Israel keeping Holocaust assets?

JERUSALEM, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The organization trying to recover the assets of Jews killed during World War II says that Israel is at least as tough to deal with as any European country.

Avraham Roet, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Company for Location & Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets Ltd., told The Wall Street Journal that some Israeli banks argue that they should not be subject to the same strict procedures as European institutions.

"I cannot say that the Israeli establishment has been, or is, happy about the return of properties," he said.

Many European Jews deposited money in banks in what was then the British Palestine Mandate in the 1930s. Deposits never claimed because their owners died in the Holocaust remained with the banks or went to the government of the new state of Israel.

Michael Bazyler, an expert on Holocaust asset recovery from Chapman University School of Law in California, said that he was told in 2006 that money in Israel was going to the Jewish community.

"That was sort of their excuse," he said. "And I'm saying, 'Wait a second. It's not your money.'"