Three Jewish organizations which had joined in a legal action to prevent a bequest of up to $25,000 from going to the Palestine Liberation Organization today welcomed the outcome of the case — the money will be turned over to the International Red Cross for the sole use as a fund to improve living conditions for the Palestinian people. It had been willed to the PLO by the late Fred Sparks, an American journalist.
In a statement, the Jewish organizations — the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the World Jewish Congress — said they were gratified that “the bequest will be used only for humanitarian purposes and not to help finance the PLO’s terrorist activities.”
All three appeared as amici curiae (friends of the court) before the New York County Surrogate’s Court. They filed papers opposing this bequest on the grounds that:
Aiding the PLO is contrary to public policy; and the PLO is an unincorporated association which has no legal existence in New York and thus in ineligible to accept a bequest under New York law.
The settlement, worked out with the approval of the Surrogate’s Court, involved four parties:the executor of the Sparks estate, the PLO, the New York Attorney General, and another beneficiary named in Sparks’ will.
TERMS OF THE SETTLEMENT
According to the terms of the settlement, the bequest will go to the Red Cross, which will set up a Fred Sparks Fund “with specific instructions to utilize the fund solely for the betterment of the living conditions of the Palestinian people.”
The agreement specified that the funds should be limited to aid to civilian hospital facilities in the form of medicines, medical care, food and new or improved housing.
The Sparks bequest to the PLO was held up in April 1981 when Surrogate Marie Lambert ruled that a question has arisen in the court’s mind whether such an organization has the capacity, under New York law, to receive such a bequest and whether such a bequest is violative of public policy.
Sparks, a columnist and reporter for various newspapers and news syndicates, who died in 1981 at the age of 65 in New York, stipulated in his will that 10 percent of his estate, then valued at between $100,000 and $250,000 should go the PLO.
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