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Family of man killed in Hezbollah rocket attack in Israel sues Iran
By adamg on Tue, 11/03/2015 - 8:10am
The family of a man killed by a Hezbollah rocket in northern Israel in 2006 says Iran and several Iranian banks owe it $300 million in damages for his death.
In a suit filed this week in US District Court in Boston, the family of David Lelchook say Hezbollah could never have undertaken a large rocket barrage against Israel that year without Iranian backing.
Although Lelchook's widow and children live in Brooklyn, his mother lives in Newton and his brother in Acton. Lelchook himself remained a US citizen after 20 years living in Israel.
Lelchook grew up in the Boston area; he died while trying to get to a bomb shelter.
The suit says that despite frequent references to the barrage as part of "the Second Lebanon War," no declaration of war, which might rule out a suit, was ever made, and Hezbollah was not a state, but a terrorist organization.
[T]he fact that at some time following the July and August 2006 Hezbollah attacks on Israel, and Israel’s response thereto, people have referred to that era as the “Second Lebanon War” does not make it a war. The reference by some within Israel to the engagement with Hezbollah as a “war” does not make it a war as a matter of law, much less fact.
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 Lelchook complaint | 464.24 KB |
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Comments
wrongful death lawsuits
I don't know the merit of the case but if wrongful death lawsuits can create pressure on state-sponsored violent actors, I'm all for it. Violence on the West Bank has been escalating.
Surely the most litigious
Surely the most litigious race in the history of mankind will reciprocate for all the illicit deaths caused by American subsidized weapons.
Well,
Good luck with that.
I hope they
are successful.
Silly use of courts
Agree Hamas and Iran are bad actors
Don't understand or agree they should be sued in US courts.
Among many other reasons, I don't really want our government, or citizens, being sued in other countries.
Tell that to Leon
Klinghoffer's family.
sure, then you can talk to
sure, then you can talk to Rachel Corrie's family
Yes, but still
I'm very sympathetic to Leon Klinghoffer and his family, as well as Rachel Corrie and her family.
From my quick reading on both cases, Klinghoffer's family was successful suiing the PLO in US Court, while Corrie's family was unsuccessful suing Israel and/or Catepillar Corp in US Court.
Also from my understanding, the PLO killers are (were) murderous, corrupt terrorists. I see more question regarding the Israeli tank driver and unit. Could have been reckless negligence as Amnesty International believes, or could have been an accident.
With all that in mind, it still strikes me as odd to hear about US Courts handing down judgments regarding incidents that happened entirely overseas, especially if just one party is a US Citizen. Again, I can only envision bad things if people are successful suing Americans in Lebanese, UAE, Serbian, Swedish, Mexican, or any other courts. Maybe it happens more often than I realize. Maybe some of the Americans would deserve it. But to me, it defies my concept of nations, and jurisdiction, and common sense.
Good and bad
I may be remembering wrong, but federal law does allow cases to be brought against foreigners for things like human rights violations on foreign soil under the doctrine of universal human rights or something like that.
If you believe that more often than not, we're the Good Guys, then it's one of many tools in the arsenal of democracy, freedom, etc etc. It does get awkward to say our courts can rule on foreign matters but not vice versa, but again, if you believe we're supposed to be the good guys, you'll note that we have fairly strong domestic enforcement of human rights laws as well.
I'm ambivalent about it, in that asymmetric meddling can be a liability in some instances, but having that mechanism in place and exercising can be good pr for us and sends the message that we try to take our founding principles seriously, and so should the rest of the world.
hmm
Not sure where you would file a lawsuit like this... but it's probably not in the US district court in Boston.
Can you imagine John Kerry calling up Iran to collect on the $300 million owed to a US citizen based on a US court case dealing with Hezbollah actions in Israel? *click*