Dozens of names of American victims of Arab terror in Israel, including more than 10 who were murdered, are missing from a State Department list, which also offers up to $5 million for information on terrorists.
The U.S. “Rewards for Justice“ program offers up to $5 million for information that brings to justice those responsible for the attacks. Since its inception, RFJ has paid over $80 million to more than 50 individuals for information that prevented international terrorist attacks or helped bring to justice those involved in prior acts.
The victims' names are published under the title of “Violence in Opposition to the Middle East Peace Negotiations - 1993 to present.”
The Rewards for Justice website states, "Anyone thinks that they, or a deceased family member, are eligible to be listed as a victim in the Rewards for Justice program, should call the State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs at (202) 647-3672."
The U.S. State Department website recently added two names of American victims of Arab terror after it was discovered the list was incomplete. Relatives of Binyamin and Talya Kahane reportedly said they had not been approached by the State Department, and their names were included after contact was made through Samaria (Shomron) liaison director David Ha'Ivri.
He told Israel National News that the State Dept. also was informed that the name of Rabbi Hillel Lieberman is missing, but his name has not been included. An American Embassy spokesman responded that the list is being updated, and he also pointed out that the State Dept. does not post any names without the permission of the families.
The Kahane couple and Rabbi Lieberman were killed at the beginning of the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, which broke out in 2000. They were associated with the Kach movement, founded by Kahane’s father Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was slain in New York in 1990.
The government web site states, “Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993, terrorist groups and individuals opposed to a negotiated peace agreement have staged attacks in Gaza, the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Israel. The intent of these attacks was to disrupt peace negotiations and to modify the attitudes of the leaders engaged in them."
Dozens of names are missing from the list, according to a compilation on the Jewish Virtual Library list of American victims of terror. It is not known if the families of the victims have contacted the State Dept.
Among the missing names are Nachshon Wachsman, who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists in 1994; Dov Driben, an American Israeli who was killed at his farm in 1996; and Eish Kodesh Gilmore, an American Israeli who was killed while guarding the National Insurance Institute in Jerusalem in 2000.
The State Dept. list concludes with a suicide bombing in May 2003 and does not include at least seven subsequent terrorist attacks that have killed or wounded American citizens. The attacks include the 2006 murder of Florida teenager Daniel Wultz at a Tel Aviv food stand; the bombing of an American convoy in Gaza in October 2003; and the September 2003 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, originally from Cleveland.
Also missing are the names of several wounded in the 2002 suicide bombing at Sbarro's Restaurant in Jerusalem.