Cheney: Russia Arming Hezbollah Via Syria

Jerusalem – As talks between Israel and Syria continue, tensions continue to rise between the United States and Russia.

In a meeting between Vice President Dick Cheney and Israeli President Shimon Peres on Thursday, during a diplomatic-economic conference they both attended in Italy, Mr. Cheney accused Russia of arming worldwide terrorism.

“Russia has sold advanced weapons to regimes in Syria and Iran. Some of the Russian weapons sold to Damascus have been channeled to terrorist fighters in Lebanon and Iraq,” Mr. Cheney said.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah fielded the RPG-29 anti-tank grenade launcher against Israeli tanks with great success. The weapon is among Russia’s latest, compared with the older Soviet RPG-7, dating back to the 1960s, more commonly used by terror groups. According to reports, Hezbollah obtained the RPG-29s from Syria, which had in turn received them from Russia.

Mr. Cheney also referenced Russia’s recent invasion of Georgia and the tens of thousands of Georgians who had been displaced or killed by Russian forces.

“It’s unfortunately the case that Russia’s leaders regard the expansion of free governments and democratic values as a threat to their country’s own interests,” Mr. Cheney said of Russia antagonism toward Georgia’s pro-Western government.

Mr. Peres told Mr. Cheney about his meetings with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and said that he had gained the impression that Russia opposes Iran’s acquisition of nuclear arms.

“In the name of religious fundamentalism, Mr. Ahmadinejad is seeking to impose terrorism and religious hegemony upon the entire Middle East,” he said. “The United States and Europe must create a clear alternative to oil, which is the main funding source of worldwide terrorism.”

In an interview that he gave to the Sunday Times in London over the weekend, Mr. Peres said that he had advised Prime Minister Ehud Olmert not to attack Iran.

Mr. Peres added that Israel is determined to fight against terror by using advanced technology.

“War against the terrorist groups is not like war against armies,” Mr. Peres said. “A joint intelligence array of Israel and the moderate Arab states must be formed, with assistance from the United States and Europe, in order to provide an appropriate response to worldwide terrorism, whose major centers are located in the Middle East.”

For his part, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem made it clear over the weekend that Israel’s answer regarding the future border between the two countries would be key to peace.

In an interview with the London-based Arabic lauguage newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, published last Wednesday, Mr. Muallem referred to the six-point “statement of principles” his government had given the Turkish mediator during the talks in Istanbul.

It appears the Syrians are demanding a written Israeli commitment or public statement of its agreement to withdraw to border as it stood prior to the June 1967 Six-Day War. Consequently, the Syrians could once again position troops and mortars on the Golan Heights to once again pose a security challenge to Israel’s Upper Galilee region if they chose to do so. This remains a serious Israeli concern when it comes to discussions with Damascus.

“That is not a subject for discussion anymore, but rather a basis for the opening of direct negotiations,” Mr. Muallem said. As a result, the fifth round of talks will be “substantial and important” and will deal with this matter.

Syrian officials said over the weekend that full Syrian sovereignty over the Golan Heights is not subject to negotiation. As of now, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains entrenched in his position.

He has conditioned the holding of direct negotiations on having the United States accompany the talks. From his perspective, American support is essential, mainly for economic reasons. In order to end his increasing economic dependence upon Tehran, he needs American financial support.

In the past, Mr. Olmert contacted President George W. Bush, updating him Israel’s talks with Syria. However, the chances of an agreement being reached between Israel and Syria before Mr. Olmert ends his term are nil.

Report: US To Take Part In Israel-Syria Talks

The next round of talks between Israel and Syria will be held in Istanbul in about two weeks at the presence of a senior American delegate, according to another London-based Arabic language newspaper, al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Saturday.

According to the report, the American representative will act as an observer in the talks.

State officials denied the report on an American observer being sent to the talks. A source in Jerusalem said, “We are not aware of such a plan.”

A senior source in Damascus refused to address the report directly, telling the newspaper that “Syria is not dealing with the arrival of an American observer to the indirect talks.”

Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was Mr. Assad’s guest in Damascus on Thursday, in a visit which officially ended years of severed relations following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in which senior Syrian officials were implicated.

Mr. al-Assad stated during the meeting with the French president that the fifth round of Turkish-mediated talks with Israel would be postponed due to the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz. He resigned as the Israeli emissary to the talks at the end of July, when he heard that Mr. Olmert had announced that he intended to resign. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office awaits the opinion of its legal advisor and the attorney general as to whether Mr. Turbowicz could participate in the talks with Syria on a voluntary basis.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

Egyptian Intel Chief Grooming For Presidency

Jerusalem – The Middle East Newsline has confirmed that Egypt’s intelligence chief is considered in line to become the country’s next president.

