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Mobilizing for Victims
Looking back over the horrific violence of
recent months, most painful for us was the
coldblooded murder of our friend and ally, Ari
Fuld, who represented all that is good about
Israel and Zionism. The ZOA student leaders
visiting Israel last July met with Ari and were
inspired. Unfortunately, tragedy struck before
the next ZOA student group could meet him.
ZOA Israel coordinated meetings at the
homes of Ari’s parents and widow, where ZOA
Campus Managing Director Leore Ben-David
presented heartfelt student tributes in a beautifully
arranged album keepsake. The strength
and grace evinced by Ari’s family, who desire
only to perpetuate his good works, should
have us all redoubling our Israel efforts.
ZOA Israel’s advocacy for American victims
of Palestinian Arab terror did not start or stop
with Ari. Besides mobilizing community support
and exposing the PA incitement factor,
our role has involved opening and maintaining
lines of communication between victims
and key U.S. interlocutors.
For example, our joint battle continues
for the extradition from Jordan of Ahlam
al-Tamimi, responsible for the 2001 Sbarro
bombing that killed 15 and wounded 130.
While previous U.S. administrations dithered,
despite the 1995 U.S.-Jordan extradition treaty,
the Trump administration at least issued
the extradition request in February 2017. Recently,
ZOA Israel secured an assurance that
Congresswoman Grace Meng (D-NY) — the
mother of then 15-year-old Sbarro bombing
victim Malki Roth is her constituent —
would pursue this further.
With thanks to the good offices of Ambassador
David Friedman, ZOA Israel is also advancing an
array of requests for other still-grieving families,
such as Binyamin and Talya Kahane in a December
2000 ambush near Ofra, that left five of their
six children who were injured.
Despite Herculean efforts by the attorneys
for the terror victims and their families in the
Sokolow v. PLO case, facilitated by ZOA’s
own Government Relations Department Director
Dan Pollak, Center for Law and Justice
Director Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., and National
Board Member Clifford Rieders, Esq.,
justice for these victims and their $655.5
million judgment remains elusive. Senator
Chuck Grassley (R-IA) led a broad bipartisan
move to eliminate the loopholes used to
deny proper redress to the victims. President
Trump then signed the Anti-Terrorism Clarification
Act that accomplished this objective.
But the State Department, fearing such suits
would bankrupt the PA, has asked that the
law be modified.
Alan Joseph Bauer and his son Jonathan,
plaintiffs in the Sokolow case who were seriously
injured in a 2002 Jerusalem bombing by
a PA security officer, have come to rely on ZOA
Israel in their quest for justice and closure. We
continue to convey their recurring pleas to
U.S. diplomatic, elected, and Department of
Justice officials, as we are doing for more recent
victims of PA-orchestrated terrorism.
ZOA campus leaders at Ari Fuld’s gravesite
ZOA Israel
coordinated
meetings at
the homes
of Ari Fuld’s
parents
and widow,
where ZOA
Campus Director
Leore
Ben-David
presented
heartfelt
student
tributes in
a beautifully
arranged
album
keepsake.
ZOA Israel