Some relief for Roths
The court's determination, based on a 2022 High Court finding, rests on the PA and PLO incentivising terrorism through payments to terrorists and their families.
Former Melburnian Arnold Roth has expressed a degree of relief at an Israeli court ruling that the Palestinian Authority (PA) must provide financial compensation for a 2001 terrorist attack in Jerusalem that claimed the life of his 15-year-old daughter Malki.
The Jerusalem District Court ruled on November 19 that the PA and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) must pay tens of millions of shekels to victims of the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, which claimed 16 innocent lives and wounded 130.
The court’s determination, based on a 2022 High Court finding, rests on the PA and PLO incentivising terrorism through payments to terrorists and their families.
Aside from reducing the financial incentive for terrorist strikes, the landmark ruling is seen as a precedent for compensation to the victims of the October 7 Hamas attacks.
The compensation is likely to be paid to victims out of funds Israel has withheld since 2018 from tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA.
Contacted by The AJN, Roth said the efforts he and Malki’s US-born mother Frimet have made for years “have been focused on undoing the catastrophically mistaken Israeli government decision to free the mastermind of the massacre”.
Noting Ahlam Tamimi returned to her homeland Jordan after being freed in a prisoner swap for the release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, Roth said, “She … remains protected there from US prosecutors to this day. This is despite the charges against her issued in Washington in 2013. And despite the bilateral extradition treaty.”
Roth described the court decision as “a very welcome step towards unwinding the PA’s capacity to encourage and fund Palestinian Arab terror … But the decision itself doesn’t seek to target Hamas or Ahlam Tamimi.
“Most Israelis know little about Jordan’s mendacious role in keeping the central figure in the Sbarro massacre free and influential in nearby Jordan.”
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