complicity” might be a better word.)

One thing is pretty clear, is that this is a last ditch effort by the PA to evade responsibility. The (pdf) original ruling against the PA dealt with the issue of “sovereign immunity.” The court decided that since the PA was not a state, it did not enjoy sovereign immunity. Later its non-status actually saved it when a judge ruled that funds belonging to the Palestine Monetary Authority could not be frozen on account that it was not the same entity as the defendant the Palestine National Authority. My guess is that now all the legal maneuvering has reached an end, so now the one protection left to the PA is the State Department.

In the past, the State Department has defended Iran against the lawsuit of Steven Flatow. So we can expect the State Department now to take the side of the terrorists rather than that of the victims.

The third paragraph is mistaken on a number of counts:

Testimony in Israeli courts has connected senior Palestinian leaders — such as the late Yasser Arafat — to specific terrorist attacks involved in the lawsuits. But Palestinian officials have argued that it makes no sense for the United States to be providing millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority while U.S. courts are threatening to bankrupt it.

The testimony was not in Israeli courts but as the document shows was offered in an American court. While the testimony did indeed tie Arafat to the terror, he was dropped as a plaintiff. That’s a shame because if his pilfered millions could be attached, there would be no need for the State Department to intervene. (But then those are located in France.) But the problem is that the foreign aid was given on the premise of changed behavior on the part of Arafat and his henchman. Since they didn’t change, it was given under false premises. It’s hard to have much sympathy.

Secretary of State Rice’s initial response to the pleas of the Palestinian Authority were originally admirable.

After the Ungar case, about $200,000 in two of the PLO mission’s bank accounts were frozen in 2005, a situation that Safieh called a “nightmare.” On June 18, 2005, then finance minister (and now prime minister) Salaam Fayyad wrote to Rice, urging State to intervene, saying that the Ungar lawsuit was a “serious obstacle” to effective Palestinian participation in peace talks and was inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy.Abbas also wrote to Rice in November 2006, after another court froze more than $100 million in retirement funds for Palestinian workers that were being managed in the United States.

Rice responded with a neutral letter. She noted that the Ungar case had gone all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to review it, so “the judgment is final and enforceable in United States courts.” She suggested that the Palestinian Authority explore “out of court solutions so as to avoid enforcement actions.”

I find it incredible that at every turn the Palestinian Authority asks for independence and at every turn it seeks to be excused for its failure to exercise its basic responsibilities. I hope that the State Department will be strong, but past experience shows that it will likely aid the terrorists.

It’s also interesting how terrorists and their supporters use law – that they flout when it suits them – to evade responsibilities of past actions but even to block investigation of their current activities.

UPDATE: I wished I’d thought of this when I first posted. There’s a famous definition of chutzpah: A man who kills both parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.

The PA’s plea that the United States bolster it and prospects for a “breakthrough” in peace talks by reversing the courts and ignoring its past support of terror, is nothing if not audacious.

In None Dare Call it Murder, blogging friend JoshuaPundit fills in a number of details, including a point I glossed over – the PA isn’t hurting for cash, no matter how much they claim they are.

PrariePundit has thoughts similar to mine (h/t larwyn):

The Palestinians are masters of avoiding responsibility for the acts of the terrorist they support and nurture. They set up several different groups to attack Israel while acting as if they are powerless to stop them. What they are asking the State Department to do is award this sham. In fact the State Department should be supporting these law suits which penetrate the maze put up by the Palestinians. To do otherwise is to support terrorism.

Surprisingly Andrew McCarthy (via memeorandum) agrees with the Palestinian Authority.

Exactly right! It makes absolutely no sense for the United States to be providing aid to a non-state entity dominated by parties pledged to the destruction of Israel, which represents a people who breed, support and even vote for terrorists when given the chance.

OK he agrees that it makes no sense to both aid the PA and punish them for terror. Somehow I don’t expect that the PA would agree with his conclusion though.

The problem here is not the judgments; it’s the aid.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.