Palestinian Authority's US assets are frozen

From the Boston Globe, with thanks to Hugh Fitzgerald.

WASHINGTON -- A Rhode Island lawyer trying to collect a $116 million terrorism judgment against the Palestinian Authority has obtained a court-ordered freeze on all its US-based assets, severely limiting most Palestinian economic and diplomatic activities in the United States at a critical moment for the fledgling government.
The frozen assets include US holdings in a $1.3 billion Palestinian investment fund meant to finance economic development as well as bank accounts used to pay Palestinian representatives in Washington, according to lawyers and court documents filed in Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and New York. Also frozen are about $30 million in assets from the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the Palestinian equivalent of the US Federal Reserve.

Providence attorney David Strachman, who is representing the orphaned children of a couple killed in Israel by Palestinian militants, has also initiated a court action to seize and sell the Palestinian-owned building in New York that serves as the Palestine Liberation Organization observer mission to the United Nations.

The aggressive collection effort comes as the Palestinian Authority is struggling to create economic opportunity and set up a viable government. Now, Palestinian officials say, the unpaid claim in the Rhode Island court, resulting from a 2004 ruling, threatens to complicate their efforts to become a credible emerging state.

But Strachman said if the Palestinian government wants to show the world that it is turning over a new leaf, it must obey the court's judgment.

''If you are a responsible party or entity or political organization, at the end of the day, you pay your judgment," Strachman said in a telephone interview from Israel, where he was on vacation. ''They have very brazenly refused to pay."

The case puts the Bush administration in the delicate position of giving financial aid and political support to an entity that has refused to obey a US federal court order to pay terrorism victims...

''For the administration, it's difficult," said one Palestinian official speaking from Gaza, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case. ''Right now, they are trying to figure out a creative way to deal with it without embarrassing anyone."

Palestinian officials have refused to pay the claim, arguing that doing so would be a politically dangerous admission of responsibility for terrorist acts by militants that the Palestinian Authority contends it does not control. Three officials interviewed by telephone from Gaza and the West Bank say they fear setting a precedent that would spur an avalanche of lawsuits that could bankrupt the new government. At least four other lawsuits involving deaths of US citizens in Palestinian attacks are pending in US courts...

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11 Comments

DCWatson | August 30, 2005 2:13 PM

Can we get a shout out from CAIR on this?

About this Islamophobe lawyer?

I can hear these skunks now.

Unjust action against the poor Palestinians

War against Islam

More anti-Muslim activity

A hate crime against Palestinians

Islamophobic American legal system

Blah Blah Blah.......Yadda Yadda Yadda

special_guest | August 30, 2005 2:28 PM

$1.3 billion here, $116 million there, $30 million over here. The "Palestinians" sure have some interesting assets for such poor starving downtrodden masses. And that's not even counting Suha Arafat's massive shoe collection.

Add it all up and this might start to put a crimp in their Kassam rocket production levels. This Rhode Island lawyer puts all those lawyer jokes to shame. Nice job.

"The case puts the Bush administration in the delicate position of giving financial aid and political support to an entity that has refused to obey a US federal court order to pay terrorism victims..."

Never mind the delicate position of supporting organizations who commit terrorist acts. Well, I'm sure they'll figure out a creative way to do it without embarrassing anyone. They always do.

bj | August 30, 2005 2:32 PM

Yahooooo! Something right for a change!

It was that Jooooooo lawyer what done it, right? Many thanks, Mr. S. for posting this.

albion | August 30, 2005 4:05 PM

Its not often a story on JW / DW makes me smile...I shall savour the moment.

Does anyone know how much the PLO building in NY is going for?

Shall we start a kitty? (group savings plan)

dgene | August 30, 2005 5:45 PM

Here be the kind of story to warm the cockles of me heart.

The scum in Gazastan, 70% of whom are in "refugee
camps", that is , on U.N. welfare, should be made to pay from whatever assets are found wherever.

Take these bums for Allah off welfare and let them earn an honest day's pay, and not on their wive's backs.

No pay for Alawi, Erakat and the other lying shills for the PA and Islam.

Only four more actions awaiting you say ?

