[ OUR OPINION ]
U.S. government
should fight to stop
terrorism payoutsSTATE Department complacency toward Saudi monetary assistance to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers left the victims' families little choice but to file a civil lawsuit against a Jordan-based bank distributing the money. Those families include a former Hawaii Kai woman whose husband was killed last year. The failure to exert pressure on Saudi Arabia gives credence to otherwise questionable allegations by author Craig Unger and filmmaker Michael Moore of a cozy relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud.
THE ISSUE
A half-dozen families have filed a lawsuit against a Jordan-based bank for allegedly funneling payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel.
Two years ago, President Bush scolded Saddam Hussein for making $25,000 payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. "They're not martyrs," Bush said. "They're murderers and they undermine the cause of the Palestinian people. Those governments like Iraq that reward parents for the sacrifice of their children are guilty of soliciting murder of the worst kind."
Courtney Linde, formerly of Hawaii Kai, with her husband John, who was killed last year in a Gaza Strip bombing. She and others are suing a Jordanian bank believed to finance terrorism.
However, when Israeli soldiers raided three banks in the West Bank city of Ramallah in February and seized assets of $6.7 million used to sponsor terrorist attacks, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "We would prefer to see Israeli coordination with the Palestinian financial authorities to stem the flow of funds to terrorist groups."
The raids, he said, "risk destabilizing the Palestinian banking system."
The Saudis acknowledge giving money to the families of suicide bombers, whom they call "martyrs," through the Saudi Committee for Support of the al-Quds Intifada, headed by Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi interior minister. Among the victims of such attacks was John Linde Jr., 30, a private security consultant killed in an Oct. 15 terrorist bombing of a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Palestine.
Mark Werbner, the attorney for Airman 1st Class Courtney Linde and other victims' families, filed an $875 million lawsuit in federal court in New York on Tuesday against Arab Bank, one of the banks raided in February. Werbner said the raids produced not only terrorism assets but "a mountain of evidence that will prove that the bank not only knows about the terror financing but is actively involved and using its New York branch to launder the money." Israeli soldiers conducted a second raid Wednesday, searching Arab Bank and Cairo Amman Bank. Arab Bank has $24 billion in assets in Europe and the United States.
The lawsuit alleges that Arab Bank, based in Amman, Jordan, helped move a standard benefit of $5,316 to each of the families of Palestinians who were killed in attacks in Israel, including suicide bombers. A Saudi government press release in January 2001 said the committee supporting the al-Quds Intifada had made payments totaling $33 million to "deserving families," including "the families of 2,281 prisoners and 358 martyrs."
The Saudis have made no effort to hide their assistance to the families of suicide bombers and the Bush administration has applied little if any pressure to make them stop. However, in its own press release on Wednesday, Arab Bank said the lawsuit's "basic assertions are both completely false and totally irresponsible," insisting that it "adheres stringently" to the tight regulations of the world banking industry.
