US Supreme Court to weigh bid to sue Palestinian authorities over attacks

The US Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide the legality of a 2019 federal statute meant to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel and elsewhere.

The justices took up appeals by President Joe Biden’s administration and a group of American victims and their families of a lower court’s ruling that this law violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to due process under the US Constitution.

The law is called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.

The Supreme Court is expected to hold arguments in the case and rule by the end of June. Its decision to hear the case comes during the Gaza war in which Israel launched an air and ground assault on the Hamas-ruled enclave after Palestinian militants stormed Israeli border communities in October 2023.

US courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad. Under the language at issue in the 2019 law, the PLO and Palestinian Authority would automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans.

The plaintiffs in the litigation before the Supreme Court include families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004.

Officials and employees of the two organizations planned, directed and participated in these attacks, according to the plaintiffs. The Manhattan-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the award in 2016, finding that American courts lacked jurisdiction over the Palestinian defendants. Congress subsequently passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, and new litigation was brought by the families as well as by relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the Israel-occupied West Bank who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018.

A New York-based federal judge in 2022 ruled that the law was unconstitutional because of due process violations. Congress, US District Judge Jesse Furman wrote, “cannot simply declare anything it wants to be consent.” Plaintiffs asked the 2nd Circuit to revive their claims, but it refused, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.

“We’re encouraged by the court’s acceptance of the case for review, and our families are looking forward to restoration of the judgment in their favor and a long-overdue measure of justice for the horrific attacks against them,” said Kent Yalowitz, a lawyer representing families in the case.

A lawyer representing the two Palestinian organizations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.