Gen. Omar Suleiman, director of Egypt’s foreign intelligence service, has been described as a leading candidate to succeed President Hosni Mubarak.

Egyptian sources said the 73-year-old Gen. Suleiman was supported by Egypt’s powerful military, expected to play a major role approving any successor to the 80-year-old Mr. Mubarak.

“Suleiman is not Mubarak’s candidate, but he is certainly the military’s man and that means a lot,” an Egyptian source said. “Remember, this is Egypt not Syria, where one family controls everything.”

Some Egyptian sources and analysts raise the prospect that Mr. Suleiman would either become president or vice president in a post-Mubarak Egypt.

For his part, Mr. Mubarak, in power since the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, had been regarded as promoting his 44-year-old son, Gamal, as president.

However, the Mubarak regime has also raised Gen. Suleiman’s stature.

The general conducts much of Egypt’s foreign policy, particularly with the Hamas regime in the neighboring Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority and Sudan.

Gen. Suleiman also serves as a Mubarak envoy to the United States.

Mr. Dia’a Rashwan, a political analyst with state-owned Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, has asserted that the military has already selected Gen. Suleiman to succeed Mr. Mubarak.

Mr. Mubarak has increasingly appreciated the advice of Gen. Suleiman, a former infantry officer. They said Gen. Suleiman saved Mr. Mubarak’s life in 1995 when he persuaded the president to ride in an armored limousine during a visit to Ethiopia. Mr. Mubarak’s motorcade was attacked but the president was not injured.

“Suleiman has the image of a respected law-and-order guy,” said Amr Hamzawy, an Egyptian political scientist and analyst for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Los Angeles Times. “He represents stability in a time of rising social tension.”

Mr. Suleiman has also been a quiet but instrumental force in monitoring

Islamic opposition. Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members have been arrested and imprisoned in 2008, the latest on July 21 when 39 members were detained in the Nile Delta.

Reliable sources in Egypt’s ruling elite said the younger Mubarak, secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party, has encountered suspicion by both young Egyptians as well as the Old Guard in the government. They said Gamal’s career has been characterized by an absence of a military or foreign policy record.

Yet there is another intrigue that hovers over Gamal Mubarak. As The Bulletin reported in July 2006, the younger Mubarak visited Beirut and gave full support to the massive Hezbollah missile attacks on Israel, which rattled Egyptian-Israeli relation.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

UNESCO, PLO Recognize Jerusalem As An Arab Capital

Contrary to a common assumption that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its administrative arm, the Palestinian Authority (PA), demand “East Jerusalem” as a future capital for a nation state of Palestine, they actually want all of Jerusalem.

This year, what some are seeing as a symbolic step toward this aim was decidedly taken.

In tandem with United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the PA and PLO have decided to recognize Jerusalem as “the capital of Arab culture” for 2009.

UNESCO is working with Palestinian Authority officials and key Israeli Arab figures in Israel to organize celebrations and turn them into a huge event against what they describe as the Israeli occupation of “Holy Jerusalem.”

As with everything in the Holy Land, their reasons have history behind them.

The Palestinians demand stems from the fact that 16 neighborhoods in West Jerusalem are constructed in place of pre-1948 Arab neighborhoods from which the Arabs fled during the 1948 war.

The consistent term used today in the Arabic language for the Jerusalem aspirations of the Palestinians is “al-Quds A Sharif” – holy Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem – not only East Jerusalem

Since 1996, the title “capital of Arab culture” has been accorded by the Arab bloc in UNESCO to one of the capitals in the Arab world. This year, for example, Damascus, capital of Syria, was given the coveted title, and last year Algiers, capital of Algeria, received it. Other cities that received the title over the years were Cairo, Tunis, Amman, Beirut and Khartoum.

Jerusalem is the latest chosen to bear the prestigious title and now PA officials and prominent leaders the Arab population in Israel are preparing to turn the title into a symbol of the battle against Israeli control of Jerusalem.

The basis for cooperation between the PA and members of the Arab population in Israel was laid over the weekend in Shfaram, where a meeting took place between PA representatives and the Arab population, to discussion preparations for the events associated with the title to be granted to Jerusalem.

One of the participants at the meeting with the PA representatives was Amir Mahoul, the chairman of Ittijah-the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, the umbrella organization of the Arab NPOs in Israel and the chairman of a “committee for the defense of freedoms.”

