The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 20 ruling has revived lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization, not only giving American victims the right to sue those entities in U.S. court, but possibly spelling their economic collapse, says a legal analyst.

“It could potentially bring about the financial demise of the PA,” IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of the P.A. Accountability and Reform Initiative at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JNS.

The sums involved are “massive,” he said, noting that the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act triples judgments related to damages due to terrorism.

In 2015’s Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization, a jury found the PLO and the PA liable for seven terrorist attacks in Israel, awarding the plaintiffs $218.5 million. Under the Anti-Terrorism Act, that tripled to $655.5 million.

“There were only for a handful of cases then. Now there are dozens more,” Hirsch said.

An appeals court threw out the Sokolow case in 2016, accepting the argument of the defendants that U.S. federal courts lacked overseas jurisdiction on civil cases. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2018.

The appeals court decision stood until last Friday, when the Supreme Court issued its ruling on several lawsuits combined, the primary of which was Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, full case name Miriam Fuld, et al. v. Palestine Liberation Organization.

The court found the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) of 2019, which specifically permitted U.S. victims of P.A. and PLO terrorism to seek redress in U.S. courts, to be constitutional.

“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 deterring international terrorism that threatens the life and limb of American citizens,” the justices wrote in their decision. “The PSJVTA is suitably limited to these ends.”

Their decision was unanimous.

“As time went by, my kids kept saying, ‘Oh, well, if they’re deliberating for so long, maybe that’s not a good sign.’ But I was definitely very surprised, as we all were, that it was a unanimous decision,” Miriam Fuld, one of the plaintiffs, told JNS.

Ari Fuld

Fuld’s husband, Ari, an Israeli-American, was killed in 2018. The terrorist, a Palestinian teenager, stabbed him in the back at a shopping mall at the Gush Etzion Junction in Judea. The killer was apprehended after Ari, in his last moments, shot and wounded him. (The murderer was subsequently released in an Oct. 7-related hostage deal.)

“The Supreme Court just gave us the green light. Now we need to go back to the beginning and continue the case,” Fuld said. Friday’s ruling overturned one by New York’s Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found, as in the Sokolow case, that U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction.

The recent decision “will enable any U.S. citizen to seek out justice against Palestinian terror,” she said. “I think that’s the most important thing here. This is exactly the essence of what Ari stood for. He was fighting for truth and fighting for justice.”

For Hirsch, the main takeaway is how determined the P.A. is to continue with its “pay-for-slay” program, even if it costs it legitimacy and funding and risks bankrupting it.

“This legislation provided the P.A. with an ultimatum,” he said. “Avoid incentivizing and rewarding terrorism or face the consequences. And the P.A.’s decision was, ‘We don’t care, we will continue funding terrorists.’ The P.A. had every opportunity to stop the payments, and they positively chose to reject that option.”

While Fuld said she is not sure whether a judgment against the P.A. in a U.S. court can be enforced, Hirsch said the damages definitely can be collected, and the P.A. knows it.

That is likely the reason for the P.A.’s attempt in February to hoodwink the world into believing that it had abolished pay-for-slay stipends, he said. It feared the Fuld case, which the Supreme Court December 2024 agreed to hear.

“Just days before [PLO and P.A. chief Mahmoud] Abbas issued the new decree [pretending to end pay for slay], the court received all the relevant submissions. Critically, the comprehensive brief submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), threw its full weight behind the law [PSJVTA] and asked the Supreme Court to overturn the decision of the lower court,” Hirsch wrote in March.

There are several ways to enforce the ruling, the easiest of which is to go to Israel and take it out of the taxes Israel collects on the P.A.’s behalf, Hirsch said.

Worth noting is that the PA does not claim in its defense that it has abolished pay-for-slay, further evidence that its February announcement was a hoax, but rather says it has more legal ammunition stored up, he said.

“I don’t know exactly what they’re planning. So I can’t say whether this [the Supreme Court ruling] removes the final obstacle. I would say that it’s pretty much close to the final obstacle,” Hirsch said.

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