Victims of Hezbollah Terrorist Rocket Attacks File Lawsuit

Against Al-Jazeera TV in New York Federal Court

NEW YORK/ On the fourth anniversary of start of the Lebanese-Israeli War,
ninety-one American, Israeli and Canadian victims of Hezbollah rocket
attacks filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera
television network. The suit, Kaplan et al. v. Al Jazeera (Case No.: 10 CV
5298), which was filed in federal court in Manhattan, seeks $1.2 billion in
compensatory damages plus punitive damages.

The plaintiffs, whose family members were killed or who were themselves
injured by rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah between July 12 and August
14, 2006, allege that Al-Jazeera intentionally reported live coverage of the
locations of the missile strikes inside of Israel in violation of military
censorship regulations, in order to enable Hezbollah to aim the missiles
more accurately.

Al-Jazeera camera crews in Israel during the war were repeatedly detained by
the Israeli police for broadcasting real-time information regarding the
location of missile strikes, which Hezbollah utilized to more accurately aim
their missiles at civilian population centers.

Al-Jazeera is widely acknowledged to have an extreme anti-American and
anti-Israel political agenda. For example, in September 2001, U.S. officials
filed a diplomatic complaint against Al Jazeera, accusing it of having an
anti-American slant and objecting to Al Jazeera’s describing Palestinian
suicide bombers as “martyrs.” In 2002, Professor Khalid al Dakheel of King
Saud University stated that: “Al-Jazeera is the mouthpiece of the Arabs.
Their coverage is anti-Israelis. Their coverage is anti-Americans.” In 2006,
Lt. Col. Todd Vician, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense stated:
“Anyone, even an American living in the Middle East watching a network like
Al Jazeera day after day after day, would begin to believe that America was
bad just based on the biased, one-sided coverage.” And according to Amira
Oron of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, during the 2006 war in Lebanon,
“Al-Jazeera was no different from [Hezbollah’s own station] Al-Manar … It’s
an Arab station and its intent is to promote the Arab cause.”

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin Esq. of New
York, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Esq. of Israel and the firm of Heideman,
Nudelman & Kalik of Washington, D.C..

Attorney Darshan-Leitner stated that: “Al-Jazeera made itself a crucial
component of the Hezbollah missile offensive. The intent was to assist the
terrorists in targeting and killing civilians. Without the assistance of
Al-Jazeera’s on-the-ground spotters, Hezbollah would have been unable to
accurately aim its missiles into Israeli cities. Al-Jazeera, which has
offices in New York, aided and abetted Hezbollah terrorism and is
responsible for the injuries suffered by the victims of these attacks.”

A copy of the complaint is available here:
www.israellawcenter.org/images/pdf2/Kaplan%20v%20Al%20Jazeera%20Complaint.pdf

For more information please contact: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner (Israel)
052-3837020, (U.S.) (212) 591-0073
Email: nitsanad@zahav.net.il