Contemporary Authors

• Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masters Hachette Book (New York, NY), 2017

• Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitsana_Darshan-Leitner

  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is an Israeli attorney, human rights activist and the founder of Shurat HaDin Israeli Law Center. She has been leading the legal fight against terror financing, the anti-Israel boycott campaigns (BDS) and combating the multitude of lawfare tactics utilized against the Jewish State by its enemies. As the president of the Israel-based civil rights organization, Shurat HaDin–Israel Law Center, she has represented hundreds of terror victims in legal actions against terror organizations and their supporters. Ms. Darshan-Leitner has successfully recovered more than two hundred million dollars in compensation on their behalf. In recent years, Ms. Darshan-Leitner initiated a legal campaign to deprive terrorists of social media resources such as Facebook,[1] Twitter,[2] and YouTube, which they use to incite violence against Jews and promote terror attacks. In her efforts to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli activities, Ms. Darshan-Leitner assisted in blocking the Gaza Flotilla,[3] terminated efforts to indict IDF soldiers for war crimes, and filed legal actions against those who boycott Israeli academics and companies in violation of the law.
  Staffed by some of Israel's leading activist attorneys, Shurat HaDin–Israel Law Center follows the model of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the famed American civil rights organization dedicated to bankrupting the KKK and other neo-Nazi groups in the United States with the goal to economically destroy the hate groups in the Middle East. Thus, the organization's motto: "Bankrupting Terrorism – One Lawsuit at a Time!" She and her associates specialize in tracking the assets and bank accounts of terror groups and legally obstructing and restraining their funds. They have become known by banks, legal organizations and outlaw regimes around the world as the leading authority and resource on stopping the movement of global terror financing. Today, they represent hundreds of terror victims in lawsuits against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO, The Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, Egypt, North Korea, UBS, and the Lebanese Canadian Bank. The cases, being litigated in Israeli, American, Canadian and European courts, allow the victims of terrorism to fight back.
  In 2016, Ms. Darshan-Leitner was chosen as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post,[4] and named by the Israeli Forbes magazine as one of the 50 most influential Israeli women.[5]
  Contents [hide]
  1 Early life, education and family
  2 Career
  3 Prominent cases
  4 Public campaigns
  5 Associates
  6 References
  7 External links
  Early life, education and family[edit]
  Darshan-Leitner was born in Petah Tikva, Israel. After completing undergraduate education she received a law degree from Bar Ilan University in the 1990s and holds an MBA from Manchester University. She subsequently received an MBA from Manchester University in the United Kingdom. She is a mother of six children and is married to Aviel Leitner, an American-born law lecturer from Miami, Florida. She currently lives in North Tel Aviv, Israel.
  Career[edit]
  In the 1990s Darshan-Leitner helped litigate a case on behalf of victims of the Achille Lauro hijacking of 1985. During work on this case, she appeared before the Israeli Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent one of the hijackers, Muhammed Abbas from being allowed to travel to Israel.[6] On April 15, 2003, Abbas was captured by American forces in Iraq while attempting to flee from Baghdad to Syria. Italy subsequently requested his extradition. The Pentagon reported on March 9, 2004 that Zaidan had died the previous day, of natural causes, while in U.S. custody.
  In 2003, Darshan-Leitner founded Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center in Tel Aviv. Shurat HaDin is an Israeli-based civil rights center which focuses on bringing lawsuits and legal actions on behalf of the victims of terrorism. She has said she was influenced by the activities of the Southern Poverty Law Center which had bankrupted several branches of the KKK and other neo-Nazi groups through civil litigation. In founding Shurat HaDin, she noted her goal was to "go after terrorists in the same way that they (the SPLC) were going after racists."[6]
  According to a 2007 US embassy cable released by Wikileaks, Darshan-Leitner explained to a US embassy official that Shurat HaDin received evidence from and had taken direction "on which cases to pursue" from Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency.[7]
  Darshan-Leitner is said to have succeeded in receiving more than $1 billion in judgments, freezing over $600 million in terror assets and securing over $120 million in actual disbursements to the victims and their families. She represents hundreds of terror victims in cases brought against the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the PLO, among others. She successfully represented Puerto Rican family victims of the 1972 Lod terrorist attack in a lawsuit against North Korea. In 2010, a US federal court on the island ruled in their favor, ordering the North Korean government to compensate the victims for the sum of $378 million.[8]
  Prominent cases[edit]
  Since 2003 Darshan-Leitner and a team of lawyers have worked with hundreds of terror victims in lawsuits[9] and legal actions against Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Syria,[10] Islamic Jihad and numerous financial institutions.[11]
  Darshan-Leitner has been involved in a wide range of legal actions in Israel.[12] and abroad on behalf of Jewish rights cases[13]
  In 2012, Darshan-Leitner (Shurat Hadin) sent warning letters to World Vision Australia and AusAID, after the two aid organisations had been accused of funding the Palestinian Union of Agricultural Workers Committee (UAWC) which Darshan-Leitner said was an instrumentality of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). UAWC - World Vision activities were resumed in early March 2012 after an investigation by World Vision found no evidence that humanitarian support for UAWC was in any way leaking to terrorists.[14] Darshan-Leitner rejected the finding and demanded, under Australia's Freedom of Information Act that AUS Aid and World Vision turn over details of the investigation. She noted that USAID, the agency that administers foreign aid for the U.S. government, has labeled UAWC a PFLP affiliate, an allegation based on a 1993 report.[15] Darshan-Leitner also alleged that the President, Vice-President, Treasurer and other key members of the AUWC board are senior PFLP officials. On April 2, 2012, the Shurat HaDin Center was asked by the Australian Government to provide it with evidence of a connection between the AUWC and the PFLP.
  In September 2006 Darshan-Leitner and New York City attorney Robert Tolchin filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the families of 12 missing Jewish-Iranians against the former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Khatami has refused to answer the complaint and has defaulted the case.
  In January 2008 she filed a lawsuit for NIS 260,000,000 ($65,000,000 US) against the Egyptian Government in a court in Beersheba on behalf of ten families of Sderot (Israel) whose relatives were killed or seriously injured by Palestinian Kassam rockets.
  Thirty families who were victims of terrorist attacks either because they were injured or because they lost a family member in a wave of terrorist attacks that occurred in Israel between 2001 and 2003. The families sued Credit Lyonnais, a French bank, because the bank provided banking services and maintained accounts for CBSP, a primary fundraiser for Hamas (as designated by the US Treasury Department and by Israel in 1998). CBSP acts in collaboration with more than a dozen humanitarian organizations based in different towns in the West Bank and Gaza and in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. The group has collected large amounts of money from mosques and Islamic centers, which it then transfers to sub-organizations of Hamas.
  From 1997 onward, the bank allegedly knowingly transferred large sums to Hamas controlled organizations in the West Bank and Gaza. This activity occurred until 2003, when the bank finally closed the account following over three years of suspicious fund transfers.
  In March 2008 the court denied defendant’s motion, noting in particular that France maintains a particularly strong interest in eradicating terrorism, and the likelihood of criminal or civil challenges against the bank are rather slim.[16]
  In May 2008 Shurat HaDin was co-counsel in filing in Manhattan Federal Court against Swiss mega bank UBS GA[17] which is accused by the plaintiffs of financing terror. Included amongst the plaintiffs were three families who were physically and emotionally harmed by the Katyusha rockets launched by Hizbollah into Israeli cities during the 2006 war with Lebanon. Attorneys for UBS have denied the allegations and said they would vigorously defend the lawsuit.
  The Federal District Court dismissed the complaint in August 2009 for lack of proximate cause between UBS’ fund transfers and Iranian support of terror organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. The court found that there was no causal link between UBS and the terror organizations supported by Iran. The court stated that a requirement under the Anti-terrorism Act is that UBS not only must have known about the causal link between its funds provided to Iran and Iranian support for terror organizations, but also must have intended that the funds were to be used for that purpose. Such intent was not proven by plaintiffs.[18]
  In June 2008 the families of 12 missing Iranian Jews filed a petition in the Israeli High Court of Justice seeking to block the Israeli government from releasing information on the fate of four disappeared Iranian diplomats as part of the prisoner release deal with Hizbollah. The Iranian diplomats were captured by Christian militia forces, the Samir Jaja faction, in South Lebanon in 1982. The families are represented in the court proceeding before the High Court by Darshan-Leitner.
  In July 2008 Darshan-Leiter received word from the Israeli High Court of Justice that the petition was being dismissed as the issue was one of "diplomatic concern." The court did however point a harsh finger at Israeli PM at the time, Mr. Ehud Olmert, with an expectation that the "matter not be pushed asunder." Darshan-Leinter then turned to the PM with a request by the families for an urgent meeting before the deal went through. Receiving no response, Darshan-Leiter then turned to all 120 members of the Israeli Parliament, The Knesset, asking that they remember the 12 Missing Jews of Iran in their speeches and activities throughout their term of service.
  In July 2008 the Center joined with Montreal-based attorney Jeffrey Boro and Professor Ed Morgan of the University of Toronto's International Law and Counter-Terrorism Project to file a civil action by Canadian victims of Hizbollah. The lawsuit.[19] contends that since 2004, the Lebanese-Canadian Bank (LCB), formerly the Lebanese branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, permitted the Yousser Company for Finance and Investment and the Martyrs Foundation, two Lebanese organizations recognized by the United States as active terrorist groups, to open and maintain accounts at the bank. The suit alleges that LCB allowed the two groups to freely transfer many millions of dollars of Hizbollah funds and to carry out millions of dollars in financial transactions, within and without Lebanon, by means of wire transfers, letters of credit, checks and credit cards provided by LCB. LCB, the suit charged, facilitated Hizbollah's terrorist activities and is liable to the plaintiffs for the harm that has been inflicted upon them and their families in the rockets attacks launched by Hizbollah on civilians in Northern Israel in the year 2006. Darshan-Leitner claimed in filing the suit that LCB knew that both charities are part of Hizbollah's financial arm and that by providing them banking services they were really assisting the Iranian backed terrorists in Lebanon and their rocket attacks against civilians.
  On July 14, 2008 Darshan-Leiter and Attorney Robert Tolchin of New York filed a civil action on behalf of victims of the Hizbollah against an American Bank. The action was filed in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan Representing 85 victims and their family members, the lawsuit[20] alleges that the American Express (AMEX) Bank, Ltd. and the Lebanese-Canadian Bank (LCB) unlawfully executed millions of dollars in wire transfers for Hizbollah between 2004 and 2006. The plaintiffs assert that Hizbollah used the funds transferred by AMEX Bank and LCB to prepare and carry out the rocket attacks which the terrorist organization rained on Israeli cities between July 12 and August 14, 2006.
  The plaintiffs rested their claims in part on written findings issued by the New York State Banking Department in 2007, which determined that AMEX Bank had failed to establish adequate procedures to prevent terrorism financing as demanded by state and federal law. This is the first lawsuit brought by terror victims against a U.S. financial institution that serves as a correspondent for a bank in Lebanon. Darshan-Leitner told the Associated Press that "the idea of the lawsuit in part is to warn American correspondent banks that they will be held responsible for attacks by Hezbollah if they transfer money to them," Darshan-Leitner said. "We expect them to follow the law."
  On August 21, 2008 over 100 victims of terrorist attacks carried out by the Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad ("PIJ") terror organizations in Israel filed a civil action in Los Angeles Superior Court against China’s largest bank, the Bank of China Ltd. ("BOC"). The suit, Zahavi v. Bank of China, seeks both compensatory and punitive damages. The plaintiffs allege in their complaint that starting in 2003, BOC executed dozens of wire transfers for the Hamas and PIJ totaling several million dollars. In April 2005, Israeli counter-terrorism officers met with officials from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and China’s Central Bank regarding these Hamas and PIJ wire transfers. The Israelis demanded that the Chinese officials take action to prevent BOC from making any further such transfers. Despite the Israeli warnings, the BOC – with the Chinese government’s approval – continued to wire terrorist funds for the Hamas and PIJ. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Federico C. Sayre of Los Angeles, Robert Tolchin of New York City and Darshan-Leitner.
  In February 2011 Darshan-Leitner and David Schoen filed a $5m lawsuit against former US President Jimmy Carter, alleging that his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid "intentionally misleads and misrepresents about actual historic events", contrary to New York state law against deceptive business practices.[21] In May 2011, three months after the filing, the suit was dropped by the plaintiffs.[22]

