Defending Israel

"This mistake cost them their lives. We thought in any normal state, the police and state would be found responsible for this horrible lynching, so we were determined to file a lawsuit against [the] Palestinian Authority and police to have them compensate the families of the soldiers."
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Israeli lawyer, co-founder of Israel Law Centre

Tossing Israeli from Window in Ramallah's Police Station

Ramallah Arab proudly showing his blood-stained hands

The mistake this determined woman refers to is the wrong direction two Israeli reservists took, ending up in error in Ramallah on the West Bank in 2000. They were wearing civilian clothing, not in uniform. But they were clearly Jews, hated Israelis, and they were arrested and placed in prison. A mob soon gathered screaming for their blood. The Palestinian police stood by as several in the mob entered the jail.

"I had arrived in Ramallah at about 10.30 in the morning and was getting into a taxi on the main road to go to Nablus, where there was to be a funeral that I wanted to film, when all of a sudden there came a big crowd of Palestinians shouting and running down the hill from the police station.
I got out of the car to see what was happening and saw that they were dragging something behind them. Within moments they were in front of me and, to my horror, I saw that it was a body, a man they were dragging by the feet. The lower part of his body was on fire and the upper part had been shot at, and the head beaten so badly that it was a pulp, like a red jelly.
I thought he was a soldier because I could see the remains of the khaki trousers and boots. My God, I thought, they've killed this guy. He was dead, he must have been dead, but they were still beating him, madly, kicking his head. They were like animals.
They were just a few feet in front of me and I could see everything. Instinctively, I reached for my camera. I was composing the picture when I was punched in the face by a Palestinian. Another Palestinian pointed right at me shouting 'no picture, no picture!', while another guy hit me in the face and said 'give me your film!'
I tried to get the film out but they were all grabbing me and the one guy just pulled the camera off me and smashed it to the floor. I knew I had lost the chance to take the photograph that would have made me famous and I had lost my favourite lens that I'd used all over the world, but I didn't care. I was scared for my life.
At the same time, the guy that looked like a soldier was being beaten and the crowd was getting angrier and angrier, shouting Allah akbar — God is great. They were dragging the dead man around the street like a cat toying with a mouse. It was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen and I have reported from Congo, Kosovo, many bad places. In Kosovo, I saw Serbs beating an Albanian but it wasn't like this. There was such hatred, such unbelievable hatred and anger distorting their faces.
The worst thing was that I realised the anger that they were directing at me was the same as that which they'd had toward the soldier before dragging him from the police station and killing him. Somehow I escaped and ran and ran not knowing where I was going. I never saw the other guy they killed, the one they threw out of the window.  - Mark Seager, British Photographer

Ms. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner takes on cases targeting extremist organizations in a civil form of guerrilla warfare. She takes her cases to Israeli, European and North American courts. The October 2000 slaughter of the two Israeli reservists in Ramallah brought $20,000 in compensation to the bereaved families. Not much, but a start in the career of this woman working under the auspices of Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Centre).

The Israel Law Centre is a civil rights organization employing eight lawyers whose aim is to halt the flow of terror money through the filing of financially crippling civil lawsuits. An Alabama law centre had shown the way by using just such tactics to succeed in shuttering racist groups in the U.S. Its Israeli process-counterpart has represented hundreds of victims in cases they've brought against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority.

It has also had occasion to bring suits against Iran, Syria and North Korea along with financial institutions like the Lebanese-Canadian Bank and Bank of China. It has lost one or two cases out of the approximately sixty they have taken on, winning over $1-billion in judgements. It has frozen over $600-million in terrorist assets abroad, collecting $120-million in payments.

Ms. Darshan-Leitner has also represented Palestinians when the cases have been appealing enough to attract their attention as a civil rights legal activist group. She once sued the European Union over payments to the PA which help to fund terrorism. "[But because] the EU has diplomatic immunity in Israel ... we couldn't get the court to continue with it. It was dismissed", she explains. 

It did have a positive outcome, however, spurring the EU to examine at closer range where its funding was ending up.

"When Israel's enemies realized war will not defeat it, they began utilizing other methods", she said. Including the Palestinian incitement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanction urging for the global boycott of Israeli products, events and personalities. "Some [cases] take many years, it is a hard struggle. Those who do defend themselves in court, for example, banks, hire the best and biggest law firms and we find ourselves up against very sophisticated legal teams."

"We see ourselves as the little fish that bites the big shark ... We are winning the war. I want to let people know there is a civil way to fight terrorism, a non-violent way to fight against Israel's enemies. My victories assure me this is the right way to go."