Israeli terror victims are hitting the Arab Bank, PLC where it hurts: in the wallet. On December 21, over 700 Israelis filed civil suit in an American court, charging the bank with “supporting genocide and crimes against humanity.” The plaintiffs seek to “cut off [the] money pipeline fueling terrorism.”

In the war against Islamist terrorism, people generally concentrate their attention on what are seemingly more “tangible” efforts to stop the terrorists, e.g., arrests, military action, surveillance, etc. This is only human nature. It is easy to comprehend (and applaud) a car full of Hamas members being blown up – it’s a sound-byte on the evening news.

A news story about forensic accountants scouring through thousands of pages of a company’s financial statements is most likely to produce yawns from readers/viewers. Terms like “accrued expenses,” “off-balance-sheet transactions,” or “current liabilities” just don’t make for good ratings. This is unfortunate.

Terrorism costs money. Rocket launchers and plastic explosives don’t appear out of thin air. Granted; there are places like Iraq where Saddam left and/or hid weapons stockpiles ripe for terrorist picking. But according to FOXNews.com,

So far, Iran is believed to have used money, not guns, to influence Iraq — particularly by spreading wealth among Shiite political factions — while avoiding a direct confrontation with its longtime rival the United States.

Stopping the funding of terrorism is essential to winning the war against the Islamists. Boring or not, people need to pay attention and act.

According to the Center for Security Policy’s website:

It turns out that the [U.S.] Nation's leading public pension funds are heavily invested in some 400 publicly traded companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes -- providing them with lifeblood in the form of vital resources, high technology and cash. Cutting off such business could hurt the bad guys in material ways.

A study conducted by the Center revealed that the largest 100 American pension funds “invest between 15 and 23 percent of their portfolio in companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states,” which include North Korea, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Syria. For example, the Center claims that the California Public Employees Retirement System (“Calpers”), America's largest public pension fund, has approximately $17 billion invested in 201 companies doing business with terror-sponsors, while Rhode Island has about $400 million invested in 41 companies doing business with state sponsors of terrorism. The U.S. pension funds surveyed have approximately $188 billion total invested in these companies, according to the report.

Of the 400 companies which do business with state sponsors of terrorism, the Center specifically identified 12 companies, which it calls the “Dirty Dozen,” that “exemplify the various ways in which this behavior is helping prop up such governments and, thereby, enabling their ability to aid and abet terrorism.” Companies like Alcatel SA, BNP Paribas, Hyundai, and Siemens AG are part of this dozen.

According to money.cnn.com,

The report accused most public pensions of ignoring the issue of indirectly supporting terrorism and working to block scrutiny of their holdings.

"...the largest U.S. public pension funds have to date done nothing to address this major challenge," the report said. "A number of them have actively resisted efforts to educate them and their beneficiaries to the moral, strategic, and financial dangers entailed in investments exposed to global security risk."

The Center has set up a website, http://www.divestterror.org/ to encourage investors to pressure their pension funds to divest from companies doing business with terror-sponsors. The site provides a template letter which investors can send to local and state officials.

Getting $200 billion out of terrorist sponsoring countries would go a long way towards winning the war on Islamist terror.