High Court Revives Terror Suits Against Palestinian Groups

The US Supreme Court will allow suits against Palestinian groups over US citizens injured or killed in terror attacks.

The unanimous ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday said Congress’ latest attempt to bring the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization within the reach of federal courts is permissible under the Constitution. The Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019 does that by deeming certain commonplace activities as consent to being sued in the US.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had invalidated the statute, saying the kinds of activities detailed in it don’t typically imply consent.

The Supreme Court, however, reversed this judgment by holding that “the statute’s provision for personal jurisdiction comports with the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.

“Whatever the Fifth Amendment’s outer limits on the territorial jurisdiction of federal courts, the PSJVTA does not transgress them,” Roberts wrote.

The statute said the Palestinian Authority or PLO would be deemed to consent to personal jurisdiction if they paid salaries to terrorists serving in Israeli prisons or deceased terrorists’ families or if they continued to maintain offices or other facilities in the US other than UN missions.

In enacting the statute, “Congress and the President made a considered judgment to subject the PLO and PA to liability in U. S. courts as part of a comprehensive legal response to ‘halt, deter, and disrupt’ acts of international terrorism that threaten the life and limb of American citizens,” the court said.

One of the cases was brought by the family of Ari Yoel Fuld, a US citizen who was fatally stabbed during a September 2018 terror attack in the West Bank. An earlier case filed in 2004 was brought by a group of US citizens injured in terror attacks in Israel.

The earlier case has had a lengthy trip through the federal courts as Congress responded to lower court rulings holding they lacked personal jurisdiction with new legislation.

When the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 proved insufficient to prompt the Second Circuit to revisit its personal jurisdiction ruling, Congress then enacted the PSJVTA the following year.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurrence, partially joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The case is Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, U.S., No. 24-20, 6/20/25.