Arab Bank reaches settlement with terror victims
The Jordan-based Arab Bank reached a settlement on Friday with the families of the
victims of some of the 'Palestinian' terror attacks it helped finance.
The settlement was confirmed on Friday by Michael Elsner, a lawyer
for the plaintiffs, and a spokesman for Arab Bank. The terms were not
disclosed.
Elsner said the framework of the deal would be finalised over the next few months.
A trial had been scheduled to start on Monday to begin determining
how much the bank would have to pay the victims and their families.
The Jordan-based multinational lender was found liable by a US jury
in September 2014 for financing terrorism by transferring funds for
members of Hamas.
Approximately 500 US citizens had sued Arab Bank under the US
Anti-Terrorism Act, which permits US citizens to pursue claims arising
from international terrorism.
The plaintiffs included both victims of attacks carried out by Hamas and other groups, as well as family members of the victims.
At trial, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Arab Bank knowingly
maintained accounts for Hamas operatives and facilitated payments to
families of suicide bombers and those imprisoned or injured during a
Palestinian uprising beginning in 2000.
Arab Bank argued that it had followed proper screening procedures to
checked accounts and transactions against lists of designated terrorist
organisations.
Several other banks are facing similar claims in US courts under the
Anti-Terrorism Act, including Bank of China, Credit Lyonnais, HSBC and
Royal Bank of Scotland, among others.
Hope the rest of them all have to pay too.
JTA adds:
The settlement, whose details were not disclosed, comes days before
the trial was set to enter its damages phase in federal court in
Brooklyn, according to the Associated Press.
In the trial, 300 victims of terrorism during the Second Intifada in
the early 2000s sued the bank, which was accused of helping Hamas
create a “death and dismemberment benefit plan” for dead terrorists. The
suit was first filed in 2004.
According to AP, the case was the first time a bank had been tried
under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of attacks by United
States-designated terrorist organizations to seek damages.
'Death and dismemberment benefit plan.' Never heard that one before.
Labels: Arab Bank, Bank of China, financing terror, Hamas, HSBC, Islamic Jihad, suicide bombing, terror victim suits in US
HSBC loses its moral compass; UPDATED
Anyone who has traveled by plane over the last few years has seen ads like this one, usually in the jetways as you board and disembark from the plane.
But sometimes, that kind of multicultural view of the world can go too far. With HSBC, which also used the ad above, multiculturalism has gone overboard with the ad below.
Just like that, the banking behemoth reveals the danger of bubble-gum corporate cosmopolitanism: Every now and then, you might suggest that a murderous theocracy is actually a progressive place.
One wonders what Jafar Panahi would make of the suggestion that Iran's filmmaking environment compares favorably to America's. We can't know, however, because the acclaimed director and his colleague Mahmoud Rasoulof were just sentenced to six years in prison. There they'll join, among others, the filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, who news reports say is on a hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison.
"The assassination of ideas and sterilizing artists of a society has only one result: killing the roots of art and creativity," Mr. Panahi said at his trial. "You are putting on trial not just me, but Iranian social, humanist and artistic cinema."
A theme of Mr. Panahi's movies is the Iranian regime's subjugation of women. Whereas the HSBC ad implies that women in Iran are particularly empowered or liberated, Mr. Panahi's works—including "The Circle" (2000), about female prisoners, and "Offside" (2006), about young women detained for trying to attend a soccer match—demonstrate otherwise.
So do news reports about Sakineh Ashtiani and other Iranian women sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery. In Iran, girls can be married at age 13 (it was age nine in the first years after the 1979 Islamic revolution), women don't have the right to divorce their husbands or to seek custody of their children in the event of divorce, and a woman's court testimony is accorded half the weight of a man's.
In an environment like this, is it possible that 25% of movies are made by women? Perhaps, although when I asked HSBC spokesman Robert Sherman, he wouldn't say where the bank got its information (either about Iran or Hollywood). Iran does have an active domestic film industry, with women among its major players. One is Tahmineh Milani, a feminist who still works in the country despite having been imprisoned in 2001 on charges—"supporting factions waging war against God"—that could have warranted the death penalty.
In any case, the numbers in the ad are not what matters. Let's say that HSBC's factoids are true. They still convey a hollow, misleading message about the Islamic Republic. Imagine a 1939 ad pointing to Leni Riefenstahl—Hitler's court filmmaker and a pioneering female artist—as evidence of the Third Reich's unexpected "potential." The company behind any such ad would have immediately impugned its perceptiveness and reliability—even its worldview.
Read the whole thing. HSBC has lost its moral compass and ought to try to find it in a hurry. Shutting down its Iran operations, whether or not they are permitted under any sanctions regime, would be one way to start.
UPDATE 8:19 PMHSBC has apparently gone dhimmi altogether. This picture was taken on the New York City subways this morning (Hat Tip:
Jeremy K).
Multiculturalism run rampant? Or just plain foolishness?
Labels: HSBC, Iranian films, Iranian treatment of women
