US Supreme Court rules Palestinian Authority can be sued over terror support

The unanimous decision opens the way for American victims to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

In a unanimous decision Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that American victims of Palestinian terrorism can sue the entities that financially back and actively promote the murderous acts.

This opens the way for families who have collectively already won judgments of over a billion dollars against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in previous American court cases and had them blocked, to have the original rulings upheld.

Technically, this final decision upheld a 2019 law called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.

In doing so, the justices overruled a lower court’s decision that the law violated the rights of the PA and PLO to due process under the U.S. Constitution because it forced them to agree to American jurisdiction.

“It is permissible for the federal government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right” to recompense under the 1990 Antiterrorism Act, wrote conservative Chief Justice John Roberts.

The 2019 law had closed a loophole in the earlier one in stating that even if foreign-based entities acted against Americans outside the U.S., if they paid those who attacked Americans, they were thereby automatically consenting to American jurisdiction in adjudicating lawsuits that could arise against them as a result.

The Act was a direct answer to the PA’s long-held “Pay for Slay” policy, which awards jailed terrorists monthly “salaries” that are increased on a sliding scale depending on how heinous their acts were and how long they sit in prison.

Families of terrorists killed while attacking Israelis receive the same kind of payments.

The PLO, the movement that is the PA’s primary backer, technically became the terrorists’ paymaster after Congress passed the 2018 Taylor Force Act to stop American economic aid to the Palestinian Authority until the PA ceases handing out such stipends.

The PLO has also been directly responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks in Israel, including many Americans among the victims.

The Promoting Security Act was passed after the 2018 murder of Israeli-American Ari Fuld by a teenage Palestinian terrorist outside a Gush Etzion shopping area.

Fuld’s family, which had won subsequently won a $655 million lawsuit against the PA for their son’s death, had appealed to the Supreme Court after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals had struck down the ruling based on the due-process question.

The Justice Department under the Biden administration had also appealed the ruling, and the Supreme Court had combined the two cases in April 2024.

An amicus brief had been filed in support of the plaintiffs by 17 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations in February, including the International Legal Forum (ILF), a global network of lawyers fighting antisemitism.

ILF CEO Arsen Ostrovsky said at the time, “Since their founding, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have been an instrumental element in inciting, funding, and rewarding terrorism, especially through the pay-for-slay program. They are not a powerless bystander but a leading driver of modern-day terrorism. Enough is enough.”

Supporters of the PA fear that it could collapse financially if forced to pay out the huge amounts that have been awarded its victims.

It is considered doubtful that Palestinian leaders would dip into their personal vast fortunes to bail out their government in such a case.