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U.S. Court Rejects PA Attempt to Throw Out Terror Suit
(Jerusalem Post) Melissa Radler - A federal judge in New York shot down the Palestinian Authority's legal defense strategy in a $500 million terrorism lawsuit. "The court is not prepared to find sovereign immunity where none exists," wrote Judge Victor Marrero in a decision denying a motion to dismiss the suit brought by the family of Aharon Ellis against the PA, PLO, and a slew of top Palestinian officials accused of terrorist ties. Ellis, 31, was one of six people murdered on January 17, 2002, when former PA policeman Abdel Salam Sadek Hassuna opened fire at a bat mitzvah party in Hadera. Marrero's March 1 decision found that the PA failed two of four basic criteria for statehood: the Palestinian leadership does not control its own population and territory, nor does it have the capacity to engage in foreign relations. The claim of Palestinian statehood, he wrote, "reduces to an intense, enduring aspiration that, however devoutly wished, apparently still seems more boosted by impassioned protestations and pretensions than affirmed by the juridically recognized ensigns of a sovereign state."