Congress seeks to hold up Iran sanctions relief until victims of Iranian terror paid
Congress is seeking to hold up the release of moneys to Iran until American victims of Iranian-financed terror are paid some $43.5 billion in compensation. A bill to do just that has been introduced by Representative Patrick Meehan (R-Pa).
Let's go the videotape, and then we'll hear about the bill from Adam Kredo.
Yes, before you click the video, that's my friend Arnold Roth's daughter Malki HY"D (May God Avenge her blood), second row from bottom, second from right (first full picture in the row), who was murdered in the Sbarro terror attack.
Adam Kredo reports on the bill.
The bill, which is expected to be brought to the House floor for a
vote this week, would require Iran to first pay $43.5 billion in legal
penalties awarded by U.S. courts to American victims of Iranian
terrorism.
President Obama would then be in a position to either disregard the
requirement under his executive authority, thereby clearing the way for
Iran to immediately receive $150 billion, or force Tehran to negotiate
settlements for these terror victims.
The legislation, called the Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act, comes after a lawsuit
filed by U.S. terror victims that argue they should first be paid
damages before Iran sees a dime of the money promised by the Obama
administration.
The victims said they fear that if the money is first released to
Iran, they will never receive the billions in compensation awarded to
them by U.S. courts.
Meehan told the Washington Free Beacon that the legislation
would create a circumstance in which “the president must certify that he
believes it’s more important to pay money to the Iranian terrorists
than it is to compensate the victims of Iranian terror.”
The bill, he said, “would prevent the president from releasing any
sanctions unless or until the full damages, which have already been
awarded in American courts to victims of Iranian terror, are paid.”
“I’d just like to understand why [Obama] thinks it’s more important
to give money back to Iran than it is to first pay the victims of their
past terror acts,” said Meehan, who released a video late last week detailing the stories of several Americans harmed by Iranian-backed terrorism.
While the bill has garnered at least 75 co-sponsors in the House,
Meehan said he is not certain whether supporters will be able to achieve
a veto-proof majority.
After the nuclear sellout, just bringing it to a vote would be an accomplishment.
But you can bet that Obama will veto the bill if it ever passes. His legacy is more important than compensation to ordinary American terror victims. May he rot in hell.
Arnold and Frimet Roth received an award on Wednesday for what they've done to commemorate their daughter Malki HY"D, who was murdered in the Sbarro terror attack in 2001.
Could you take what is, without a doubt, the worst tragedy imaginable
– the intentional, violent murder of your sweet little girl – and turn
your grief into the impetus to help others?
That is what Frimet and Arnold Roth did after their then-15 year old
daughter, Malki, was murdered in the grotesque homicide bombing of the
Sbarro Pizzaria in downtown Jerusalem. Malki Roth and 14 other innocent
civilans died violent deaths on the 9th of August, 2001. Eight of the
murdered were children. A woman pregnant with her first child also died
in the bombing, and 130 were wounded.
The Roths created Keren Malki (Malki Foundation) within months of the
bombing. What would so understandably have made most parents turn
inwards with grief, instead, for the Roths, became a mission to create
something positive that would reflect the goodness of the daughter whose
future was stolen. Malki’s little sister is severely disabled and
Keren Malki, formed 12 years ago, provides a myriad of services for the
benefit of children with special needs and their families.
This week the Roths were honored for the work that Keren Malki (keren
is the Hebrew word for ‘foundation’) has done over the past twelve
years for the benefit of children with special needs and their families.
Israel’s Minister of Welfare and Social Affairs, Meir Cohen, presented
the Roths with the Minister’s Shield for Volunteerism – Lifetime
Achievement Award.
One can only look with awe at all they have accomplished (and I know Arnold...). May Malki be a voice for good in Heaven for her family and for the entire Jewish people, and may her family's good deeds in her memory continue to place Malki on a higher and higher plane, closer and closer to God.
Things that you see from there, you don't see from here?
Based on his recommendation, Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet passed a deal releasing 1,027 terrorists in exchange for kidnapped IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit on Tuesday night. But Netanyahu didn't always believe that releasing terrorists was a good idea. In his book, Fighting Terrorism, How Democracies Can Defeat the International Terrorist Network, Netanyahu warned against releasing terrorists.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned against exchanging terrorists for kidnapped soldiers in his 1995 book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists, writing that it was “a mistake that Israel made over and over again” and that refusing to release terrorists from prison was “among the most important policies that must be adopted in the face of terrorism.”
“The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmailed situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best,” Netanyahu wrote.
“Prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief. Worse, by leading terrorists to think such demands are likely to be met, they encourage precisely the terrorist blackmail they are supposed to defuse.”