Pity.

dolphin | August 30, 2005 7:33 PM

Expect CAIR condemning this 'outrageous act of racism' as early as tomorrow. I'll laugh if I turn out to be right.

-----------------------------
dolphin, CAGE co-founder.
http://www.acage.org

Hugh | August 30, 2005 8:46 PM

Who says the tort bar needs reform? If the pusillanimous government will not deal properly with these people, then let the lawyers do it. Strachmann is one example. Squeeze money out of the PLO/PA, and meanwhile, Congress should resist all efforts to pay still more jizya (where's that $6 billon that went missing after Arafat died -- we, the taxpayers, want an accounting please), to the "Palestinians" with their Lesser Jihad against Israel or the Egyptians, Pakistanis and others who are inevitably participants, in varied ways, in the Greater Jihad against everyone else.

But what one is really waiting for is that lawsuit -- or has it been stopped -- by Joel Motley against Saudi Arabia, brought on behalf of the victims of 9/11. Now that's a lawsuit, for a trillion or so, that seems to me to be something everyone in the country should support. Who wants to volunteer to do the xeroxing? Who wants to do extra research on Lexis or WestLaw? Who wants to help take that money that feeds the Jihad back, in fair ways, and foul?

malach | August 30, 2005 8:50 PM

NOW FOR THE PRECISE NEWS:

This was an American citizen, Jewish, and his wife, Jewish, killed by Hamas, a terrorist organization recognized as such by the US State Department, and either actively worked with or ignored by the "Palestinian Authority", an entity established by criminals which holds sway over a large number of Arabs (overwhelmingly Muslim) by force and lies. The "Palestinian Authority" does not have legitimate authority but instead simply claims "authority" based on lies, reference for example UN decisions which the "PA" ignores. The "PA" does not have "sovereign immunity" as it is not a recognized state. Too bad if it can't pay its bills, how many legitimate entities recognized under law have been in the same position.

Posted under the US Fair Use Doctrine pursuant to US copyright laws:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2005/08/30/palestinian_assets_in_us_frozen_by_judge_in_terror_lawsuit/

Palestinian assets in U.S. frozen by judge in terror lawsuit

By Michelle R. Smith, Associated Press Writer | August 30, 2005

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --The Palestinian Authority's assets in the United States have been frozen after it failed to pay a $116 million judgment in a federal lawsuit brought by relatives of a couple killed by Palestinian terrorists in Israel.

The U.S. District Court in Rhode Island last year ordered the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to pay the money to several relatives of Yaron and Efrat Ungar. The Ungars were killed in June 1996 by gunmen with the Palestinian group Hamas.

The suit, filed in Rhode Island in 2000, alleged that the Palestinian Authority and PLO provided a safe haven and operational base for Hamas. Yaron Ungar was an American citizen, and his relatives live in Israel.

The Palestinian Authority did not oppose the suit, arguing that it has sovereign immunity under international law and to appear in court would compromise that sovereignty, said Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general who is representing the Palestinians.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year upheld the default decision, and the Palestinians have until October to ask the Supreme Court for a review.

In April, David Strachman, the lawyer for the Ungars' relatives, asked the court to freeze any assets held in the United States by the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. He said they were liquidating their investments, placing them out of reach of American courts should the judgment stand....

Rahman said he has been unable to pay the nine employees in his office for the past three months. The monthly budget for the office is about $50,000, he said.

"I was told the State Department is studying ways in which they will help and I would hope that would be very soon," he said....

----

AP Diplomatic Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report from Washington.

webo | August 30, 2005 10:11 PM

A billion here, a bilion there. Pretty soon you're talking about real money!

Is there anyone in the goverment that can see through the silly charade that the arabs in palestine are playing?

CJK | August 31, 2005 2:17 PM

Let the apartheid in Palestine continue. America and Israel expect Palestinians to jump through hoops and then deny them their own money like this. Absurd.

special_guest | September 1, 2005 2:04 PM

CJK said "...their own money..."

$1.3 billion? They must've sold alot of olives.

The only hoops the "Palestinians" jump through are flaming hoops at their terrorist training camps.

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