  Israel Law Center Writ Seeking Seizure from ICANN for Iran's web domains
  In June 2014, Darshan-Leitner filed a writ in the United States District Court in Washington, DC, seeking seizure of the web domains belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran to compensate victims of Iranian sponsored terrorism.[23] The awarding of this seizure and the assets to the plaintiffs of a 2003 lawsuit where they won a monetary award, but have been unable to collect.[24] This suit,filed against Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), seeks the seizure based on ICANN's position as a United States registered non-profit organization. The debate on whether ICANN should be under the jurisdiction of the U.S. has been going on for some time, and has not been resolved.[25]
  In September 2014, Shurat HaDin filed a war crimes complaint against Khaled Mashaal,[26] the top leader of Hamas at the International Criminal Court for executing Palestinians[27] without trial during the Summer 2014 Gaza war.[28]
  Sokolow et al v. Palestine Liberation Organization et al - Darshan-Leitner was co-counsel in the civil proceedings against the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, which found both organizations liable for the injuries and deaths of American citizens caused by six terror attacks in Israel between 2001 and 2004. Damages totaling $655.5 million were awarded by the jury.[29]
  Public campaigns[edit]
  On May 1, 2008, Darshan-Leitner along with former Soviet Ida Nudel launched a public campaign to save the life of a Palestinian police officer accused of having assisted the Israeli intelligence services in hunting down fugitive terrorists. The policeman, Imad Sa'ad[30] has been sentenced to death by a Palestinian military tribunal in Hebron. Sa'ad, it is alleged, provided the Israel Defense Forces with the whereabouts of four suspected bomb makers whom the Palestinian Authority was unwilling to hand over to the Israelis.
  Darshan-Leitner has argued that the Temple Mount is being harmed by work carried out by the Jerusalem Wakf and she organized a campaign to encourage the Israeli government to file charges against the Wakf. "The Temple Mount", one of the holiest sites in the Muslim world and home of the Al-Aqsa mosque, "is the property of Jewish nation and has been for thousands of years," claimed Darshan-Leitner.[31] Darshan-Leitner took the case to court and lost. The High Court (BAGATZ), dismissed the claim.[32]
  Associates[edit]
  Australian solicitor, Andrew Hamilton, has recently been retained by Shurat HaDin to assist in Commonwealth Matters. Hamilton, previously rated as one of Australia's most inspirational in-house lawyers[33] has a history of successful litigation against injustice and has twice won cases in the High Court of Australia defending both single mothers[34] and multi-national corporations.