So is this a case of things that you see from there, you don't see from here? Hardly. First, Netanyahu has not always practiced what he preached.
In his first term as prime minister, he released Hamas mentor Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from jail in 1997 in order to bring about the release of Israeli agents who had failed to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Jordan.
Both as prime minister and finance minister, Netanyahu voted to release terrorists from jail on several occasions. But he made a point of insisting that none of the prisoners who were freed had “blood on their hands.”
In 1996, Netanyahu gave Hezbollah 45 Shi’ite prisoners and more than 100 bodies of Hezbollah terrorists in exchange for the remains of IDF soldiers Yosef Fink and Rahamim Alsheik. In 1997, he released 750 prisoners as part of the Hebron Accord and 250 ahead of the Wye Plantation Agreement. None of the prisoners had blood on their hands.
As finance minister in November 2003, Netanyahu voted to release 430 prisoners in return for the release of Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of IDF soldiers Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Sawayid.
Netanyahu justified his vote by ensuring that no terrorists with blood on their hands would be released, but he absented himself from a final vote on the exchange two months later.
But this time, the 'prisoners' being released clearly do have 'blood on their hands.' In fact, you may recall that during former Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert's term, he bent over backwards to try to convince us that he would not release prisoners with 'blood on their hands.' So why did Bibi change his mind?
First, a carefully orchestrated media campaign from people who see the Shalit's as 'one of their own.' Second, let's face reality: Bibi capitulated.
However, Israel scored a major victory as nearly all top Palestinian terrorists will not be freed in the exchange, including:
Marwan Barghouti who was sentenced to five life sentences for his role in the murders of Israelis during the al-Aksa intifada
Abdullah Barghouti who is serving out 67 consecutive life terms for building the bombs that murdered 66 people
Ahmed Saadat who headed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was responsible for the assassination of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi
Hassan Salama, a Hamas leader who was convicted of murdering 67 Israeli citizens
Abbas a-Sayed, mastermind of the Park Hotel suicide bombing in which 30 Israelis were killed on the eve of Passover 2002
Ibrahim Hamed, who was found guilty of involvement in terrorist attacks that led to the death of 82 Israelis
"450 is a large number but 300 are leaving the area to Gaza or overseas," [General Security Service Director General Yoram] Cohen said.
According to Cohen, "It is a hard deal to digest for the families who lost their loved ones, but we cannot wait. If we do wait, we may not be able to bring Gilad home."
That's small consolation to my friend Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki HY"D (May God avenge her blood) was murdered in the Sbarro terror attack, whose planner, Ahlam Tamimi, is among those being released. Here's what Arnold wrote in an email during the night.
You asked my wife Frimet and me how we feel about tonight's agreement for a mass release of Palestinian Arab prisoners in exchange for the freedom of Gilad Shalit, held hostage by Hamas for five years.
A government that seeks the defeat of the terrorists must refuse to release convicted terrorists from prisons. Israel has entered into transactions like this one several times in the past. If the plan was to bring terrorist attacks on Israelis to an end, then the release of those terrorists failed. We wonder why that lesson has never been properly internalized. Releasing imprisoned terrorists emboldens them and their colleagues. If they are captured, they know their imprisonment will be brief. By nurturing the belief that their demands are likely to be met in the future, you encourage terrorist blackmail of the very kind that you want to stop. Only the most unrelenting refusal to ever give in to such blackmail can prevent this.
If what I have just keyed in sounds vaguely familiar to some readers, there's a good reason. It's a paraphrase of page 144 of a 1997 book called "Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists". The author is Benjamin Netanyahu, and tonight we are astonished at the decision he pushed through the government.
Nothing is official yet but the murderer of our daughter and 14 other people, most of them women and children, is on the release list as we feared for years she would be. She has said in published jail-house interviews that she will be freed. She says she is not sorry for what she did. Her central role in the murders at the Sbarro restaurant have made her a hero. With her release, she will be a living inspiration to countless young Arabs desperate for a positive role-model in life. Is Israel ready for the consequences of that?
Has our government taken into account what the release means to families like us, and we are in the thousands, who have suffered the worst possible loss and now see the perpetrators dancing and prancing in the arms of their supporters?
Everyone wants Gilad Shalit home, safe and well. If we were his parents, we might have done what the Shalits did. But this is not the same as deciding, as prime minister or as the cabinet, what is good for the country, for the people of Israel. The jubilation emanating from the two Palestinian Arab governments tonight, the Hamas and the Abu Mazen regimes, should make clear to Israel's friends everywhere that something dreadful has happened tonight. We may come to bitterly regret this transaction for years to come.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