Mr. Mahoul, said that he believed that Israel would try to create difficulties for the events that will take place in the framework of the declaration that “the capital of Arab culture” is Jerusalem.

“We expect Israel will make things difficult for us and this is a fact that we will take into account, and over which we will battle the Israeli occupation authorities,” said Mr. Mahoul.

Mr. Mahoul stressed that he and the PA plan to turn the events associated with the title into a campaign against the occupation of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. “This will be an event symbolizing the battle against the occupation, beyond the historical and cultural value of Jerusalem,” he explained. “We will stress that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestinian-Arab culture, which is under occupation, and Israel should realize that every time there is a battle over Jerusalem, it loses.”

In contrast to Mr. Mahoul, the secretary general of Mada, the Arab Democratic Party Mahmoud Mawasi, said that the purpose of the events was to raise awareness of the Arabic and Islamic past of Jerusalem and not necessarily to create friction with the Israeli establishment. “We don’t want to clash with the establishment,” he said, “rather our intention is to celebrate the fact that Jerusalem was for many years the center of Arab and Islamic culture.”

Although it is widely assumed that the Western nations recognize Israel’s sovereignty in Western Jerusalem, that assumption is not correct. No member state of the United Nations maintains an embassy in Jerusalem. Every nation in the world, except for Israel, list birth certificates of their nationals who were born in Jerusalem as having been born in Jerusalem, with no listing of the country of birth. That includes the United States.

This ran in the Phila.Bulletin in September 4th, 2008

International Bulletins

Summit In Damascus To Discuss Negotiations With Israel

The indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria are expanding the circle of partners. Syrian President Bashar Assad will convene a four-way summit today with the participation of the leaders of France, Turkey and Qatar, in order to discuss his indirect talks with the Olmert government. This was stated Tuesday night by unofficial sources in the Syrian leadership.

The four leaders who will convene in Damascus are French President Nicolas Sarkozy; Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani; and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. News agencies in Syria noted on Tuesday at the symbolic nature of the summit: It will bring together the acting president of the Arab League, Syria; with the acting president of the European Union, France; and the acting president of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Qatar. According to reports from Damascus, the four leaders will also discuss the Iranian nuclear crisis and the volatile situation in Lebanon.

Israeli Missiles Sold To India For About $260 Million

After long months of competition with other systems and prolonged negotiations, India ordered from Israel’s Rafael Spyder air defense systems valued at $260 million. This is a system that makes use of the company’s two air-to-air missiles, the heat-guided Python 5 and the radar-guided Derby. The two were converted for launching from a ground launcher installed on a truck. The system also includes a radar system made by Israel Aircraft Industries.

©The Bulletin 2008

Dutch Intelligence Works With US Against Iran

The Middle East Newsline has confirmed that the Netherlands has been working with the United States to gather intelligence on Iran’s military programs.

A Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, had reported the Netherlands has identified a range of military and industrial targets for a U.S. attack on Iran. De Telegraaf said the Dutch AIVD intelligence agency withdrew a leading agent from Iran amid an assessment that the United States would conduct a major air strike over the next few weeks.

“The United States was thought to be making a decision within weeks to attack Iran with unmanned aircraft,” the newspaper said. Western intelligence sources said the report appeared to be part of a psychological campaign against Iran. But the sources said the CIA has been working with several NATO and other intelligence agencies in an effort to determine Iranian nuclear and strategic targets.

De Telegraaf said AIVD infiltrated Iran’s defense industry and hampered development projects. The newspaper said the Dutch agency shared data on Iranian programs with the CIA.

“The operation, described as extremely successful, was halted recently in connection with plans for an impending U.S. air attack on Iran,” De Telegraaf said. “Targets connected to the Dutch espionage operation would also be bombed. Information from the AIVD operation has in recent years been shared with the CIA.”

The report was published amid renewed Iranian threats to retaliate against any Israeli or U.S. strike. In late August, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Masaoud Jazayeri warned that any attack on Iran would trigger what he termed World War III.

“The exorbitant demands of U.S. leaders and world Zionism, which have created the current situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Caucasus, are gradually directing the world to the brink,” Gen. Jazayeri said.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

UNESCO, PLO Recognize Jerusalem As An Arab Capital

Jerusalem – Contrary to a common assumption that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its administrative arm, the Palestinian Authority (PA), demand “East Jerusalem” as a future capital for a nation state of Palestine, they actually want all of Jerusalem.