Darshan-Leitner, Nitsana: HARPOON
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Darshan-Leitner, Nitsana HARPOON Hachette (Adult Nonfiction) $27.00 11, 7 ISBN: 978-0-316-39905-0
The U.S. and other powers are battling terrorist organizations militarily--but also fiscally, cutting off funding sources and intercepting the flow of money into enemy hands.As Israeli attorney and activist Darshan-Leitner and New York-based author Katz (The Ghost Warriors: Inside Israel's Undercover War Against Suicide Terrorism, 2016, etc.) write, the business of espionage is popularly imagined to feature James Bond-like heroes. However, "the day-to-day unreported grind of gathering, analyzing, and acting on intelligence is what allows people to sleep soundly in their beds." One aspect of this intelligence work, in the case of several terrorist organizations, has been to identify and neutralize the financial brains behind the operation, the men who know the passwords and routing numbers. As is so often the case in matters of terrorism, the Israelis are several steps ahead of everyone else; at the center of the story stands a Mossad officer named Meir Dagan, who assembled a team of talented intelligence workers with an eye to tracking down where the funds for groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaida were coming from. Their operating thesis--that "there were no longer any white-collar jobs in the terrorist organization"-- meant that such financial officers were fair game for assassination, and organizations whose accountants were "spectacularly killed," as the authors gamely note, found it harder than before to recruit successors for men who "were not replaced with a job posting on craigslist." The narrative centers on Israeli operations, which favor surgical strikes on selective targets, unlike the brute-force American preference for carpet bombing and such; the authors do note, however, that American tactics have increasingly shifted to finding financiers in an effort to "follow the money, devalue the money, seize the money, and kill the money." It's not exactly le Carre, but solid reporting and analysis meet a good sense of narrative, making this book more fluent and less dismal than its subject might suggest.
1 of 2 4/21/18, 7:17 PM
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Darshan-Leitner, Nitsana: HARPOON." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2017. Book Review Index
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• The Jerusalem Post
  http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Operation-Harpoon-How-the-Mossad-and-an-Israeli-NGO-destroyed-terrorist-money-networks-513622
  Word count: 1264

  Op. Harpoon: How the Mossad and an Israeli NGO destroyed terrorist money networks
  A newly released book sheds light on a secret operation that put a halt to terror funding for some of the organizations that threaten the Jewish state.
  By Yonah Jeremy Bob
  November 7, 2017 19:33

  >
  Fighting Israel's foes in US courts, lawyer had help from Mossad
  >
  Former Mossad agents worked on Weinstein's behalf, report claims

  Top secret materials

  Top secret materials. (photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)

  Former government sources have told The Jerusalem Post that Israel’s Operation Harpoon, carried out by a range of Mossad, Shin Bet and other operatives, was revolutionary in that it was “not just about following the money, but about destroying terrorists’ money networks.”

  Sources who had close personal contact with Meir Dagan (1945-2016) indicate that the idea of elevating the thwarting of terrorism financing to a primary mission of intelligence agencies was an uphill battle for the legendary Mossad chief and Harpoon founder.

  “When Dagan started Harpoon as part of his role at the National Security Council, no one was interested. Not the Mossad, Shin Bet, IDF intelligence..., and there was almost nothing in place to combat terrorism financing,” the sources told the Post.

  With his close relationship with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, his ingenuity and singular will power, Dagan, who later became Mossad chief, turned Harpoon into an operation that dealt Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah’s Yasser Arafat and other terrorist groups major blows.

  The development and achievements of Harpoon against terrorism financing, including by groups of lawyers such as the Shurat Hadin NGO, is capturing the headlines now as a new book about the operations and the lawsuits has been released.

  Cover of Harpoon (screenshot)Cover of Harpoon (screenshot)

  Though Harpoon has been previously revealed in its general outlines, Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters, by Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel Katz, breaks new ground on several fronts.

  Ex-government sources said that Shurat Hadin was one of several law firms/NGOs that Harpoon operatives approached (and ultimately the most successful) to get at terrorists’ financing, where targeted-killing operations were illegal, not feasible or considered too aggressive.

  Darshan-Leitner’s group, initially housed in a tiny apartment in Petah Tikva, and others proved decisive, said the sources, in taking down Hezbollah-connected banks such as the Lebanese Canadian Bank, which once had over $5 billion in assets.

  Before 9/11, only Israel, Dagan and a smaller group of lawyers were in the terrorism-financing busting business for the longhaul.

  But the former government sources explained that after 9/11 they helped get the US intelligence community, the Treasury and Justice departments quicker than the CIA and FBI, turned on to going after terrorism financing as a long-term strategic problem and not a mere short-term tactical issue.

  Sources said that the CIA and FBI were quickly onboard with “following the money” of a particular terrorist cell to seize it. However, only the Treasury and Justice departments understood Dagan’s strategic concept of taking out terrorists’ ability to bank and of driving up their cost of moving money globally.

  Former government sources said that both their intelligence operations as well as lawsuits by Shurat Hadin and others “dramatically impacted Hezbollah’s budget and ability.”

  The book discloses intelligence assets in the Lebanese banking system, such as LCB fraud auditor Munir Z. The breakthroughs did not come without loss, with Munir Z. eventually caught and killed by Hezbollah in 2009. Intelligence operations rarely come without risk and complex calculations about balancing agents’ safety with pushing them to obtain information breakthroughs.

  For Darshan-Leitner, her being chosen by Harpoon to get privileged information, though never paid, to help her file terrorism finance lawsuits, was life-changing.

  In a comical part of the book, her secretary calls out to her, “Pick up on line two... I think it’s the U2s.”

  It was September 2009.

  The U2s the secretary was referring to had nothing to do with the famous Irish band.

  They were part of Dagan’s elite intelligence unit and were called the U2s, as they were referred to in the book as Uri L. and Shai U.

  For Darshan-Leitner, such a call from the “U2s” always meant an interesting meeting was around the corner.

  An astounding revelation made in the book is the contention that Israel’s final blow to bring an end to its most recent war, the 2014 Gaza war (Operation Protective Edge) with Hamas, came about not because of attacks on Hamas’s fighters, but “by incinerating the Hamas finance minister’s millions of dollars in cash for salaries he was delivering to suicide terrorists.” Targeting money with missiles was an extension of Dagan’s strategy to disrupt terrorists’ fund-raising networks.

  The book recounts that Israeli intelligence “had learned that the elite of the Hamas force... were rumbling to their wives and families over not being paid... their salaries in weeks. Their anger was close to undermining the entire military campaign... The lack of money meant that the families of the fighters couldn’t buy food and clothing... Hamas leaders warned of insurrection. Calls were made for an emergency delivery of dollars.”

  On August 23, 2014, Israel’s intelligence services picked up the trail of a main in his 20s traveling across Sinai with $13 million in cash packed inside four large leather suitcases.

  He eventually arrived at “a tunnel, well illuminated and ventilated [that] had been dug underneath the safe house... At just before dawn, the envoy sent a brief SMS message to his patrons... waiting for the money on the Gaza side of the tunnel... The text consisted of a code word indicating that the courier was coming across; the phone... was destroyed immediately after the message was sent,” the authors recount.

  After an hour, when the man was almost across the tunnel and “a smile came over his face. The cash had been delivered. His mission was over... A black Mercedes... was waiting for the luggage. Inside the car was Mohammed el-Ghoul, Hamas’s head of payroll.” He connected Hamas with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qatar and the various Gulf Arab states – and sources of money generally.

  The celebration was interrupted by an Israel Air Force AH-64D Longbow attack helicopter that, with the push of a button, sent a single AGM-114 Hellfire antitank missile slamming into Ghoul’s Chinese-made car.

  “The sedan evaporated into a fireball and a cloud of black smoke... the skies turned green as a storm of singed $100 bills cascaded onto the dusty streets of Gaza City.... The payroll’s incineration was a major blow to Hamas. Without the cash they could not maintain the struggle. Hamas asked for a cease-fire,” says the book.

  The Gaza war ended 48 hours later.

  In some areas it is hard to concretely estimate the effect of Harpoon, shepherded by Dagan, the Mossad and Shurat Hadin, on Hezbollah and Hamas over the last 20 years.

  But former government sources, including those with operational backgrounds, indicated that the program was of massive strategic importance, in some ways far exceeding what even the most successful tactical operational successes could achieve.

