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| Israelis, in Raid on Arab Banks, Seize Reputed Terrorist Funds |
| 2004-02-26 |
| Israeli forces raided Arab banks on Wednesday in Ramallah, on the West Bank, seizing millions of dollars representing hundreds of institutional and personal accounts that Israel said were financing Palestinian terrorism. It was by far the largest such seizure during more than three years of conflict. Witnesses said soldiers covered the banks’ security cameras with black plastic bags and herded all the employees together before ordering workers with keys to open the vaults. Israeli officials defended the operation, which was still under way late Wednesday, as aimed carefully at terrorist financing and in line with President Bush’s call for action against such funds. But Amin Haddad, the head of the Palestinian Monetary Authority, called the raid a robbery intended to "shake our banking system." He rejected Israeli assertions that the accounts were linked to terrorism. In Washington, the State Department criticized the raid. "Some of these actions that were taken risk destabilizing the Palestinian banking system," said Richard A. Boucher, the department spokesman. "So we’d prefer to see Israeli coordination with the Palestinian financial authorities." A senior Israeli security official said the money, in various currencies, was still being counted. He said that the total was probably between $6.7 million and $9 million, and that the amount taken from the vaults equaled the sums held in what Israeli intelligence had identified as suspect accounts. Palestinian and Israeli security officials said the Israelis entered branches of the Arab Bank and the Cairo Amman Bank, which are both Jordanian. Palestinian officials said the Israeli troops brought bank computer experts who had been arrested overnight Tuesday to help guide them through the systems. The action, which was led by the Shin Bet security service and included Israeli police forces and the army, recalled Israel’s approach to controlling the occupied territories more than a decade ago, before the Oslo peace process began. It demonstrated the extent of the breakdown between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which was formed under the Oslo accords to govern and police Palestinians in areas like Ramallah. Israeli officials said the raid also pointed to the changing nature of Palestinian militant groups, which they said were becoming less ideological and more entrepreneurial, with perpetrators earning specific sums for particular attacks. The senior security official said interrogations of arrested militants showed that an attack might bring its Palestinian planners a minimum of 3,000 to 5,000 shekels, or $673 to $1,122. He also said Israeli intelligence indicated that much of the seized money had come from Iran, funneled through the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah. The Israeli defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, released a statement late Wednesday saying the seized money would be spent on "humanitarian goals in Palestinian society," like health services, food and "improving the infrastructure at crossing points and checkpoints." The banks were silent about the incident. In January 2003, Israeli forces took about $7,000 from a branch of the Arab Bank in a Palestinian neighborhood just outside Jerusalem. Officials knowledgeable about the incident said the Bush administration privately rebuked Israel after Jordan complained. Mr. Haddad, the banker, was voluble in his criticism, saying: "This is against all laws and norms. They acted like gangs." Israeli officials said they had alerted Palestinian officials before storming the banks, but Mr. Haddad denied any advance warning. Mr. Boucher said, "According to both Palestinians and Israelis, the operation was not coordinated in any way with the Palestinian financial authorities." The senior Israeli security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Palestinian Authority briefly froze some accounts linked to terrorism last year, but then unfroze them. He said that the Palestinian Authority was not helping Israel at all with counterterrorism and that there was no chance it would have helped in this case. Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the Israeli action might benefit the Palestinian Authority by weakening rivals like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. "We’re actually providing the opportunity for the Palestinian Authority to regain control," he said. Asked for the legal basis for the operation, Israeli officials cited a directive from the Israeli military commander in the area. They said that the Israeli attorney general consulted on the details, and that Israeli forces took care to avoid provoking a financial panic by seizing only accounts they had identified in advance. Israeli officials said Palestinians whose accounts were emptied would have the right to appeal the seizure. The largest such account was about $22,000, the senior official said. Palestinians do not have deposit insurance, and it was not immediately clear who would bear the losses. Mr. Haddad said, "The banks who the money was stolen from are responsible for the safety of the deposits." The senior Israeli official said the Israelis had emptied three types of accounts, institutional, personal and family. He cited examples of each: An account held by the Charity Association of Jenin, which he identified as a Hamas front; an account held by a man in Nablus he called a fugitive militant; and an account held by the family of another militant, an account he said held money paid for suicide bombings. Israeli officials say that over the past year, Hezbollah has significantly increased its financing and direction of all major Palestinian militant groups. The senior official said that Hezbollah paid specifically for each attack, and that interrogations of arrested militants had disclosed an evolving list of prices, which varied depending on whether victims were killed or wounded. He said one militant reported receiving about 10,000 shekels, or $2,237, for planning a suicide bombing last March in Netanya that wounded more than 30 people. As Israeli forces moved in Wednesday morning, the army put the center of Ramallah under curfew. Dozens of Palestinians threw stones at the soldiers, who responded by firing rubber-coated steel pellets, the army said. Palestinian hospital officials reported 17 people wounded, three seriously. They said some wounds were caused by live ammunition. [Two Palestinian gunmen were shot and killed Thursday by Israeli security officers after the gunmen killed an Israeli during a raid on an industrial zone along the Gaza Strip border, Reuters reported.] |
| Posted by:Geoffrey M. LaMear |
| #14 "Unbiased journalism" was invented out of whole cloth in the 1890s, to sell more newspapers. I started listening to NPR in the early 90s, when I got tired of all the commercial radio stations and just wanted to leave the radio on one station without listening to advertisements. I was shocked at how much time they devoted to Isreali issues. To suggest that they are somehow unbiased is disingenious. |
| Posted by: gromky 2004-2-27 8:01:21 AM |
| #13 I appreciate the dialogue that this subject has drummed up. I realize I am erring to say NPR or any news service can give a truly unbiased view of situations as they really are, but I do think NPR is trying to do the subject justice. Thanks for the information about the correspondents and their backgrounds. I think I need to do a bit more research myself. Haha.. full circle. :) |
| Posted by: chainhead 2004-2-26 9:48:35 PM |
| #12 NPR = Not Politically Reliable NPR = Not Particularly Relevant Whatever term you use, they are a bunch of socialist sympathizers and enablers. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-2-26 6:53:18 PM |
| #11 The notion you can report news in a balanced way without bias is false. The problem is not there is bias. The problem is UNIFORMITY of bias in the mainstream media. This is why Fox drives the Left nuts. It breaking with the uniformity of bias and presenting a different bias. Speaking as a news junkie who now gets 90% of his news from sources like Rantburg, although with not necessarily the same biases as RB. I like the fact I can now choose the bias I want to hear and that may be more than one bias on a single topic. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-26 6:15:12 PM |
| #10 What would really send them into a hissy fit would be to give the money to the homicide victims. Also I think that this is a great way to conduct the war on terror. Lets say we go over and make a BIG withdrawal from the 1st Terrorist Bank of Beirut! |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-2-26 5:05:41 PM |
| #9 im a liberal, who often likes NPR. im not one of the routine liberal bashers here, as many will attest - i voted for clinton twice, and may yet end up voting for Kerry. That said, i think its abundantly clear that NPR's coverage of the middle east is strongly biased against Israel. I too have seen the ombudsman site - indeed i have complained to them. The fact that people have complained its too pro-Israel tells you nothing, without knowing whos complaining or what their complaint is. I have been on one site where someone said (only half in jest) that the BBC was too pro-American, since it didnt proclaim every day that Bush and Blair were war criminals. NPR has some folks in the National Bureaus (Daniell Schorr and Scott Simon) who seem sympathetic to a Labor, dovish Israeli point of view. The coverage coming from the NOR reporter in the middle east however, is not even sympathetic to Israeli doves (at least mainstream ones) but is reflexivly hostile to Israel. This is because NPR's foreign editor is Loren Jenkins, who made his career reporting on the Sabra-Shatilla massacres, which he blames on Israel, and which is the lens through which he views the entire mideast. IIRC, the ombudsman site suggests there is internal controversy in NPR about the mideast coverage (presumably schorr, Scott and some of the other DC folks vs Jenkins) but that the pressure from pro-Israel folks makes it hard to conduct this discussion. Maybe thats true, although its suspiciously self-serving. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-2-26 2:49:44 PM |
| #8 haha.. thanks for the response, mjh. I can appreciate your thin patience for trolls. I agree with you about Arafat. I still don't know why he hasn't been challenged, in any real way, concerning his involvement in the assassination of Noel and Moore (+1 Belgian) in Khartoum back in 1973. Nobel Peace Prize? How much can one man change? Apparently, not much. |
| Posted by: chainhead 2004-2-26 2:13:56 PM |
| #7 Fair enough, chainhead. As you note, it is a subject about which passions flare easily. My patience is thin for the people known as "trolls"...which you clearly are not. I appreciate your input and apologize if I offended by pigeonholing you. I do take issue with NPR not mentioning Arafat's embezzlement, as they addressed the overall solvency of the PA banking system and implied that Israel's operation was putting that at risk. IMHO, Arafat's looting has put all PA institutions at risk, and merited some mention. It's frustrating to me that this man who claims to represent a people, and yet impoverishes them for his own enrichment, gets a free pass. Of course, I may be injecting my own biases and emotion into the debate. Sorry for flying off the handle. I hate ad hominem attacks, it's a sign of a weak argument, so I apologize. :) |
| Posted by: mjh 2004-2-26 1:34:59 PM |
| #6 Let me be clear, mjh. My comments were not on your education or views, only on NPR's coverage. I mentioned the fact the neither is happy about NPR's coverage as indicative of the near impossibility of covering the subject in a way acceptable to all, or nearly any. Additionally, the Israelis didn't claim they conducted their operation due to funds going to pad Arafat's, but in search of funds linked to other terrorist groups. In this regard, I don't see not mentioning Arafat as a huge error on their part. I don't appreciate being arbitrarily placed in any group simply because I challenge your assertion re NPR. However, I do apologize for anything that came across as patronizing to you. My comment concerning research was only concerning the subject of NPR's coverage, again not your relative education/intelligence. |
| Posted by: chainhead 2004-2-26 1:22:46 PM |
| #5 BTW, chainhead...I don't appreciate the patronizing tone of your comment. Just because I choose NOT to confer moral equality on the actions of Palestinians and Israelis does not mean I am un-enlightened or poorly researched on the subject. Further, invoking complaints from both sides of an issue does NOT imply fairness of coverage, when one side of a debate exercises no judgment or restraint in issuing complaints of any kind, while the other has become sufficiently inured to issuing complaints due to the breathtaking lack of sympathy and appreciation their restraint garners from lefty academics and the "enlightened" intelligencia of the post modern, western elite. A class of which you are, no doubt, a proud member. |
| Posted by: mjh 2004-2-26 12:39:12 PM |
| #4 chainhead...I'm not talking about their overall coverage, although their treatment of this story does shed some light on that. Did they even mention the rampant financial corruption that has filtered hundreds of millions of dollars from the PA accounts to Arafat's personal fortune? Do you think any story about the PA banking system should exclude this very relevant fact? Especially when, in the story that I heard, they mention the issue of Israel's wall going up (an issue which is not directly related to an Israeli raid on terrorist accounts in PA banks). That's not fair. That's not balanced. That's not unbiased. But thanks for trying... |
| Posted by: mjh 2004-2-26 12:33:01 PM |
| #3 That's pretty harsh there, mjh. If you're really interested, hit npr's website and check out what the Ombudsman has said on the same subject. NPR's coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been consistently fair. NPR receives complaints about the same coverage from BOTH sides at once. Remember, this is a very difficult and highly charged issue and their unbiased view bothers those who would prefer they vilify one and champion the other. Note: In yesterday's coverage, they stated the facts as they gathered them with no declaration of sympathy for the Palestinians or the Israelis. Do a little research and then come back and re post. |
| Posted by: chainhead 2004-2-26 11:39:39 AM |
| #2 Army of Steve posted first -- see below. We strike again! |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-2-26 11:18:05 AM |
| #1 I heard coverage of this raid on NPR yesterday. The bias has never been clearer. The time devoted to interviewing/espousing Palestinian commentators and civilians was at least three times more than the time alotted the Israeli viewpoint; there was zero contextualizing of the facts of Palestinian financial corruption (Totenberg or whoever noted that the total was $9 million shekels=$700K vs. the BILLIONS Arafat has embezzled); and zero discussion of the Palestinian terrorist attacks that Israeli suffers from on a DAILY BASIS. |
| Posted by: mjh 2004-2-26 10:27:03 AM |