Jordan's Arab Bank Found Liable for Funding Hamas Terrorist Attacks

Bloomberg News reported this afternoon that the Arab Bank, the biggest lender in Jordan and one of the largest in the Middle East, has been found liable for helping "Hamas militants carry out a wave of violence in Israel that killed and wounded hundreds of Americans."

The Amman-based lender did business with more than 150 Hamas leaders and operatives in the early 2000s, helping finance about two dozen suicide bombings and other attacks, jurors decided today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

The case highlights the ways banks can play a role in funding terrorist groups and the extent to which they can be held responsible for monitoring their customers, even those who aren’t on government lists of terrorists. Credit Lyonnais SA and Bank of China Ltd. are facing similar cases in the U.S., alleging they served as conduits for terrorism financing.

The plaintiffs were nearly 300 Americans who were victims or were related to victims of Hamas attacks.

 

The New York Times adds:

The burden of proof was high: The plaintiffs had to prove that the terrorist attacks were indeed conducted by Hamas, and that the bank’s support of Hamas was the “proximate cause” of the events. In addition, the plaintiffs had to demonstrate that their injuries were “reasonably foreseeable” as a consequence of the bank’s acts.

After 10 years of litigation and a five-week trial, the jury apparently found that the plaintiffs met the legal threshold, and ruled that the bank was liable. A separate hearing will be held to determine damages.

The verdict in the trial, which started in August, "was the first against a bank on civil claims of violating the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, making the verdict a potential industry landmark," according to Bloomberg.

Cross posted at The Tower. Reprinted by permission.

Breaking: Israel Uncovers Hamas Plot to Overthrow Palestinian Authority in West Bank

 

By the Tower staff writers

Hamas was plotting to start a third intifada and overthrow the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank according to information just cleared for public release by the Shin Bet and the IDF.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The end goal was to destabilize the Palestinian territories and use the instability to carry out a military coup, overthrowing the government of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Hamas infrastructure relied on support from cells in neighboring Jordan, and on couriers who delivered terrorist finances, totaling at least two million shekels, which were used to purchase weapons and homes that were used as hideouts, according to the investigation.

The Shin Bet said that the investigation began in May during which time Israel has arrested over 90 suspects and is planning to indict 70 of them. The center of the investigation is Riad Nasser who was appointed by Turkey based Hamas operative, Saleh al-Arouri to lead the effort.

The plot was spread across 46 Palestinian cities and villages and was centered in Ramallah.

"This infrastructure stretched from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south. It is one the biggest we've seen in Judea and Samaria since Hamas's formation in 1987," a senior Shin Bet source, responsible for securing the Jerusalem district, told reporters on Monday. "They planned to carry out a coup and topple the Palestinian Authority," he added.

Ynet has more details:

Palestinian engineering and chemistry students were recruited for the operation. One of the most notable detainees holds a doctorate in computer science – he was recruited in Malaysia and trained in encryption and cyber-attacks.

"The discovery of the infrastructure attests to the great danger posed by Hamas' headquarters abroad given its strategic plan to collapse the Palestinian Authority," said the Shin Bet.

At the end of May, the Shin Bet arrested Mahmoud Toameh a leading financier of Hamas' operations. At the time of his arrest Toameh explained to authorities how Hamas "funds its activities, especially in the absence of funding from Iran." Toameh admitted that Hamas used "real estate deals as a means of transferring money from abroad."

 

Discovery of this plot confirms fears that Hamas, in agreeing to a unity government with Fatah, was seeking to emulate the "Hezbollah model" in the West Bank as Ha'aretz reported in May, "A Hamas source has said the model being planned for the new Palestinian unity government is that of Hezbollah in Lebanon, in which the organization is a government party that has shed responsibility for routine matters but maintains an independent military."

Reposted courtesy of The Tower

While Gazans Suffer in Poverty, Leaders of Hamas Live in Luxury

By The Tower Staff Writers

Ynet reported on Tuesday about the wealth accumulated by the leaders of Hamas, in contrast to the poverty suffered by most residents of Gaza.

The Ynet article focuses first on Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Someone who has benefitted financially is the former Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. Before 2006 and Hamas' shocking electoral win and subsequent dominance of the Palestinian government , 51-year-old Haniyeh was not considered a senior figure in Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But according to reports in the past few years, Haniyeh's new-found senior status has allowed him to become a millionaire. This is an unusual feat, given that he was born to a refugee family in the al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza.

