That’s right, the U.S. Department of “Justice” filed a statement the crux of which revealed its concern that the governments of the terrorists would be “severely compromised” which could lead to a crisis if the PA were to “collapse.”
In addition to the Sokolow victims, other American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism included two American diplomats who were murdered in the Sudan (murdered because the U.S. refused to release Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian Arab terrorist who murdered Robert F. Kennedy), a disabled Jewish American man in a wheelchair named Leon Klinghoffer, and a 13-year-old boy named Koby Mandell.
The terror continues to this day.
“Of course, as bad as Palestinian terrorism has been, the Iranian government arguably has even more American blood on its hands,” Cruz explained.
The hearing was held on the same day that, 36 years ago, Iranian students climbed the walls of the American embassy in Tehran and seized it from the Americans whom they captured, blindfolded and handcuffed. Fifty-two of the Americans present that day in the embassy remained in Iranian captivity for 444 days.
“Thus began Iran’s war against the ‘Great Satan’—a war that has been waged on the American people for nearly four decades, whether the United States Government will admit it or not. In 1983, the Iranian government—acting through its terrorist proxy Hezbollah—bombed a Marine barracks and the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 17 American civilians. Two years later, Hezbollah hijacked a TWA flight and murdered Navy diver Robert Stethem—whose brother is here to testify today. Iran also helped murder 19 Americans with the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, 12 Americans with the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and over a dozen American sailors with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
“Nor should we forget that Iran has waged war against our troops in Iraq. Based on the declassified portion of a report that Central Command has provided to my office, we now know that at least 196 U.S. service members were killed in Iraq by Iranian-made Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, from 2003 to 2011. Let me repeat that number, because this is the first time it has been made public. According to the Central Command, at least 196 U.S. service members were killed in Iraq by Iranian-made Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs, from 2003 to 2011,” Cruz intoned.
Cruz continued:
Yet, despite the slaughter and maiming of an untold number of American citizens at the hands of Palestinian and Iranian terrorists, the United States Government has, rather shockingly, failed time and time again to fulfill its sovereign duty: To obtain justice for its citizens. Our government has failed terror victims in a number of ways.
First, it has failed to prosecute terrorists. Since 1993, more than 50 Americans have been killed by Palestinian terrorists in Israel. And yet, as the Mandel’s point out, ‘not one terrorist here has been prosecuted’ by the Department of Justice. ‘Not one.’ According to the Mandel’s, the DOJ’s Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism, which was established in their son’s honor, ‘is supposed to investigate, apprehend, indict, extradite and punish terrorists — but it doesn’t.’
Second, the government has actively discouraged the collection of valid judgments. Over the years, Congress has increasingly permitted American victims to bring lawsuits and obtain judgments in federal court against state sponsors of terrorism. Now, American victims and their families have successfully prosecuted 86 cases against the government of Iran and have been awarded judgments totaling nearly $50 billion. Similar victories have been won against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO.
And although the American victims of Islamic terrorism frequently prevailed in a court of law, as the hearing exposed, the U.S. government’s role too often has been to obstruct rather than to pursue justice for the victims.