On Friday, a federal judge set aside a $200 million judgment against the Palestinian Authority for its involvement in terrorism and ordered a new trial, with one stipulation:
[the judge] said that he would vacate the previous legal victory only if the Palestinian Authority put up a $192.7 million bond to ensure that it does not default again if it loses in court.
The case was brought by an American woman whose husband, Aharon Ellis, also an American citizen, was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in 2002. Set aside for a moment the question of whether the actions of foreign entities such as the PA should be dealt with in U.S. courts, or as matters of U.S. foreign policy (I’m inclined toward the latter). Also put aside the Bush administration’s refusal to offer an opinion on the case — an opinion the presiding federal judge requested — due to fears “that lawsuits by victims of terrorism could harm the ‘financial and political viability’ of the Palestinian Authority.”
Forget all of that. And consider instead the fact that the United States has commenced the transfer of $150 million to the PA, and the Europeans have started sending their sizable portion of $473 million. This is exactly the kind of aid money that in years past the PA used to fund the terror groups whose attacks killed more than a thousand Israelis and over fifty Americans — including Aharon Ellis. According to an Israeli government report from June 2002 — a study based on captured PA documents — the PA was siphoning off some $5 to $10 million per month of foreign aid to fund the terror war on Israel.
This is one of the great unresolved travesties of the intifada — the horrible fact that the PA’s foreign benefactors to a great extent financially underwrote the terror war. Exactly how much aid money was used is not known. But it was a tremendous amount, and vital to the PA’s ability to prosecute its war, especially as the Palestinian economy was sent into a tailspin at the outset of the violence. As the PA stands on the precipice of once again being inundated with foreign aid, it’s worth wondering whether American and European taxpayers will again be put in the position of unwittingly funding terrorism. This time, ignorance of the way the PA does business cannot be an excuse.
