From Ian:
US terror victims hold banks liable for Iranian terror funds
US terror victims hold banks liable for Iranian terror funds
Legal rights organization Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center has sent warning letters to eleven banks believed to maintain frozen accounts for Iran, they announced Wednesday, advising them that the funds are still restrained for the benefit of terror victims who hold unsatisfied judgments against the Islamic Republic.Glick: EU is waging a trade war against Israel
The letters caution the American branches of the foreign banks that the funds in the accounts may not be transferred despite the anticipated lifting of financial sanctions by the Obama Administration.
The accounts are believed to hold up to $100-150 billion in frozen oil revenues currently restrained under the sanction regulations in overseas banks.
“You are hereby warned that all accounts maintained by your financial institution at any of its branches in the name of Iran, the Central Bank of Iran, the Naftiran Intertrade Company, the National Iranian Oil Company, the National Iranian Tanker Company or any other agency or instrumentality of Iran are restrained and subject to a lien in favor of my clients under United States law," the letter states.
Although Iran negotiated to have sanctions lifted and funds returned, the accounts in fact have now been blocked by virtue of a “Citation to Discover Assets” (“Citation”) which was issued against Iran on October 26, 2015 in the Rubin v. The Islamic Republic of Iran case in the federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Senior contributing editor to The Jerusalem Post Caroline B. Glick accused the European Union on Wednesday of waging a secret trade war against Israel.Israel cheapens memory of Holocaust by likening settlement labels to Nazi boycott, EU envoy says
Glick, speaking at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem, outlined a series of steps she recommends Israel take to counter the "discrimination" of the recent EU decision to label products produced in West Bank settlements.
"Today we are in the middle of Europe's trade war against Israel," she said. "It's never acknowledged, it's hidden by lies about international law, lies about consumer protection and lies about human rights."
But, Glick added, "the war itself is a breach of international law, it doesn't protect consumers and it harms human rights." The EU's recent decision in regard to settlement products is "illegal under international law. Under the WTO [World Trade Organization] treaties it is illegal to introduce technical barriers to trade among trading nations."
The EU, she said, should either leave the WTO or apply this policy equally to other places in "the same legal situation" as Israel. For example, she said, it should insist that products produced in Western Sahara are labeled as "Moroccan settlement products made in Western Sahara."
EU ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen hit back against comparisons of the EU's labeling of settlement products to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, saying that even when disagreeing, it was necessary not to “confuse fact with fiction.”
“Talk of a European boycott just does not stand up to a reality check,” he said at the Jerusalem Post's Diplomatic Conference. “Let me say loud and clear: Europe is not boycotting Israel, and Europe is not boycotting settlements.”
His comments came after a number of speakers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, blasted the EU for its directive to label products from the settlements.
=said that the EU opposes boycotts and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and that products from the settlements will continue to enter the EU markets.
Faaborg-Andersen said that the EU has been “accused of a variety of sins” in recent days from the highest echelons of the Israeli government, including anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, rewarding terrorism and destroying Palestinian jobs.
“I've been shocked to hear claims of anti-Semitism and historical comparisons or analogies to the persecution of Jews in Germany in the 30s and 40s,” he said. “In my mind this is a distortion of history and belittlement of the crimes of the Nazis, and the memory of their victims.”


















