Claims Conference spins new agreement as victory for themselves...but is it?

The Claims Conference announced on March 19, 2009 a new agreement with the German government that allows needy survivors from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who had been unfairly rejected for benefits in the past to reapply. Although no mention is made in the official press release, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that the agreement to allow FSU survivors to reapply to the Hardship Fund is actually designed to settle a lawsuit brought against the Claims Conference. An Israeli court ruled in June 2008 that the group improperly misled thousands of claimants and denied them of their benefits.

In their statement, the Claims Conference repeatedly blames "German rules" and "German government criteria" for the past rejection of survivor claims under the Hardship Fund. This is nothing more than face-saving spin. In its June 2008 ruling, the District Court in Tel Aviv placed the responsibility for misleading and denying claims squarely on the shoulders of the Claims Conference (not the Germans, as the Claims Conference attempted to argue) and ordered it to pay damages to the victims. The court action came six years after a lawsuit was originally filed on behalf of survivors from the FSU alleging the Claims Conference followed its own criteria that were not part of the German government's conditions for the Fund. Judge Oded Mudrick found that the "Claims Conference owes the obligation of fidelity to the plaintiffs. It owes them an obligation of moral responsibility. It violated its concrete obligation toward them because it did not provide them with the proper tools to make their decisions. The main thing is that they did not provide vital information."

The Claims Conference had petitioned the Israel Supreme Court seeking to overturn the ruling, but the new agreement with Germany suggests the matter will now be quietly dropped; the attorney for survivors said he expects the appeal to be withdrawn, and for many thousands of survivors who were not covered by the lawsuit to be compensated as they deserve.