  Tags:
  Hamas Israel news Mossad Terrorism shurat hadin

• Reuters
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-security-israel-lawyer/fighting-israels-foes-in-u-s-courts-lawyer-had-help-from-mossad-idUSKBN1D2296
  Word count: 611

  Fighting Israel's foes in U.S. courts, lawyer had help from Mossad
  Dan Williams

  4 Min Read

  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli lawyer has shed light in a new book on the role the Mossad intelligence agency has played in U.S. litigation she pursues against the international financing of Israel’s enemies.
  FILE PHOTO: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, a lawyer for families suing over attacks attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas, exits the Manhattan Federal Courthouse following a jury's decision in New York, U.S., February 23, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File photo

  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Orthodox Jewish mother of six, heads the not-for-profit Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, which has named Palestinian authorities, Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and North Korea as defendants in lawsuits it has brought.

  Many of the cases were heard in U.S. courtrooms, either because victims of Palestinian shootings and bombings or Hezbollah rockets held American citizenship, or to target suspected militant funds held in banks in the United States.

  Titled “Harpoon” after the codename of the Mossad finance-tracking unit Darshan-Leitner worked with, the book lays out how Israel targets foes’ bank accounts as well as arsenals.

  In the closest that the secretive Mossad can come to a public endorsement, its former director provided praise for the book on its cover.

  Darshan-Leitner, who mostly is engaged by private citizens, said that after her law center began suing Palestinians over attacks during a revolt that they launched in 2000, she was invited to Mossad headquarters for a consultation.

  “I explained to them what we do, how and where lawsuits are filed, what evidence and jurisdiction is required, the general rules,” she told Reuters. “Their response was: What do we have to do to file more lawsuits? What do you need?”

  That, Darshan-Leitner said, evolved into regular briefings, held in quiet cafes, where she would get tip-offs about suspect finances to focus on during the U.S. courts’ discovery hearings.

  Her Harpoon interlocutors, she said, have never given her documents that might betray the sources of their information: “They recited all the data from memory. It was pretty amazing.”

  At times, the materials were turned into formal affidavits, filed in the name of Israel’s government, said Darshan-Leitner, adding that her role in Harpoon was as an unpaid volunteer.

  Among cases to which she credits the cooperation are a $655 million judgment in New York against Palestinian authorities in 2015 and the disbanding of a planned 2011 activist flotilla to Gaza, after insurers were warned that they could be criminally liable for the bid to challenge Israel’s blockade.

  The former verdict was voided, in a decision now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the latter had no clear financial gain so no payout was sought.

  Darshan-Leitner said that around 10 percent of $2 billion worth of U.S judgments in her favor have been paid.

  That suggests that Israel also sees the litigation as a way to score points against its adversaries in the court of public opinion. “The struggle itself is very important, as it gives the victims a sense of vindication and puts pressure on the countries (being sued),” Darshan-Leitner said.

  “Harpoon” was submitted, in accordance with Israeli law, to military censors who, Darshan-Leitner said, cut a fifth of the text to suppress some details about intelligence methods and personnel.

  Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Alison Williams
  Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

• Jim Bohannon Show
  http://www.jimbohannonshow.com/2017/11/13/harpoon/
  Word count: 293

  Harpoon
  Posted on November 13, 2017

  HARPOON: INSIDE THE COVERT WAR AGAINST TERRORISM’S MONEY by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner (Author),‎ Samuel M. Katz (Author) Publisher: Hachette Books (November 7, 2017)

  A revelatory account of the cloak-and-dagger Israeli campaign to target the finances fueling terror organizations–an effort that became the blueprint for U.S. efforts to combat threats like ISIS and drug cartels.
  ISIS boasted $2.4 billion of revenue in 2015, yet for too long the global war on terror overlooked financial warfare as an offensive strategy. “Harpoon,” the creation of Mossad legend Meir Dagan, directed spies, soldiers, and attorneys to disrupt and destroy money pipelines and financial institutions that paid for the bloodshed perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups. Written by an attorney who worked with Harpoon and a bestselling journalist, Harpoon offers a gripping story of the Israeli-led effort, now joined by the Americans, to choke off the terrorists’ oxygen supply, money, via unconventional warfare.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

  NITSANA DARSHAN-LEITNER is an Israeli activist and attorney and is the president of Shurat HaDin, a Tel Aviv based law center that represents the families of hundreds of terrorist victims in lawsuits worldwide. She was recognized by Forbes Israel as one of the Fifty Most Influential Israeli Women of 2016 and by The Jerusalem Post as one of the Most Influential Jews. Follow her @AttorneyNitsana.

  SAMUEL M. KATZ is an internationally recognized special operations and counterterrorism expert, is the author of over 20 books, and is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi. He is also the former editor-in-chief of Special Operations Report.

  Follow him @samuel_m_katz
  Filed Under: Featured Books, Uncategorized

• Y Net News
  https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5061185,00.html
  Word count: 4320

  How the Mossad and I took on terrorism financing
  In a new book published in the US, Israeli lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner reveals how she was entangled in operations with members of the Harpoon unit, a covert financial counterterrorism taskforce that has dealt heavy blows to Hezbollah, Ismail Haniyeh, Yasser Arafat and Lebanon’s banks.
  Nevo Ziv|Published: 01.07.18 , 23:58
  He is known in the world as “the Lebanese Madoff,” but 10 years ago he was still called Salah Ezz al-Din: A rich businessman closely associated with Hezbollah. How close? He owned the publishing house of textbooks used in the organization’s schools. The publishing house was named Hadi Nasrallah after the Hezbollah secretary-general’s son, who was killed in a battle with IDF soldier. He wasn’t a person Hezbollah would suspect.

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  In 2007, Ezz al-Din flew to the Persian Gulf emirates in search of investments. Major funds for southern Lebanon’s reconstruction began flowing in from Iran after the Second Lebanon War, and his high-ranking friends from Hezbollah looked for a good place for him to grow in. It is unknown to this very day who was the contact who had given Ezz al-Din the option of promising investments, but it is clear that he had made a deep impression on him.

  Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner at the New York court, last month (Photo: Nadav Neuhas)
  Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner at the New York court, last month (Photo: Nadav Neuhas)

  He invested millions of private dollars and soon began earning a lot. He started an investment firm and recruited more and more investors who enjoyed the money—thousands of the organization’s supporters in southern Lebanon, senior Hezbollah commanders and even the secretary-general himself, Hassan Nasrallah, who invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the initiative.

  One day, it was all over. A senior Hezbollah commander’s check bounced. Ezz al-Din thought it was a mistake, called the bank and was told that the account was empty. All the other banks too informed him that his money had been emptied out. He called the company in Dubai and got no answer. Ezz al-Din discovered that his partners in the Persian Gulf had disappeared with about $1 billion, mostly from Hezbollah’s funds. Now try and explain that one to Nasrallah.

  The Shiite organization’s serious investigations revealed nothing—Abu Madoff was unable to tell them where the money had gone. “In Tel Aviv, however, people didn’t appear surprised by what happened. Hezbollah had been in (former Mossad chief) Meir Dagan’s crosshairs,” says attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.

  Darshan-Leitner is the co-author of "Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masters", which was published in the United States in early November and unveiled the Harpoon unit—the Israeli intelligence body responsible for the war on terrorism financing, mainly that of the Palestinians and Hezbollah.

  “In the Arab world, people suspected Israelis had done it, but there was no way of proving it,” she says about the Lebanese Madoff affair. “They still don’t know what happened to this very day, but according to foreign reports that blamed Israel, there is a certain likelihood that it was a Harpoon operation.”