In 2010, Egyptian magazine Rose al-Yusuf reported that Haniyeh paid for $4 million for a 2,500msq parcel of land area in Rimal, a tony beachfront neighborhood of Gaza City. To avoid embarrassment, the land was registered in the name of the husband of Haniyeh's daughter. Since then, there have been reports that Haniyeh has purchased several homes in the Gaza Strip, registered in the names of his children - no hardship, as he has 13 of them.

The report mentions that Haniyeh's son was arrested on the Gaza-Egypt border with millions in cash on hand.

But Haniyeh is not alone. Following the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and coinciding with the brief rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, "Gaza's market for luxury villas costing at least a million dollars was booming, most purchased by people associated with the establishment of Hamas."

Hamas's leadership built its wealth largely through the smuggling tunnels. Hamas officials levied taxes, usually 20%, on goods that were smuggled through the tunnels.

 

The role of the tunnels in enriching Hamas and its supporters has been well documented. Der Spiegel profiled the "king of the tunnel builders," Abu Ibrahim, in 2008. In 2012, Khaled Abu Toameh observed that there were an estimated 600 millionaires living in Gaza who "made their wealth thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt." Al Monitor reported the next year that a "result of tunnel trade is the formation of a new class of wealthy individuals who were able to accumulate massive fortunes in a short period of time."

A comprehensive overview of Gaza's economy written by Ehud Ya'ari and Eyal Ofer of the Washington Institute identified Gaza's economy, of which "trade conducted via the more than 800 tunnels into Egypt" played a large role, as a tool that helped Hamas to "[evolve] from a relatively small movement into a well-funded conglomerate." This allowed "Hamas ... to empower loyalists while leaving the main burden of responsibility for Gaza's 1.6 million residents to others."

 

The growing wealth of Hamas's leadership has led to increased resentment of the terrorist organization that governs Gaza. The Christian Science Monitor reported in 2011 that Gazans "tell stories of Hamas officials who used to drive modest cars now sporting luxury vehicles, and ... complain the government is reaching into their pockets in every way it can." The Ynet report notes that in contrast to the leadership of Hamas, a World Bank report ranks "the Gaza Strip ... third in the Arab region in terms of poverty, ranking above only Sudan and Yemen."

 

The irony is that Hamas reportedly gained popularity, in part, due to its reputation for honesty as opposed to its rival Fatah, which is known for corruption.

In the December 2013 issue of The Tower Magazine, Jonathan Schanzer observed in We Really Need to Talk About Corruption that the West "shows little interest in genuinely helping the Palestinian people attain a government dedicated to coexistence with Israel, nor one built on the open, fair and transparent civil society and legal system required to build a successful state." The Ynet report suggests that, aside from its support of terror, Hamas does not represent much of an improvement.

 

crossposted from The Tower. Reprinted by permission.

WSJ: Secret UN Report ID's Iran as Source of Hamas Weapons

 

In an editorial published Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal commented on the findings of a report recently issued by a United Nations committee regarding the illegal Iranian arms shipment found on the Klos C, a ship that Israel intercepted in March. The weapons were found hidden under bags of cement.

The editorial (Google search  terms) ties the findings to the recent escalation of hostilities between the Iranian-sponsored terror groups in Gaza and Israel.

Tehran denies any role in the shipment. But a recent classified report from the U.N. Security Council's Sanctions Committee effectively confirms it, and we've seen the pertinent portions. The panel found that Bandar Abbas, a southern Iranian port, "is established as the origin of the shipment of 100 containers of cement, including the 20 containing weapons and ammunition." ...

The panel concluded: "The shipment of arms and related material found aboard the Klos C is a violation of Iran's obligations under paragraph 5 of resolution 1747," referring to an embargo on Iranian arms transfers imposed by the Security Council in 2007. The panel didn't weigh in on the ultimate intended recipient of the shipment, yet previous such shipments have made their way to Gaza.

1747 is the the third of six Security Council resolutions passed overwhelmingly with regard to Iran's nuclear weapons program.

With less than two weeks to go before the deadline for a nuclear deal between the P5+1 nations and Iran, the UN report serves as an important reminder of the multiple threats Iran poses to the region.

In Iran is *Really* Good at Evading Sanctions, which appeared in the September 2013 issue of The Tower Magazine, Emanuele Ottolenghi warned, "If the world wants to avoid a dystopia in which the Bashar Assads of today and those of tomorrow enjoy perfect immunity to use chemical weapons against civilian populations as long as a nuclear-armed Tehran is on their side, figuring out how to dramatically and quickly ratchet up sanctions, before its too late, should be a major strategic imperative." The warning is especially apt in light of this latest revelation of Iran evading sanctions.

(By The Tower staff writers- reprinted by permission)