Since her days as a law student, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner has made a career of using civil litigation as a weapon against terrorists. The organization she heads, Shurat ha-Din/Israel Law Center, has brought suits in Israel, the U.S., and Canada against terrorist groups, the states that back them, and the banks that give them access to funds. Her center has won judgments amounting to over $120 million in actual payments to its clients. Now she has set her sights on Islamic State:
“The question is, How does IS get the money?” Darshan-Leitner, who is in her forties, says from her Tel Aviv office. “We can’t technically go after IS. But we can go after the Arab banks that finance them. The money source. We are not talking peanuts—we are talking about several millions of dollars a day that IS gets from oil fields. There must be banks that help IS receive that money. . . . Remember that when IS took over the oil fields, they kept the same local workers and are selling to the same people. They changed the management—they put in their own guys—but they sell to the same people, the same gas stations. They sell in Turkey and Iraq—and here’s the real irony—to Assad’s government in Syria.”
Read more on Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/31/israeli-lawyer-who-fights-terrorism-law-278604.html