Will The State Department Give In To Terror On February 29? (Updated)

Today we find out:

In a leap of logic, the State Department has been forced to reveal by leap year day whether an important element in the “war on terror” — the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1990, which enables victims of terror to sue in federal court — has teeth or is little more than a sound bite. Much is at stake.

By Feb. 29, the State Department must advise a federal court if it will succumb to Palestinian pressure (read: blackmail) and take the side of murderers by sabotaging a final judgment of $174 million against the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization.

The op-ed is by Neal M. Sher, who has served as the executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the director of the Office of Special Investigations in the Justice Department.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Andrew McCarthy examines the contradictions in this US policy at The National Review:

After nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in the atrocities of September 11, 2001, President Bush boldly announced that the United States would not distinguish between terror networks and the regimes that support them. They would all be regarded as hostile and dealt with accordingly.

What a sad commentary it is that, less than seven years later, we are left to wonder whether our State Department will stand with the American victims of terror or join forces with the other side: a regime with a long, remorseless record of practicing terrorism, preaching terrorism, and murdering Americans.

Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Scott Johnson at Powerline focuses on one contradiction in particular, namely:

the contradiction represented by the administration's efforts to create a Palestinian state when the PA has failed to take the first step of the roadmap requiring the renunciation of terror and the dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure reflected in the Ellis lawsuit.

It is the administration's abandonment of the roadmap -- Secretary Rice's declaration that the administration was no longer "stuck in the sequentiality of the roadmap" -- that perhaps most seriously contributes to the dilemma confronting the Bush administration today.

Now we wait.

UPDATE: The US has made an announcement, of sorts: US Will Not Interfere With Law Suits Against PalestinianTerrorists

Technorati Tag: Terrorism.