Because we, here in Israel, were under missile attack and at war with the far larger, more populous and genocidal Iranian mullahocracy, from June 13 onwards, we hardly noticed a decision of the United States Supreme Court that would have been big news at any other time. In the case of Fuld, et al. v. Palestine Liberation Organization et al. decided on June 20, 2025,
The United States Supreme Court held that American citizens who are victims of terrorist activities by the Palestine Liberation Organization and/or the Palestinian Authority as well as others terrorist groups, could sue those organizations in the United States District Courts in the United States as intended by statutes passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision overruled the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which had held the statutes authorizing such lawsuits unconstitutional and unenforceable against those murderous and corrupt organizations. The narrow grounds on which the cases were decided mask deeper philosophical divisions in the American Courts.
Fuld, et al. v. Palestine Liberation Organization et al was a combination of two cases. The first case, filed in 2004, was originally called Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization and resulted in a verdict of a whopping 655 million dollars in favor of multiple plaintiffs and against the PLO and PA for injuries caused by Arab terrorists.
In that case the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the judgment and dismissed the case asserting that although the injured parties were American citizens and although he PLO and PA conducted activities in the United States, there was not a sufficient connection between the PLO and the PA’s terror activities that had caused the specific injuries to these plaintiffs for the United States Courts to hear such a case even though federal statute specifically authorized such lawsuits.
The second and more recent case of the family of Ari Fuld against the PLO and PA for the stabbing attack that killed Mr. Fuld was also filed in New York and dismissed by the trial court because the terror attack had occurred outside the United States and the PLO and PA, which supported the terrorists did not have sufficient connections to the United States for them to be sued in the U.S. Courts.
The idea of connections between a defendant in a lawsuit and the place where the lawsuit is brought is generally called ‘personal jurisdiction.’ The idea underlying personal jurisdiction is that a person or organization ought not to have to defend a lawsuit in a place to which the person has no connection. For instance, a person who has lived all his life in New Jersey and who has never been to California and has never caused anything to be done in California, ought not be required to defend a lawsuit in California for something he did in New Jersey.
That idea of personal jurisdiction arises from the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause and applies against the States. But the Federal Government’s requirements of due process arise under the Fifth Amendment and have little to do with the states. The legal considerations are quite different.
Recognizing that the courts were eviscerating the statutes that it had passed authorizing lawsuits for money damages against terrorist organizations, Congress passed yet another law with the unwieldy name ‘The Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act’ and it was signed into law in 2019. That act, which specifically names the PLO and PA as organizations which can be sued in the U.S. courts also provided that any American injured by terrorism could sue in the United States Courts organizations that paid a stipend to terrorists or the families of jailed or deceased terrorists in respect of their terror activities or that conducted any activity or maintained any facilities in the United States, which both the PLO and PA do.
Congress’s point, of course, was to discourage terrorism by allowing private lawsuits for damages against terrorist organizations that support terrorism generally and that support the terrorism that injures Americans specifically. These private lawsuits are in addition to the criminal cases under which the United States government prosecutes foreign terrorists for the crime of injuring or killing Americans through terror activities.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals missed the point and exercising a far too tender sense for the PLO and PA and their maimers and murderers again found that the lawsuits against the PLO and PA could not go forward because Fifth Amendment due process of law required that the PLO and PA have closer contacts to the United States or that the murderous acts that caused the injuries to the plaintiffs have closer connections to the United States besides the murder of United States citizens.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the cases and resoundingly and unanimously reversed the Second Circuit. The statutes under which the injured victims of terror attacks sued had been passed by the legislative branch and signed by the Chief Executive.
The legislative and executive branches of government dealt with terrorism and with the PA and PLO as part of a comprehensive program of foreign relations, a field in which the courts are particularly incompetent. Moreover, the Second Circuit had fallen into the intellectual error of treating personal jurisdiction of the federal government under the Fifth Amendment as subject to the same standards as the question of personal jurisdiction for the states under the Fourteenth Amendment which is a completely different matter.
The Federal Government has the power to pass laws that affect people overseas but the states, in general, do not. Because the Second Circuit applied the wrong standard it reached the wrong result. There is nothing unconstitutional about suing the organizations that support terrorism that injures Americans in American courts.
Chief Justice Roberts’ calm and reasoned opinion in favor of the victims of Arab terror and against the PLO and PA does not mention a deeper problem in some American courts. Some judges do not like and do not want to enforce laws that bring foreign defendants and foreign acts into the United States courts. They find ways to avoid enforcing these laws and claim that the basis for their decisions is the Constitution itself, when the real basis for their decision is the judge’s hostility to the injured parties, the type of case or the law.
To the credit of the United States Supreme Court all of its members, including the members of the Court who are sometimes castigated as ‘liberals’ or ‘progressives,’ agreed with the victims of Arab terror and decided that these cases and others like these cases could go forward. It is a victory for the rule of law.
Michael Krampner, a retired American trial lawyer, who also earned a Ph.D. In Jewish history, lives in Jerusalem where he is improving his Hebrew, learning traditional Jewish texts, reading widely on historical and political subjects and is engaged with family.