Palestinian-Americans sue Adelson, other settlement backers

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and several other American philanthropists — as well as numerous corporations and nonprofit organizations — are being sued for $34.5 billion for their involvement with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia, a group of more than 30 Palestinian Americans claims that the defendants, among other things, committed money laundering “because they purposely sent funds overseas to promote criminal activities like ethnic cleansing, arms trafficking, and wholesale violence,” according to a news release issued by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Martin F. McMahon & Associates.

In addition to Adelson, individuals mentioned in the lawsuit include the Jewish philanthropist Irving Moskowitz, the Rev. John Hagee of Christians United for Israel and Israeli businessman Lev Leviev, according to Haaretz.

Nonprofits include Friends of the IDF, Friends of Ariel, the Hebron Fund and the Karnei Shomron Fund, and businesses include Bank Leumi, Bank Hapoalim, Motorola, Hewlett Packard and RE/MAX real estate.

In its news release on the case, McMahon & Associates said “segregated ‘Jewish-only’ settlements” have displaced 400,000 Palestinians, along with 900,000 olive trees and 49,000 Palestinian homes.