  Darshan-Leitner, who wrote the book together with author Samuel M. Katz, knows what she’s talking about. Not only did she interview senior intelligence officials from the mysterious intelligence body for the book, including the person who was in charge of it for many years—former Mossad director Meir Dagan—but she was also very involved in it herself.

  Former Mossad chief Dagan was tasked with disrupting terrorist organizations' funding channels (Photo: Reuters)
  Former Mossad chief Dagan was tasked with disrupting terrorist organizations' funding channels (Photo: Reuters)

  A meeting with the 'KGB'
  One day, in 2002, the phone rang in her office. On the other end, she heard a man’s voice. “Hello, Nitsana?” he said. “He gave me his name, told me he was from the National Security Council (NSC) and said they wanted to meet, to talk,” Darshan-Leitner recounts. “I was shocked. We set a time and place, and then he said: ‘Don’t tell anyone about the meeting, don’t put it down in your diary, don’t write down my name or the details of place.”

  Darshan-Leitner is a lawyer and the mother of six from Modi’in, but she was never part of the intelligence community. She didn’t even go the army, but did national service instead.

  “A few days later, I arrived at a Tel Aviv building with heavy security arrangements. Regular offices, a corridor. It looked like something governmental. It was probably a Mossad building, but I didn’t know that. I was led to a room, and the man who spoke to me on the phone introduced himself. He was of Russian descent, and I later referred to him as KGB. He introduced me to two other people, who wanted me to tell them ‘what exactly you people do.’”

  Darshan-Leitner with the late Meir Dagan. 'The tremendous tool he invented was adopted by the world'
  Darshan-Leitner with the late Meir Dagan. 'The tremendous tool he invented was adopted by the world'

  Darshan-Leitner told him about Shurat HaDin, a Jewish human rights organization she heads, which offers legal assistance to victims of terror attacks against terrorist entities and bodies funding terrorism. The organization hires the services of law firms and sues bodies in the United States, Canada or Europe that have assets or money in those countries and have directly or indirectly contributed to acts of terror. Up until then, Shurat HaDin had already sued Iran and Hamas and managed to get American courts to impose a lien on their funds.

  “I told them everything: How’s it’s done, what has to be taken into account, against who we can act, in which kinds of courts, in which countries, who are the victims, who are the players, how much money can be received in those rulings, how the funds can be seized. When I was done talking, there was silence. One of them raised his head, looked at me and said scornfully: ‘So what will you do? Harm Hezbollah’s checking account? Reduce their credit rating?’

  “I explained that the idea was based on a US organization that aided poverty-stricken communities in the southern US. It was a human rights organization that acted against neo-Nazi organizations in the US and helped families hurt by the activities of skinheads, primarily black families. It would file lawsuits against them, prove their responsibility for different actions, receive a verdict and seize their bank accounts, rent, property, harming them financially and leading to their collapse. I explained, but they weren’t really impressed.

  Shurat HaDin receiving judgment against Hamas drew the attention of Harpoon's members
  Shurat HaDin receiving judgment against Hamas drew the attention of Harpoon's members

  “We ended the conversation and each went our own way. Immediately afterwards, we received a verdict in the US against Hamas. At the same time, the State of Israel had taken money from Palestinian banks in the territories and we asked the court to forfeit those funds to implement the verdict against Hamas. This was where our paths crossed again.

  “I got another phone call from that KGB guy to come and meet with them, this time in a café. I arrived and they asked me to brief them on that legal action—how we managed to seize Hamas funds. This time, they no longer disregarded what I had to say. They seemed to have realized that this thing had a strong basis and that it could succeed. The fact is that they returned with thoughts on how to implement this system on concrete issues related to them.

  “Following that meeting, we had more and more meetings on different issues. During the meetings, we raised ideas: Is it possible to use legal action against a certain body? Is it possible to file more claims against the Palestinian Authority? Is it possible to file a claim against a bank account of Iran’s national oil company in Rome? Is it possible to file a lawsuit against the Bank of China or a lawsuit against the Lebanese Canadian Bank?

  “And so we started investigating the issue and looking into the possibility of doing so. And I still didn’t exactly know who these people were. I thought they were graduates of the Mossad and Shin Bet. I didn’t know they were part of a special unit which thwarts the funding of terrorism.”

  Arab couriers habitually arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in the 90s with suitcases full of cash
  Arab couriers habitually arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in the 90s with suitcases full of cash

  Millions in a suitcase

  To understand how the Israeli war on terrorism financing started, we must return to the 1990s, when several Arab money couriers arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport from abroad and were caught with money for the Palestinian struggle. It was the first time the defense establishment realized that millions of dollars were being smuggled to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that they were the driving force of the next terror attack.

  Later, Iran joined the fray, embraced Hamas and introduced suicide bombings into the Palestinian arsenal. Iran became a financial sponsor: Funds were freely transferred to Lebanon, and from there to Hamas in Gaza and in the West Bank through the banking system. All this money was legitimate and no one stopped it.

  “In 1995 buses were exploding, and Meir Dagan, who served at the time as the IDF chief of staff’s advisor on terror and later as head of the NSC, realized that there was an open money trail intensifying the flames of terror,” Darshan-Leitner recalls. “He contacted Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and then Harpoon was established—a body comprised of representatives of the intelligence community.

  “It included a Shin Bet representative, a Mossad representative, a Military Intelligence Directorate representative, agents—not finance people—and representatives from many bodies that are not all intelligence-related but that touch on intelligence and deal with money: the Tax Authority, the Finance Ministry, the Israel Police, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, customs.

  “At first, Harpoon was part of the NSC, but at the time people were being murdered on the streets and no one in the intelligence organizations thought terror could be fought by trying to destroy those organization’s financial infrastructure, so for years the initiative wasn’t taken seriously.”

  But then the second intifada broke out, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appointed Dagan as Mossad director. The appointment didn’t stop Dagan from remaining involved in his financial initiative.

  Dagan as Mossad chief with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Photo: Yaakov Saar/GPO)
  Dagan as Mossad chief with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (Photo: Yaakov Saar/GPO)

  “Sharon was famous for his hatred towards (then-PLO Chairman) Yasser Arafat, and there were documents proving that Arafat was taking money from donor countries and funneling it towards terror attacks. One of Harpoon’s first activities was disconnecting Arafat from those funds.”

  The book describes a particularly sophisticated sting: “Arafat’s money man, Muhammad Rashid, was invited to a South American country, where an investment firm was founded with that country’s cooperation. It had luxurious offices and young, beautiful secretaries. Rashid was very impressed and decided to invest in the company. The return was very high, and he convinced Arafat to invest more and more money. The return increased, as he had expected, and he was promised fat commissions from the investment. Rashid and Arafat trusted their partners, and their appetites grew.

  Then one day, Rashid called the company and the secretaries didn’t pick up. The offices had been quickly deserted along with Arafat’s money, more than $100 million.”

  It wasn’t just about stings and manipulations. Harpoon offered Shurat HaDin assistance in its legal battle too, providing documents, banking material and targets that could be confronted in court.

  “There was an interest, there were meetings, they studied what could be done, where we could sue and what could help me in court. Then we had to find a way to turn the material into legally admissible evidence. We became a legal tool that worked with them and they worked with us. We cooperated.”

  Then-Hamas Prime Minister Haniyeh attempted smuggling tens of millions of dollars into Gaza
  Then-Hamas Prime Minister Haniyeh attempted smuggling tens of millions of dollars into Gaza

  Where have you cooperated, for example?

  "In 2005, Ismail Haniyeh, who was the Hamas prime minister in Gaza at the time, raised $40 million for Hamas in Iran. There was no way of transferring those funds through the banking system, as there is no such thing in Gaza, so he put everything in suitcases and took a flight from Tehran to Sudan, which is the route taken by all smugglers to this very day. In Sudan, he travelled with the money on a truck through Egypt. At the time, the border at the Rafah Border Crossing was under IDF control, and Haniyeh was allowed to go in and out, as a prime minister on diplomatic missions. He was certain he would have no problem getting in.