This year, what some are seeing as a symbolic step toward this aim was decidedly taken.

In tandem with United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the PA and PLO have decided to recognize Jerusalem as “the capital of Arab culture” for 2009.

UNESCO is working with Palestinian Authority officials and key Israeli Arab figures in Israel to organize celebrations and turn them into a huge event against what they describe as the Israeli occupation of “Holy Jerusalem.”

As with everything in the Holy Land, their reasons have history behind them.

The Palestinians demand stems from the fact that 16 neighborhoods in West Jerusalem are constructed in place of pre-1948 Arab neighborhoods from which the Arabs fled during the 1948 war.

The consistent term used today in the Arabic language for the Jerusalem aspirations of the Palestinians is “al-Quds A Sharif” – holy Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem – not only East Jerusalem

Since 1996, the title “capital of Arab culture” has been accorded by the Arab bloc in UNESCO to one of the capitals in the Arab world. This year, for example, Damascus, capital of Syria, was given the coveted title, and last year Algiers, capital of Algeria, received it. Other cities that received the title over the years were Cairo, Tunis, Amman, Beirut and Khartoum.

Jerusalem is the latest chosen to bear the prestigious title and now PA officials and prominent leaders the Arab population in Israel are preparing to turn the title into a symbol of the battle against Israeli control of Jerusalem.

The basis for cooperation between the PA and members of the Arab population in Israel was laid over the weekend in Shfaram, where a meeting took place between PA representatives and the Arab population, to discussion preparations for the events associated with the title to be granted to Jerusalem.

One of the participants at the meeting with the PA representatives was Amir Mahoul, the chairman of Ittijah-the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, the umbrella organization of the Arab NPOs in Israel and the chairman of a “committee for the defense of freedoms.”

Mr. Mahoul, said that he believed that Israel would try to create difficulties for the events that will take place in the framework of the declaration that “the capital of Arab culture” is Jerusalem.

“We expect Israel will make things difficult for us and this is a fact that we will take into account, and over which we will battle the Israeli occupation authorities,” said Mr. Mahoul.

Mr. Mahoul stressed that he and the PA plan to turn the events associated with the title into a campaign against the occupation of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. “This will be an event symbolizing the battle against the occupation, beyond the historical and cultural value of Jerusalem,” he explained. “We will stress that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestinian-Arab culture, which is under occupation, and Israel should realize that every time there is a battle over Jerusalem, it loses.”

In contrast to Mr. Mahoul, the secretary general of Mada, the Arab Democratic Party Mahmoud Mawasi, said that the purpose of the events was to raise awareness of the Arabic and Islamic past of Jerusalem and not necessarily to create friction with the Israeli establishment. “We don’t want to clash with the establishment,” he said, “rather our intention is to celebrate the fact that Jerusalem was for many years the center of Arab and Islamic culture.”

Although it is widely assumed that the Western nations recognize Israel’s sovereignty in Western Jerusalem, that assumption is not correct. No member state of the United Nations maintains an embassy in Jerusalem. Every nation in the world, except for Israel, list birth certificates of their nationals who were born in Jerusalem as having been born in Jerusalem, with no listing of the country of birth. That includes the United States.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008

Palestinian Authority Suffers Stinging Lawsuit Defeat

The Jerusalem District Court handed down a precedent-setting ruling yesterday when it enjoined the Palestinian Authority to pay more than $116 million in damages to the surviving family of Yaron and Efrat Unger, who were murdered in a terror attack about 12 years ago.

The Ungers were attacked and killed by a terror cell while they were driving in their car near Beit Shemesh. They are survived by two orphans, Dvir, who was 2 at the time, and Yishai, who was 9 months old at the time. Yishai just celebrated his bar mitzvah just this past Thursday.

The grandparents of the two children, who were named their legal guardians, sued the Palestinian Authority and the PLO in the U.S., since the late Yaron was an American citizen. Four years ago, a federal court first ruled that the Palestinian Authority had to the aforementioned $116 million-plus in damages to the family. However, after that sum was not paid as instructed, the plaintiffs brought the matter before an Israeli court and sought to have the court rule that the American ruling was enforceable in Israel.

The Palestinian Authority and the PLO vehemently opposed the motion and argued, inter alia, against the dangerous precedent that would be set and which was liable to bring about the Palestinian Authority’s financial collapse and damage the possibility of achieving a comprehensive international arrangement. The plaintiffs, conversely, argued that Israel was currently withholding some $500 million of PA funds, and the PA had not collapsed as a result thereof.

