PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 33

The Nablus Road, Jerusalem
banks asking them to honour their contracts. 11 Then,
given the rather laconic answers from the banks, they
turned to the British authorities, with no result.
I knew that it was not worth opening a case in a
country like Great Britain, which had recognized the
sovereignty of Israel. And indeed, when some cases were
heard, the British courts ruled in favour of the British
banks on the basis that they had to obey orders from a
sovereign state, and Israel was sovereign in their eyes.
My brother Aziz and I followed the matter closely.
Everything depended on the key question of Israel’s
sovereignty. One day, we realized that if the case could
be tried in a court other than a British one, in a country
like Jordan, for example, where Israel was not recog-
nized and where the two banks in question were also
established, we might have a chance of winning.
In Jordan, Barclays and the Ottoman Bank had
branches in all the main towns, including East Jeru-
salem. 12 Based on this, we formed a group of plaintiffs
and filed lawsuits against the two banks in different
Jordanian towns all on the same day. All the cases were
won, the Jordanian courts arguing that the two banks
should never have complied with an order given by a
non-sovereign entity. Formal no­tice was given to the
banks to reimburse their clients.
However, the decision remained a dead letter, Israel
still being adamant in its refusal to unfreeze the Palestin-
ian funds. The two convicted banks therefore organized
a joint delegation which demanded an audience with the
Israeli authorities. Not wanting to have paid court costs
to no avail, the banks requested that Israel implement
the decision of the Jordanian courts, which had judged
them to be defaulters. This time, the Israelis agreed to the
principle unfreezing the funds except that… they could
not give the money back because they no longer had it:
they had spent it! The banks then proposed to grant a
loan of 12 million Palestinian pounds to Israel, double
the amount of the frozen funds, a loan at a very low
interest rate to be repaid over the next 20 years. All the
parties concerned agreed with this solution: the Israeli
authorities gained a very advantageous loan and the Pal-
estinian families got their money back, even though the
repayments, of only 50–60 Palestinian pounds a month,
were to be spread over a long period. The battle was over.
Fuad
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