  "The unit knew about the money. Meir Dagan said, 'Guys, he has $40 million and he wants to get into Gaza. How do we stop him?' All kinds of ideas were raised, like dressing up as Bedouin robbers and robbing him on the way, but they were rejected.

  "When he reached the outskirts of Gaza, the IDF was warned not to let him in. Haniyeh said that he was prime minister and that both he and his suitcases had diplomatic immunity, but there was information that there was money in there. He stood at the border for several hours, and this led to a crisis. The Arab League rushed to help him, saying it would open a bank account under its name in Cairo, he would deposit the funds there and they would find a way to transfer the money to him a day or two later. The next morning, he deposited the money in the bank account they had opened—not before he put $5 million in his pocket—and entered Gaza.

  Is that when you entered the picture?

  "Yes, we got a phone call from the unit explaining the situation, and they asked if we had a way of stopping the funds from reaching Haniyeh. We had an American verdict against Hamas of more than $100 million for a terror attack. The plaintiffs were two orphans whose parents were killed by a Hamas cell in the Beit Shemesh area in 1996.

  The Arab League. Hamas did not receive its funds through the League's funnel thanks to the unit's efforts (Photo: AFP)
  The Arab League. Hamas did not receive its funds through the League's funnel thanks to the unit's efforts (Photo: AFP)

  “The Arab League has an office in Washington, so the court there is authorized to discuss the claim, and we immediately filed a request to implement the verdict. The funds may have been in Egypt and we had no way of obtaining them, but a court could seize Arab League funds anywhere. The prosecution’s claim was that the money in the Arab League account belonged to Hamas. We had a verdict against Hamas, so we said those funds should be handed over to us. The Arab League filed a request to dismiss the claim, arguing that the funds belonged to the donor states rather than to Hamas, as they had not been transferred to Gaza. In response, we provided a deposition from an official source elaborating on the entire affair.”

  How did you present it to the judge?

  “I said it was a deposition from a representative of Israel’s National Security Council.”

  And did the judge accept it?

  “There are no investigations on depositions. The judge has to decide based on the documents presented to him. If he is convinced they are reliable and carry some weight, he decides. The judge accepted the deposition and the Arab League informed Hanieyh that they would not be transferring him the money.”

  Why does the State of Israel actually need your organization? Why doesn’t it sue on its own?

  “The state has varying considerations—foreign relations it has to take into account, international pacts it has signed, political considerations which occasionally change. So it doesn’t want to get into it. It’s easier for the state to refer it to private groups like us. One day the Palestinian Authority is an enemy, and the next day it’s a partner for negotiations, and the moment you enter a legal proceeding—there’s no turning back.”

  Arafat in the PA's headquarters in Ramallah. An enemy one day, a negotiations partner the next (Photo: AP)
  Arafat in the PA's headquarters in Ramallah. An enemy one day, a negotiations partner the next (Photo: AP)

  Bombing the banks

  In addition to the activity against the Palestinian terror funds, the book about Harpoon also describes the war on Israel’s northern front—the battle against the Hezbollah funds, which began shortly before the Second Lebanon War.

  “Harpoon representatives met with their American colleagues in a bid to pressure the Lebanese Canadian Bank and other banks in Lebanon to stop providing services to Hezbollah,” Darshan-Leitner says. “But the Americans, fearing that the Lebanese banking system would collapse, refused. The Israeli opportunity arrived when the Second Lebanon War broke out. Dagan asked Prime Minister Olmert for permission to target the banks.”

  How did he want to target them?

  “He wanted to bomb them. He said to Olmert, ‘I can’t seize their funds, so let’s bomb the banks. I’ll tell you which branches.’ The IDF objected, saying he was insane. ‘To waste ammunition on banks?’ But Dagan insisted and Olmert agreed, and fighter jets bombed banks in neighborhoods controlled by Hezbollah. They did the ‘knock on roof’ practice—evacuating the banks and then bombing them.

  “It came as a blow to Hezbollah. Their funds were badly effected and so was the banks’ information. After the war, Dagan tried to convince the Americans again to cut their ties with the Lebanese Canadian Bank. They refused, and then he asked us if there was a way to sue a Lebanese bank.”

  Harpoon dealt a mortal blow to Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War (Photo: AP)
  Harpoon dealt a mortal blow to Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War (Photo: AP)

  And what did you do?

  “Without knowing which bank it was, I said that in principle if a bank has branches or activity in the United States, there is a jurisdiction in the United States. There are victims with American citizenship and there is evidence, so it’s possible to file a lawsuit. That’s always the answer, everywhere.

  “We researched the issue and saw that the Lebanese Canadian Bank had no branches in the US, so we had to find out which American bank it works with there. Iran was accused of transferring funds to Hezbollah through this bank in dollars. Harpoon revealed that it’s an American Express bank. The evidence was problematic—transfers, deposited sums, which currency, which accounts. The evidence collected by the unit isn’t really suitable for a court. We had to find a way to make it accessible to the court so it would be admissible.”

  How did you deal with it?

  “When the American and Lebanese banks filed a request to dismiss the claim, arguing there was no evidence, one of the unit members submitted a deposition to the American court. He specified all the transfers, dates and sums, and said we had personal knowledge of these things. This lawsuit eventually caused the US to outlaw the Lebanese Canadian Bank, impose sanctions on it, launch criminal proceedings against it, order it to pay a $114-million fine, cut all its ties with American banks, and eventually led to its complete shutdown.

  Not able to reach the Lebanese Canadian Bank directly, the Israelis sued American Express instead
  Not able to reach the Lebanese Canadian Bank directly, the Israelis sued American Express instead

  “The lawsuit against American Express served as an example for banks doing business with other banks in terror-financing countries. It made them stop working with terrorist elements or charity organizations affiliated with them. They don’t need the risk of hundred-of-million-dollar lawsuits from terror victims, and they don’t need the bad PR either. They have also halted their activity with places like Gaza or southern Lebanon. There is no longer an international banking system there, because it’s clear that it’s impossible to keep money in a bank there which won’t reach terrorist elements.

  It’s nice that the private investigator you’re using for the trial is an advanced intelligence organization, isn’t it?

  “It’s strange. If there’s something that needs to be achieved and they’re the only ones who can help achieve it, so yes, that’s the road we’re taking.”

  Darshan-Leitner and Katz’s book was published in New York in early November by the Hachette Book Group, one of the largest publishing companies in the US, with a written recommendation from former Mossad Director Tamir Pardo and former CIA Director James Woolsey and has been promoted with interviews on Fox News, on radio shows and in an American lecture tour. The book is expected to be translated into Hebrew and published in Israel later on.

  Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo provided a blurb for the book (Photo: Yair Sagi)
  Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo provided a blurb for the book (Photo: Yair Sagi)

  Will Harpoon people like the book?

  “Of course they will. We interviewed representatives from the unit, the late Meir Dagan, and of course experts on these issues. They told us things, knowing that what shouldn’t be told won’t be published.

  “The book is very positive. It talks about the efforts and sacrifice they made and about the results, as many of their activities actually led to a calm. In Operation Protective Edge, when Hamas members were crying out for payments and salaries, and families were complaining to the Hamas leaders that there was no money at home and the fathers were at the front, Hamas managed to smuggle a money man into the strip with $13 million to pay its people’s wages. This man was followed, and when he was in the car with the suitcases, it was hit by a missile. All the dollars went flying and got burned, and so did he. The unit’s people said that was one of the things that helped end the war.”

  This cross-organizational body followed the way outlined by Meir Dagan and slowed down over time, but the activity against terrorism financing continues in its current format. “The book goes right up to 2015, when the unit disengaged from the operations it had done under Dagan. I’m in touch with them, they’re still active, but as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t anything in the works right now.

