Arab Bank turning away Palestinian terror (and potential terror) accounts out of fear of lawsuits

Just yesterday I reviewed "Harpoon," the account of how Israel was going after terrorists by going after their sources of money, and how lawsuits against banks that paid terrorists were a very effective method of doing exactly that.

Here are excerpts of a Mondoweiss article published just now that shows that this works:

Palestinian community orgs and ex-prisoners say the Arab Bank is closing their accounts 

When [Aida Youth Center (AYC)'s Anas Abu Srour] asked why the account was being closed, Abu Srour said he was told it was an “internal policy” decision. “They refused to elaborate more than that,” he said.

The incident with the AYC came just a few days after a class action lawsuit was filed against the Jordan-based Arab Bank by the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks.

The plaintiffs, numbering over a thousand Israelis, are suing the bank for NIS 20 billion ($5.8 billion) in compensation, claiming the bank “knowingly supported and financed terror groups that carried out attacks that claimed hundreds of lives,” the Times of Israel reported in December.

The suit claims that the Arab Bank played an integral role in the attacks, knowingly funding individual Palestinian attackers as well as organized groups.

Mondoweiss learned that the incident with the AYC was not an isolated event, and that in recent months the Arab Bank has reportedly been closing the accounts, or refusing to open new accounts, for other community-based organizations, former Palestinian prisoners, and the families of Palestinians killed by Israelis.

30-year-old Ahmad Salah from the al-Khader village, was recently notified that his application to open up an account with the Arab Bank was denied.

Salah, a former prisoner, wanted to switch from his current bank to the Arab Bank, which has a branch that is closer to his home.

“When I returned two weeks after applying to check on my status, the employee checked my file, and he suddenly became shy, as if he was ashamed,” Salah told Mondoweiss.

The employee asked Salah to take a seat, and his manager would come to explain the situation to him. When the manager arrived, Salah was shocked to hear his answer.

“The manager came and told me ‘we can’t open an account for you because you were in Israeli prison,” Salah recounted. “I asked, ‘what does this have to do with anything?’ This is a Palestinian bank, not an Israeli bank.”

Salah alleges that the manager told him the bank was “having a lot of issues in court with the Israelis,” and due to pressures from the Israeli government, couldn’t “take the risk” of opening an account for someone with his profile.

This is the best article I've ever read at Mondoweiss.

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