Time after time the Palestinians try to evade responsibility for terrorism. Now they’ve been nailed in court and they’re still trying to evade justice:
A federal judge awarded the family a default judgment of $192.7 million in damages after the P.L.O. and the Palestinian Authority refused to defend the suit on the merits.
But now the Palestinians, holding themselves out as a partner in the Middle East peace process, have changed lawyers, and asked the judge for a second chance. The judge, Victor Marrero of Federal District Court in Manhattan, has agreed to set aside the judgment and give them that chance.
But there’s a catch. He is requiring the Palestinians to post a bond of $192.7 million so that if they lose again, the damages would be paid.
So Abbas and Fayyad have sworn that they can’t afford to pay the judgment. But this leads to another problem:
Another expert, Beth Van Schaack, an associate law professor at Santa Clara University, said that the legal process, if the Palestinians do participate fully, could allow an inquiry into Palestinian finances, and whether money went to support terrorism.
“The Abbas administration has gotten themselves in a little bit of a bind,†Professor Van Schaack said. “If they are claiming, ‘We can’t put up the bond because we don’t have the money,’ †she said, “that opens the door to do some level of discovery about money.â€
As Elder of Ziyon who has done more reporting on the subject than the NYT notes, the PA has been spending most of its budget in Gaza, effectively using those funds to help Hamas. (And yes, unfortunately, this is going on with Israel’s acquiescence.)
No wonder, then, that the attorney for the plaintiffs, David Strachman says:
Mr. Strachman argued in court papers that the descriptions of Palestinian finances had been “woefully incomplete and frankly disingenuous.â€
“The issue is: What assets do they have?†he told the court in July.
And where are they spending them?
UPDATE: I’d forgotten this item from two months ago:
The international community has paid out nearly a billion dollars in direct aid to the Palestinians in six months, officials of the International Donors’ Conference for the Palestinian State said here late Monday, while hitting out at Israeli restrictions on movement by Palestinians.
The Palestinians are receiving plenty of aid. The main question is what they’re doing with it.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Excellent post. Thanks for the update.
Cut off the Palis completely. If they have to work for a living, instead of living on international welfare, they probably won’t have time or energy for terrorism. If our fiends the Wahhabbis want to throw their money at the Palis then let them, if they can get it through to them in the face of the blockade Israel really should have on Paliwackistine, so long as the Palis insist on making war on Israel. I suspect that our fiends, who will not allow Palis to become subjects of His Wahhabbist Majesty no matter how long they live in the Wahhabbist Entity, will have other things to do with their money.
One thing I don’t get…we all realize that most of that money is being diverted to buy weapons. But, if the Arab’s hate Israel so much, why don’t they supply the Palestinian’s gratis and let the Pal’s spend the money to improve their lives a bit (which should make them more effective terrorists; not having to worry about food leaves more time for violence)? There is no doubt that the weapons will primarily be used to kill Jews; since that is the desire of the rest of the Arab world (and we know it is, as they say so repeatedly), why charge the folks who are fulfilling the desire?
The other Arabs hate and despise the Palis. That is why the Palis live off international welfare, almost all of it from the EU, the USA, and for that matter Israel. The Arabs aren’t going to send their hard-extorted money, earned from sales of oil found, pumped, refined and marketed by expat Westeners, to a bunch of parasitic Palis. If the Palis ever stopped fighting Israel they’d never see another penny from their “Brother Arabs” for any purpose whatsoever. That would also remove any reason for the EU and the others to send them money. And then there might be no money for the Pali top brass to embezzle. You can see why they don’t want to stop attacking Israel.