Free Republic

I know, that isn’t exactly a news flash. But has there ever been more definitive proof than the silence of most feminists in the face of Gaza’s brutal assault on Israeli women? Caroline McCaughey writes in the New York Sun: One of the first videos uploaded to social media of the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7 showed the kidnapping of a 26-year-old Israeli, Noa Argamani, on the back of a motorcycle as she reaches out and screams, “Don’t kill me!” Another was of 23-year-old German national, Shani Louk, whose partially clothed, contorted body in the back of a pickup...

Gonzalez v. Google centers on the contention that YouTube’s algorithms engendered the radicalization and recruitment of Islamic State members and affiliates, ultimately making the social media platform liable for attacks like the November 2015 Paris ones that cost the lives of 130 people including the petitioners’ daughter, Mexican-American college student Nohemi The case touches on a core legal article for the Internet, Section 230, which says that social media platforms and other interactive computer services are considered not liable for content posted by their users. “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher...

Will a pro-Israel legal advocacy group manage to defeat one of the world's biggest tech giants? We sat down with Nitzana Darshan Leitner, the chairwoman of Shurat Hadin, a pro-Israel legal advocacy group that will soon face Google in the United States Supreme Court on allegations the tech company aided and abetted terrorism. "This is the end of a very long journey, which we started in 2015 when we started filing lawsuits against social media giants, Facebook, Twitter, and Google, for aiding and abetting terrorism," Darshan Leitner recounts and explains: "The argument was that social media provides social services to...

Right from Wrong: Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark was killed in front of two of his kids. An unlikely individual rescued the youth. Three years ago this month, thousands of Israelis attended the funeral of Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark, director-general of the Otniel Yeshiva, who was killed in a drive-by Palestinian terrorist attack. The father of 10 children was shot while driving with his wife and two of his kids on Route 60 in the South Hebron Hills. He was struck by a barrage of bullets and lost control of the car, causing it to overturn. As Mark, 48, bled to...

Since the major escalation in Arab terrorist attacks in Israel began at the start of October last year, Israelis have consistently complained about the use of social media to incite terrorism and glorify "martyrdom," and the lack of enforcement by social media companies. [...] Perhaps the worst offender in this regard is Facebook, which now faces legal action over its slow, minimal reaction to the reams of anti-Semitic incitement uploaded daily. Now, the Israeli rights NGO which is leading the legal campaign against Facebook incitement is taking the fight directly to the digital giant's CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. Shurat...

The case was over the abduction of Dong-Shik, a South Korean who was a permanent resident of the US and had spent seven years providing aid and proselytizing to North Korean defectors. An Israeli NGO announced on Monday that a US federal court in Washington, DC has granted it a historic $330 million default award judgment against North Korea in a civil damages trial for wrongful death, torture and kidnapping. The judgment, only announced Monday, but written on April 9, included $15 million dollars each to the son and brother of Reverend Dong Shik Kim, presumed dead, as well as...

Shurat Hadin (the Israel Law Center) has filed a legal complaint against the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), alleging violations of the US tax code for unlawful political lobbying and contact with Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist organization. […] Shurat Hadin said it provided the IRS with “documentary and video evidence showing PCUSA delegates meeting with the US-designated terrorist group Hezbollah, publishing anti-Semitic materials, enacting a racist policy to divest from American companies doing business with Israel, lobbying the US Congress, and distributing political advocacy materials in violation of its tax-exempt status as a religious organization.” The PCUSA declined to provide an...

The widely held assumption that terrorists are merely violent fanatics might be accurate for many of the terror organisations' low-level operatives. Nonetheless, a terror group's leader sees subsequent acts of terror as a way to impress their financial patrons and their ensnared populations. On a day-to-day level, terror groups are primarily financial organisations, expending the bulk of their efforts to raise, invest, allocate and transfer money. These violent groups are just like a drug cartel, and it is therefore a misunderstanding to believe that terrorists need funds just to make cheap bombs. The creation of a terrorist is a long...

SYDNEY, Australia – A legal group is threatening to sue an Australian charity unless it stops funding a Palestinian not-for-profit organization alleged to be “an active arm” of a terror group proscribed under Australian law. Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center that aims to “bankrupt terrorism” through the courts, alleges that World Vision Australia has been indirectly distributing more than $1 million of Australian taxpayers’ money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But World Vision Australia, which distributes funds in Gaza from AusAID, the government’s foreign aid agency, denies the charges. Shurat HaDin this week stood by...

With last week’s passage of the Iran Sanctions Bill, Congress took a bold step against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, closing loopholes in existing sanctions law and adding tough new restrictions on transactions benefiting the country’s financial, energy, and shipping industries. Implicit in these new sanctions is the recognition that money – particularly corporate money – is a key buttress of terrorist networks, providing terrorists with the resources they need to carry out their radical and destructive ideology. In many cases, the individuals and companies engaging in terror finance are unaware of their role providing funding to terrorist groups. The global...

North Korea still poses “a constant threat to Israel,” 40 years after a Pyongyang-sponsored terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, the Israeli ambassador has said. And an Israeli lawyers’ organization is continuing to sue terrorists in a bid to prevent such atrocities in future. The roots of the Lod Airport massacre, which took the lives of 26 people and injured 72 others in Tel Aviv on May 30, 1972, trace back to the North Korean regime. “This attack was the first of its kind, but unfortunately the fight against terrorism has become a daily routine in many parts of the world,”...

A Washington, DC, court has awarded $332 million in damages to an American-Jewish family whose 16-year-old son was killed in a 2006 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The court found Syria guilty of having supported the Palestinian terror group behind the attack and thus ordered Damascus to pay the damages. “It’s a great feeling. Justice was done for the terror victims,” said activist attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who heads Shurat HaDin — Israel Law Center, Tuesday. The Israeli civil rights organization sues terror groups and their sponsors in courtrooms worldwide and helped the bereaved Wultz family in their legal struggle, which...

A SENATOR has requested an official inquiry into whether Australian taxpayers are unknowingly funding a Palestinian terrorist organisation. In a letter sent to Foreign Minister Bob Carr last week, Victorian Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson cited evidence collected by Israeli civil rights organisation Shurat HaDin, which alleges that the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), based in Gaza, is a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP has a history of hijackings and suicide bombings, and was listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government in 2001. The Australian government’s foreign-aid arm, AusAID, funds...