  “The financial war on terror is a tremendous tool that was invented by Meir Dagan and was later adopted by the world’s nations—the Americans and then other Western countries too. It had a huge impact on terror organizations and on the funds that reach them.”

  Dagan met with the book's authors a year before his untimely death (Photo: Shaul Golan)
  Dagan met with the book's authors a year before his untimely death (Photo: Shaul Golan)

  Darshan-Leitner was impressed not only by Dagan the professional, but also by Dagan the man. “Sam and I met him at his home in Tel Aviv, a year before his death, and showed him the outline of the book. We asked for his blessing, and he was very excited. He asked us not to publish some of the things we had done, and we agreed.

  “We also spoke about other things: current affairs, the State of Israel’s situation, what could be done. He was very cautious about all the things related to the activity, but on everything else he offered a lot of knowledge, understanding, insights, criticism on different phenomena and moves. He had a lot of operational plans for the future.

  “We found a warm, cordial man, who doesn’t spare the rod but also makes plans for the future. Although he was very sick by then, when we asked how he was, he replied: ‘Everything is peachy.’ You could tell he was a great scholar with a huge amount of knowledge. As a Mossad man, you think he’s some kind of a killer, and suddenly you see a literary, cultural person who knows history and analyzes issues. It’s surprising.”

  First published: 01.07.18, 23:58

• Criminal Element
  https://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2018/01/spear-phishing-in-the-desert-harpoon-inside-the-covert-war-against-terrorisms-money-masters-by-nitsana-darshan-leitner-a-samuel-m-katz
  Word count: 1110

  Spear Phishing in the Desert: Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner & Samuel M. Katz
  Lance Charnes

  Harpoon: Inside the Covert War against Terrorism’s Money Masters by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner & Samuel M. Katz is a revelatory account of the cloak-and-dagger Israeli campaign to target the finances fueling terror organizations—an effort that became the blueprint for U.S. efforts to combat threats like ISIS and drug cartels.

  When we read “Israel” and “counterterrorism” in the same sentence, we usually think of what the military calls “going kinetic”—a silenced .22, cell-phone bombs, Hellfires, invading Lebanon, that kind of thing. But there’s more than one way to skin a camel. Just like everything else, money makes terrorism go ‘round, and when the money stops, so does the music.

  That, in a nutshell, is what Harpoon: Inside the Covert War against Terrorism’s Money Masters is all about. Israeli civil-rights attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and co-author Samuel M. Katz give us an inside-ish look at a years-long Mossad operation targeting the banks, money-changers, and paymasters who keep the Benjamins flowing to the welter of terrorist organizations elbowing each other in the Middle East.

  Suicide bombers have been called “the poor man’s cruise missile,” but they’re not free. People have to be paid to recon the targets and recruit the bomber. They have to pay for safe houses, vehicles, the parts to make the bomb, and the specialist to build it. Once the bomber has self-detonated, the organization is on the hook for pension payments to his family.

  Beyond that, the largest organizations (such as Hezbollah and Hamas) have turf to run (southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, respectively). They have to maintain their armies, pay their cops and teachers and trash collectors, fund public works projects, buy weapons as well as all the other things governments do, and—since this is the Third World—line leadership’s pockets too. All this can cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year that can’t be had from the normal sources.

  So where does it come from? Hamas and Hezbollah can levy taxes on the people they govern, though as poor as they are, there’s not much to take. There’s aid from allies such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Zakat, or alms-giving, is one of the pillars of Islam, and a good deal of this was diverted into less-than-charitable activity with or without the knowledge of the givers. Many shops run by the Lebanese and Palestinian diaspora have a jar or box by the till for donations to the cause. (They weren’t the first to do this; donation jars “for the brothers” supplied the Irish Republican Army and its offshoots with money from Chicago to Cork to Canterbury.) Entrepreneurial activity—smuggling drugs, arms, people, whatever—has become a profitable sideline, especially for Hezbollah; Harpoon includes a chapter describing its lash-ups with Columbian and Mexican narcotraficantes. All this money winds through the world’s financial plumbing by wire transfer, hawala, or suitcases full of cash into thousands of accounts in Western and Middle Eastern banks.

  This was the target-rich environment that career commando and special operator Meir Dagan decided to go after. Dagan worked his way through the ranks to lead a tank brigade in the 1982 Lebanon invasion, become Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s national security advisor, and then take over the Mossad in 2002. He convinced Israel’s movers and shakers that taking out terrorist commanders in wholesale lots wouldn’t change a thing, but if they could kill the guy who knows where all the bank accounts are, they’d bring an entire organization to a halt. For example, the authors claim the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war came to an abrupt end because Harpoon cut off Hezbollah’s money; ditto the wave of suicide bombings during the second intifada.

  Harpoon starts with the 1993 Israeli-PLO peace accord, when Uri L., a pseudonymous junior officer in the Israeli Army, began promoting financial war against terrorism. Along the way, it recounts the milestone terrorist outrages committed in Israel, the slow building of the Harpoon organization, its flashier operations, partnering with the American Treasury Department, and some of the courtroom moves Ms. Darshan-Leitner’s social-justice group Shurat HaDin made against the major terrorist groups and their sponsors.

  Despite the hyperventilating on the dust jacket, Harpoon isn’t really a tell-all or a thriller. The authors passed this book through Israeli censors, and their accounts of Dagan’s various financial machinations are usually couched in careful neither-confirm-nor-deny language that sucks the life out of them. One especially frustrating example is the story of Salah Ezzedine. The authors insinuate this Lebanese multimillionaire and Hezbollah benefactor was taken in by an Israeli con job that wiped out most of his wealth and that of much of the Hezbollah high command. Unfortunately, they don’t give any details how the scam went down, which would’ve been fascinating.

  This is journalism, not Daniel Silva. The prose is direct, engaging, and doesn’t come off like a string of newspaper feature articles. There are photos, footnotes, extensive endnotes, and an index—all must-haves in a nonfiction book. One caution: the authors make no attempt to balance their strongly pro-Israel viewpoints. To them, Israel is always right and Arabs are all either hapless victims (of other Arabs) or the embodiments of evil. As long as you don’t mind reading the equivalent of a history of the American Indian wars written entirely from the cavalry’s standpoint, you’ll do okay.

  Harpoon is an interesting take on a little-known aspect of the endless Middle Eastern terrorist wars, one in which the battle cry is “follow the money” and banks are the battleground. You’ll learn a lot about the financial underpinnings of terrorism and see how killing an accountant can have more impact than taking out a whole battalion of gunmen. Take the dust-jacket copy with a few grains of Dead Sea salt and you’ll get a pretty good read.

  To learn more or order a copy, visit:

  Buy at iTunes

  Buy at Barnes and NobleBuy at Amazon

  Lance Charnes is an emergency manager and former Air Force intelligence officer. His international thriller Doha 12 involves the more kinetic parts of the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict. Dirty money is the root of many plot points in his DeWitt Agency Files art-crime series. His Facebook author page features spies, art crime and archaeology, among other things.

• The New York Jewish Week
  http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/trying-to-stanch-terrorists-money-flow/
  Word count: 831

  Trying To Stanch Terrorists’ Money Flow
  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who has helped recover $200 million in compensation to terror victims, discusses her new book.
  By Stewart Ain November 14, 2017, 3:01 pm
  05
  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: The 9/11 attacks ratcheted up the level of U.S.-Israeli anti-terrorism cooperation.
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  Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is an Israeli activist attorney who is president of the civil rights organization Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, which has represented hundreds of terrorism victims in legal actions against terrorist groups and their supporters. She has helped to recover $200 million in compensation on the victims’ behalf as her organization seeks to bankrupt hate groups in the Middle East. She and co-author Samuel Katz have written the newly published book, “Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters” (Hachette Books).

