Mizrachi SA Jewish Observer - Pesach 2016 | Page 22

BANKRUPTING TERRORISM
To date they have been awarded monetary judgements
amounting to over 200 million dollars to victims of terror
and their families; over 2 billion dollars against terror
organisations and state-sponsored terrorism; and over 600
million dollars of terrorist assets have been frozen.

in response to the ongoing, horrific terror attacks in Israel,
seeking an injunction requiring Facebook to remove all
pages inciting Palestinian terrorism, to monitor these
methods of incitement and block them, and to place responsibility
on Facebook for this rampant terrorism on its network.

Since the 1990s Western countries, and especially the
United States, have legislated laws making it possible for
terror victims to sue the regimes that sponsor terror, banks
that transfer funds to terror groups, front charities
established to assist the extremist groups, and even the
terrorists themselves. Shurat HaDin’s legal campaigns have
used this to their advantage, empowering terror victims and
their families to fight back.

In order to test Facebook’s impartiality to either Israelis or
Palestinians, Shurat HaDin launched ‘The Big Facebook
Experiment’ on December 28th, 2015. It simultaneously
launched two, fictitious Facebook pages, one called ‘Stop
Palestinians’ and the other called ‘Stop Israelis’. Shurat
HaDin then began posting nearly identical content on both
pages, each inciting hatred towards the other. Over the
course of two days, the severity of the incitement was
gradually increased on both pages.

People often believe that the fight against terrorism is a
task that falls mainly on the shoulders of elected officials,
governments and the military. However, Shurat HaDin has
proven that private citizens can also play a role in stopping
the flow of funds to the enemies of Israel and the Jewish
people. A prime example of this is Shurat Hadin’s leader,
Israeli activist attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. A mother
of six, including triplets, Darshan-Leitner is a graduate of
the Bar-Ilan University Law Faculty and holds an MBA
from Manchester University. She is a private citizen who has
become a beacon of hope for terror victims throughout the
world.
BURGEONING OF BDS
More recently, Israel, and the Jewish community at large
including South Africa, has been attacked by a dangerous
international campaign utilising new strategies to
delegitimise the Jewish State. The Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement has embarked upon a global
effort to demonise and isolate Israel, casting it as a pariah
state. Hiding behind the BDS activists’ claim of assisting the
Palestinian cause, lies racial discrimination and antiSemitism. As the Anti-Defamation League has stated, “The
BDS movement at its very core is anti-Semitic.”
Shurat HaDin is often notified by concerned individuals
about a BDS campaign taking place in their home city. If
the BDS activity is found to be illegal, they will advise the
campaign organisers that boycotting Israel and Israeli related
businesses, academics and cultural persons is unlawful and
the organiser may become the subject of civil, administrative
and criminal legal action. If the organisers don’t heed the
warning and cease their BDS activities, Shurat HaDin
follows through by taking legal action.