On Thursday morning, Shurat HaDin and their American co-counsel, Robert J. Tolchin of New York, filed an unprecedented lawsuit to seize ships used by the Islamic and anti-Israeli organizations to breach Israel’s coastal blockade. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an American terror victim injured by a Palestinian suicide bomber. The suit, Bauer v The Mavi Marmara, was filed in Manhattan federal court. It seeks to confiscate 14 ships outfitted with funds unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israel groups, including The Free Gaza Movement (“FGM”). In May 2010, several of these ships, led by the Mavi Marmara, attempted to breach the blockade. The resulting violence caused the deaths of nine militants and injury to numerous Israeli Navy SEALs.
The plaintiff, American biologist, Dr. Alan Bauer, who along with his son Jonathan was seriously injured in a Palestinian suicide bombing on March 21, 2002 in Jerusalem, alleges that FGM and other American-based anti-Israel organizations have raised funds in the United States to outfit the Gaza Flotilla ships. The lawsuit contends that furnishing and outfitting the ships, which are being used for hostilities against a U.S. ally, violates American law. The plaintiff rests his claim upon a rarely-utilized "informant" statute (18 U.S.C. section 962) that allows a plaintiff (called an "informer") to privately seize ships outfitted in the United States for use against a U.S. ally. The law we are basing this cutting edge suit upon is an anti-piracy statute dating back to 1794.
This is the first time a lawsuit in the U.S. has been brought to seize the Gaza Flotilla ships themselves. The aim is to show that funds were illegally raised by the FGM in the U.S. to purchase and outfit the Flotilla boats in violation of the Neutrality Act. They contend that organizing a naval expedition to violently breach Israel's coastal blockade of the terrorist controlled Gaza is a hostile act against an American ally.
It is their intention to seize all the boats and turn them over to a victim of Palestinian terrorism. The extremists organizing these hostile provocations against Israel must not be allowed to illegally raise funds for their operations in the U.S. This unprecedented private action will help block their efforts to breach the coastal blockade and smuggle materials to Hamas in Gaza.
A copy of the Gaza Flotilla Lawsuit complaint.
Shurat HaDin is using the courts to fight back against the extremists.
Support their efforts!
Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center
10 Hata'as St. Ramat Gan, 52512 Israel
Phone: 972-3-7514175
Fax: 972-3-7514174
info@israellawcenter.org
http://www.israellawcenter.org/
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The Mavi Marmara is the modern equivalent of the ships that broke the British blockade of palestine in the late 1940s.
“Our rabbis teach us that Jerusalem was destroyed because Jewish society was only governed by law and did not function as well beyond the requirement of law. Our tradition over and again distinguishes between that which is legally permitted and even required, and that which are the duties of piety and compassion. A Jew must first and foremost be obligated by the latter and ensure that the latter serves as a corrective to the former
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