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  How did the 9/11 terrorist attacks change the U.S. relationship with Israel and the way the U.S. dealt with global terrorist threats?

  The U.S. had been fighting terrorism, but not so intensely. So, 9/11 was a real wakeup call. The U.S. began to look to the Israelis to see what methods they employed because they were on the front lines in the war against terrorism.

  In the fight against terrorists, Israel assassinated bankers, financiers and bag men across the globe. How many since 9/11?

  Not everything can be revealed. But there were a bunch of money men and high-profile financiers from ISIS, Hamas, the Islamic jihad and the PLO. It’s still going on and many are being threatened and intimidated. There are no more white-collar jobs among terrorist organizations — everyone is a target.

  A hotel video camera actually recorded a suspected Israeli agent leaving an elevator on his way to assassinating a Hamas financier in Dubai.

  I think we have to give a lot of credit to the head of police in Dubai. Perhaps the Israelis underestimated the talent of law enforcement there — if indeed it was a Mossad operation.

  Why was it critical for the U.S. and Israel to team up to wage this warfare?

  America has techniques Israel wanted to use, and it has access Israel does not have. For instance, the U.S. has access to the international banking system based in Belgium that is a clearing center for wiring international financial transactions.

  In the late 1990s, Israel realized that many people were coming to Israel from the U.S. with suitcases full of cash and delivering it to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel asked the U.S. to investigate where the money was coming from and found that it mostly came from charities and foundations in Arab communities in the U.S. All the transactions were in dollars, but since it only affected Israel, nobody cared. That all changed after 9/11 mainly due to the appointment of Stuart Levey as the deputy undersecretary for the Treasury. He agreed to work with Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad … to obstruct money from going to terrorist organizations.

  At the time of Yasir Arafat’s death it was reported that he had millions of dollars secreted in overseas bank accounts. But you say he would have had more had Israel not intervened.

  Every dollar donated to the Palestinian Authority by the naïve European countries was considered by Arafat to be his personal money. The fact that Arafat was stealing it and using it for terrorism infuriated Dagan and [then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon. So, they had foreign businessmen approach Arafat’s financial adviser, Mohammad Rashid, and offer him investment opportunities with a high interest rate in a country in South America. Rashid went to Arafat and encouraged him to invest more and more of his money. It went on for about two years until one day Rashid called the company and it suddenly disappeared along with hundreds of millions of Arafat’s money.

  In the book, you also describe the importance of money in the 2014 Israel-Hamas Gaza war.

  A month into the war, families of Hamas combatants started to complain that they didn’t have any money. So Hamas sent a money man to bring money to the Gaza Strip. Israel tracked his car when he returned to the Gaza Strip and fired a missile that incinerated him and the $13 million in cash he was carrying. I saw the video; it was like a New York ticker-tape parade with hundred dollar bills flying in the air before it was incinerated. With no money to pay combatants’ families, Hamas had no choice but to negotiate a cease-fire.

• Washington Times
  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/20/book-review-harpoon-by-nitsana-darshan-leitner-and/
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  By Joshua Sinai - - Monday, November 20, 2017

  ANALYSIS/OPINION:

  HARPOON: INSIDE THE COVERT WAR AGAINST TERRORISM’S MONEY MASTERS

  By Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel M. Katz

  Hachette Books, $27, 304 pages

  Terrorist groups like ISIS raise hundreds of millions of dollars to finance their activities and attacks through illicit means. The Islamic Republic of Iran bankrolls its Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah proxies with large flows of cash. Hezbollah raises additional funds by engaging in criminal enterprises such as narco-trafficking across several continents.

  Hamas, from its base in the Gaza Strip, smuggles funds to its operatives in the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. These and other terrorist groups also raise funds from their supporters in Europe and the United States, which are sent back through illicit means to their safe havens in the Middle East.

  Terrorist groups’ activities, such as sustaining their organizational structures, acquiring weapons, organizing terrorist operations, as well as managing their non-terrorist activities such as managing their social-welfare and educational services, are dependent on continuous funding streams. Counterterrorism agencies, therefore, understand that their terrorist adversaries’ funding sources represent an important center-of-gravity to significantly weaken their overall warfare effectiveness.

  In “Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel Katz shed light on previously classified accounts of how Israel, facing wide-ranging terrorist attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and others, forged its intelligence, military, police and diplomatic services into an effective task force — code-named Harpoon — to counter terror-based financing around the world.

  Ms. Darshan-Leitner, who is president of Shurat HaDin, is an Israeli activist attorney and Samuel Katz is a New York City-based veteran author on countering terrorism.

  The Harpoon task force was established in 2001, the authors write, shortly after the election of Ariel Sharon as Israel’s prime minister. Mr. Sharon had agreed to Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan’s request to transform his former unit on countering terrorist financing into “a true task force.” With Gen. Dagan appointed to command the task force, the next step was to provide it a code-name or numeric designation for bureaucratic budgetary purposes, which is how it became known as “Harpoon.”

  The authors insightfully explain how a financial task force, such as Harpoon, complements the work of other operational components in combating terrorist adversaries. As they write, in the case of Israel, “Both the Shin Bet [the domestic secret security service] and military intelligence had developed a unique expertise in unraveling the human makeup of a particular terror organization, from the top political leaders down to cell commanders and the knuckle-dragging muscle they employed.

  “Arabic-speaking analysts laboriously followed flow charts linking men to other men who were linked to masterminds. Family ties were examined, as were cellular phone logs and even school and mosque connections. Dagan [who eventually became head of Mossad, the external secret security service], when he sat in on the biweekly Harpoon meetings that included the delegates from the Shin Bet, the IDF, and even the Israel Prison Service, directed that forensic analysts and detailed charts be drawn up connecting the commanders of the various terrorist organizations with their sources of income.”

  This methodology is used by the authors, in what are spy movie-type dramatic accounts, to describe numerous operational exploits by Harpoon’s task force against Israel’s terrorist adversaries. These consisted of “conventional” and “unconventional” tactics.

  “Conventional” tactics included intercepting banking records and telephone calls of terror financiers to track and thwart their logistical movements, including stopping them at border crossings; targeting several financiers for assassination in Middle Eastern countries (such as the January 2010 assassination by an Israeli covert cell of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas military commander and financial operative, in his hotel room in Dubai, which generated sensational media reports worldwide).

  It also included directing Israeli fighter aircraft to bomb Lebanese banks that were transferring funds to Hezbollah during the July-August 2006 war.

  “Unconventional” means included covertly conducting financial con games (such as entering into a fraudulent dealing with Salah Haj Ezzedine, a Hezbollah financier, to bankrupt him and embarrass his group); and unleashing invasive and destructive computer malware attacks against banking institutions holding terrorist funds.

  In what is relevant to the United States, the book also discusses the new battlefield in the war against terrorist finances that involves lawyers. This includes the work of the co-author’s Shurat HaDin law firm in filing lawsuits against banking institutions that have some involvement in holding accounts with links to Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups, as a way to pressure them through obtaining financial damages to sever such linkages, thereby depriving these groups of access to international banking institutions. Many of these lawsuits, the authors explain, have been filed in the United States, whose legal system is hospitable to use as an instrument for victims of terrorist attacks to sue such banks for damages.

  Also discussed are the extensive ties between Israel and the United States in countering terrorist financing, such as Israeli cooperation with the U.S. government’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which was established after al Qaeda’s September 11 attacks, and how the U.S. is also targeting the finances of groups such as ISIS.

  There is much to commend in this highly revealing account, which is one of the best books on best practices in countering terrorists’ financing.

  • Joshua Sinai is a senior analyst at Kiernan Group Holdings (KGH), in Alexandria, Va.

  Copyright © 2018 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.