Taking the Sponsors of Palestinian Terror to Court

In 1995, an operative of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) drove a van filled with explosives into an Israeli bus, killing the American college student Alisa Flatow along with seven Israelis, and wounding dozens more. With the help of the attorneys Steven Perles and Thomas Fay, Flatow’s father Stephen sued Iran, the main sponsor of PIJ, initiating a legal battle that went on for over a decade. Convincing a U.S. court to award damages proved relatively easy, but convincing the Clinton administration to pay the damages out of Iranian assets proved nearly impossible. M. R. O’Connor tells the story of the case, and the eventual victory: