Excerpt Below:
The Supreme Court last week vindicated a common-sense principle: Foreign entities that kill Americans abroad through acts of terror can be held to account in American courts.
Fuld v. PLO marks a turning point in a long legal saga. In 2004 U.S. citizens sued the Palestinian Authority for its role in terror attacks that killed their family members. After a seven-week trial, a New York federal jury found the authority liable.
But in 2016 the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the authority couldn’t be subject to the jurisdiction of federal courts because the acts of terrorism were “unconnected to the forum and were not expressly aimed at the United States.” Congress enacted two laws to establish jurisdiction, particularly on account of the authority’s “pay to slay” policy, the practice “of paying salaries to terrorists servicing in Israeli prisons, as well as to the families of deceased terrorists.” But the Second Circuit held that this law was inconsistent with the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.
For nearly a decade, the Palestinian Authority occupied an unusual position in American constitutional law. Foreign states aren’t “persons” entitled to due-process rights, and therefore states like Iran can be held liable for acts of international terrorism. But because the U.S. doesn’t recognize the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign state, it enjoyed constitutional due-process protections, which left Congress powerless to hold it accountable for terrorism.
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Sander Gerber is Founder and CEO of Hudson Bay Capital Management. He is a distinguished fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
Ezra Husney has served as a law clerk for Judge Steven J. Menashi of the Second Circuit and for the Israeli Supreme Court.
Reaad the full piece in the Wall Street Journal.