After the arguments were presented, Judge Aharon Farkash ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and declared the U.S. federal court ruling to be enforceable in Israel. The court also ruled that the temporary liens that were placed on NIS 100 million of PA funds by Israel would remain valid pending the execution of the court ruling. Judge Farkash also enjoined the PA to pay court costs.

Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, the head of Shurat HaDin, which represents dozens of terror victims in court cases, welcomed the ruling. “What this means is that justice is borderless,” said Ms. Darshan-Leitner, “and the ruling can be enacted anywhere in the world as long as it is just.”

There are currently some 150 damages suits against the Palestinian Authority that are still pending in Israeli courts. The sum being demanded in damages in all those cases together comes to billions of shekels. Even though some of those suits were filed almost a decade ago, to date not a single ruling has been handed down that has obliged damages to be paid, and the cases have dragged out due to legal arguments about the PA’s immunity.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in principle that the question of the PA’s immunity needed to be examined in each case individually.

Grandmother: Why Did It Take Three Years?

“I’m pleased with the district court’s ruling but am stunned that it was necessary to drag out this issue in court for three years,” said yesterday Yehudit Dasberg, Dvir and Yishai Unger’s grandmother.

“The other side pulled every trick possible in order to drag this thing out, and I am really glad that its efforts failed,” Ms. Dasberg added. “I still don’t understand why when there is such a reasonable and clear ruling by a court in the United States it was necessary to debate [the issue] for three years in an Israeli court.”

The Ungers were murdered on June 9, 1996 while they were driving on the road between Kiryat Malachi and Beit Shemesh. Their infant son, Yishai, was sleeping in the back seat and wasn’t hurt. Subsequently, he and his older brother Dvir were sent to live with their grandparents, Yehudit and Uri Dasberg, in Alon Shvut, a Jerusalem subur.

This piece ran in the Philadelphia Bulletin on September 3rd, 2008

Israel Prepares For Radiation Bomb

The Middle East Newsline has confirmed that Israel’s military has been preparing for a radiation strike by Hezbollah or Palestinian groups. The Israeli military has determined that Iran and Syria were helping insurgency groups assemble radiation bombs in an attempt to conduct a mass-casualty attack. They said the radioactive material could be inserted into a rocket, missile or placed aboard an unmanned aerial vehicle.

“Both Iran and Syria have accumulated arsenals of radiation material that could be used in dirty bombs,” an Israeli military official confirmed.

Yesterday, the Israeli Defense Ministry launched an exercise meant to respond to a radiation strike in Tel Aviv. Officials said this was the first such Israeli exercise and envisioned thousands of casualties.

“This is the first time that all of the country’s relevant authorities will be tested in real time on how to respond to a dirty bomb and not a missile attack,” a defense official told the Israeli media. “There are a number of scenarios that are all extreme. They include the contamination of our water system as well as the detonation of a suitcase carrying radioactive material.”

Iran and Syria are believed to be preparing squads to smuggle radiation, chemical or biological weapons for attacks against Israel. They said such an attack could serve as retaliation for any Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“A dirty bomb would have no fingerprints and would be just as damaging as a missile strike by either Iran or Syria,” another official said. “You could smuggle such a bomb anywhere.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com.

©The Bulletin 2008

Hezbollah Fails In Kidnapping Attempts

Israel recently prevented five to seven Hezbollah attempts to kidnap Israeli businesspeople and harm Israeli emissaries abroad.

A high-ranking Israeli security official told the Israeli media that: “There was a Hezbollah effort, with Iranian support, to perpetrate kidnap attacks as soon as possible in retaliation for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh. Hezbollah goes from country to country looking for Israeli prey.”

It has been learned that kidnappings were prevented on at least three continents: West Africa, North and South America and Asia, where Hezbollah received assistance from Lebanese Shiite communities. The attacks were prevented in cooperation with foreign intelligence agents, who are aware of Hezbollah’s and Iran’s intent to retaliate.

The Israeli security establishment warned several other Israeli businesspeople that fly abroad frequently. A high-ranking security source said this week, “We assume that they are planning to kidnap them, but it is definitely likely that there are also intentions to assassinate Israelis, and we are on top of this situation as well.”

The Israeli security official added, “Quite a few Israeli businesspeople owe their lives and their freedom to this operation, which was intended to prevent the retaliation. This preventive effort depends on the cooperation we receive from the foreign intelligence agencies. We can certainly say that there is such cooperation.”

