WarSclerotic

China is pressuring Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to backtrack on an Israeli promise to help in a US terror funding lawsuit involving a Chinese bank’s alleged involvement in a 2006 Tel Aviv suicide bombing, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The Bank of China allegedly allowed Iran to deliver funding to terrorist organizations, including Islamic Jihad, which carried out a terror attack that killed 16-year-old Daniel Wultz and ten others.

Wultz’s parents are now suing the Bank of China for its alleged part in the attack, a lawsuit which hinges on the testimony of a former Israeli intelligence official, scheduled to testify in a New York federal court in July.

The Wall Street Journal quoted the plaintiffs as saying the official is expected to testify that at a 2005 meeting, Israeli officials told China that Bank of China accounts were being used to fund terror groups including the Islamic Jihad, but they refused to close the accounts.

The Wultzes, however, are saying that China is pressuring Netanyahu not to allow the former Israel intelligence official to testify, amid growing trade with China, worth billions of dollars annually to the Israeli economy.

The paper cited a congressional staffer who has coordinated between the Wultzes and the Israeli government as saying the Prime Minister’s Office is now undecided about giving the former intelligence official permission to testify, despite previous commitments to do so.

US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wrote a letter to Netanyahu this week on behalf of the Wultzes, imploring Netanyahu to allow the official to testify, according to the Journal.

“We are aware of mounting pressure by the BOC and other Chinese interests…to interfere with the US proceedings and the deposition,” she wrote, adding that by allowing the official to testify, Netanyahu would ” reaffirm Israel’s solemn commitment to the victims of terror to ensure that justice be done.”

In May of 2006, a US district court judge awarded the Wultz family $332 million in damages from Iran and Syria for providing material support for the terror attack that killed their son.

Daniel’s father Yekutiel “Tuly” Wultz, who was seriously wounded in the attack; his mother, Sheryl; and his siblings Amanda and Abraham brought the civil lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, under powerful US anti-terrorism laws that permit American civilians to sue sovereign states who sponsor acts of terror.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Wultzes said that the Israeli government offered to share classified information for the lawsuit, including information on Bank of China accounts used to transfer funds to terror organizations.

“They asked us to do the lawsuit, and they said they’ll fully cooperate with us and give us anything we need to win,” Tuly Wultz told the Journal.

Netanyahu traveled to China in May in a trip geared toward increasing commerce between the countries. Israel and China engaged in some $8 billion in trade in 2011 – $6b. of which was Chinese exports to Israel – a number that Netanyahu believes is just a fraction of the potential. While in China he said repeatedly that Israel’s innovation and China’s production capabilities should make the two countries a perfect business match.

The Journal quoted an Israeli official as saying Israeli and Chinese officials discussed the Bank of China terror-funding case in April, prior to Netanyahu’s trip.

Herb Keinon contributed to this report.