Arab Bank Never Financed Terrorism, Lawyer Says
A lawyer for Arab Bank, which is accused of providing financial services to Hamas, told a Brooklyn federal court that the bank never helped finance terrorism.
Shand Stephens in closing arguments Thursday argued that none of the bank’s clients had been designated as terrorists by the United States during the relevant time period.
“The bank does not figure out who the criminals are,” Stephens was reported as saying by Reuters. “The government is supposed to designate people, and the banks react.”
Nearly 300 U.S. citizens — the victims or relatives of victims of 24 attacks that Hamas allegedly carried out in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank between 2001 and 2004 — filed their suit against the Jordan-based bank in 2004. The U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act allows victims of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, like Hamas, to seek compensation.
Stephens has acknowledged that the bank did provide services to Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who was on a U.S. blacklist, but only because the bank’s spelling of his name differed from that on the list maintained by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Tab Turner, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said it strained credulity that the bank could not identify high-profile members of Hamas such as Yassin, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal reported that the case is the first terror-financing suit against a bank ever to go to trial in the United States.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture In a Haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, doctors’ visits are free, but the wait may cost you
-
Fast Forward Chicago mayor donned keffiyeh for Arab Heritage Month event, sparking outcry from Jewish groups
-
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
-
Fast Forward Latvia again closes case against ‘Butcher of Riga,’ tied to mass murder of Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.