Recently, Hezbollah sleeper cells tried to strike at Jewish and Israeli institutions in Canada and even had the Israeli embassy in Ottawa under surveillance. Canadian intelligence thwarted these attacks at the last minute.

In addition, in recent months, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Israeli intelligence ordered the evacuation of official Israeli emissaries and their families from several sensitive countries for security reasons. The emissaries were permitted to return to the countries shortly thereafter.

Israeli security officials said last night that Israel was just as concerned over Hamas’ intentions to kidnap soldiers in order to increase its bargaining power and get its prisoners released. Hamas assumes that if it succeeds in kidnapping another soldier, it will be able to demand double or triple the price that they are demanding for Gilad Shalit, the one Israeli soldier in Hamas captivity.

Only weeks ago the Israel Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a severe worldwide warning of Hezbollah’s intentions to harm Israelis and to kidnap Israelis abroad, particularly businesspeople. The Counter-Terrorism Bureau called on Israelis to be more alert to any unusual occurrences and to reject any unsolicited approaches. Tourists are being asked to refrain from staying in remote places, particularly at night.

The regions considered to be particularly dangerous are the border triangle between Venezuela, Paraguay, Brazil and Western Africa. It is believed that Hezbollah’s section in charge of terror attacks abroad, which Mr. Mughniyeh himself directed until his death, were behind the planned attacks.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com.

©The Bulletin 2008

Palestinian Authority Suffers Stinging Lawsuit Defeat

The Jerusalem District Court handed down a precedent-setting ruling yesterday when it enjoined the Palestinian Authority to pay more than $116 million in damages to the surviving family of Yaron and Efrat Unger, who were murdered in a terror attack about 12 years ago.

The Ungers were attacked and killed by a terror cell while they were driving in their car near Beit Shemesh. They are survived by two orphans, Dvir, who was 2 at the time, and Yishai, who was 9 months old at the time. Yishai just celebrated his bar mitzvah just this past Thursday.

The grandparents of the two children, who were named their legal guardians, sued the Palestinian Authority and the PLO in the U.S., since the late Yaron was an American citizen. Four years ago, a federal court first ruled that the Palestinian Authority had to the aforementioned $116 million-plus in damages to the family. However, after that sum was not paid as instructed, the plaintiffs brought the matter before an Israeli court and sought to have the court rule that the American ruling was enforceable in Israel.

The Palestinian Authority and the PLO vehemently opposed the motion and argued, inter alia, against the dangerous precedent that would be set and which was liable to bring about the Palestinian Authority’s financial collapse and damage the possibility of achieving a comprehensive international arrangement. The plaintiffs, conversely, argued that Israel was currently withholding some $500 million of PA funds, and the PA had not collapsed as a result thereof.

After the arguments were presented, Judge Aharon Farkash ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and declared the U.S. federal court ruling to be enforceable in Israel. The court also ruled that the temporary liens that were placed on NIS 100 million of PA funds by Israel would remain valid pending the execution of the court ruling. Judge Farkash also enjoined the PA to pay court costs.

Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, the head of Shurat HaDin, which represents dozens of terror victims in court cases, welcomed the ruling. “What this means is that justice is borderless,” said Ms. Darshan-Leitner, “and the ruling can be enacted anywhere in the world as long as it is just.”

There are currently some 150 damages suits against the Palestinian Authority that are still pending in Israeli courts. The sum being demanded in damages in all those cases together comes to billions of shekels. Even though some of those suits were filed almost a decade ago, to date not a single ruling has been handed down that has obliged damages to be paid, and the cases have dragged out due to legal arguments about the PA’s immunity. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in principle that the question of the PA’s immunity needed to be examined in each case individually.

Grandmother: Why Did It Take Three Years?

“I’m pleased with the district court’s ruling but am stunned that it was necessary to drag out this issue in court for three years,” said yesterday Yehudit Dasberg, Dvir and Yishai Unger’s grandmother.

“The other side pulled every trick possible in order to drag this thing out, and I am really glad that its efforts failed,” Ms. Dasberg added. “I still don’t understand why when there is such a reasonable and clear ruling by a court in the United States it was necessary to debate [the issue] for three years in an Israeli court.”

The Ungers were murdered on June 9, 1996 while they were driving on the road between Kiryat Malachi and Beit Shemesh. Their infant son, Yishai, was sleeping in the back seat and wasn’t hurt. Subsequently, he and his older brother Dvir were sent to live with their grandparents, Yehudit and Uri Dasberg, in Alon Shvut, a Jerusalem suburb.

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008