Supreme Court will decide if Palestinian authorities can be sued in US over attacks in Middle East
Source: ABC News/AP
December 6, 2024, 2:27 PM
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed Friday to settle a years-long legal dispute over whether Palestinian authorities can be sued in U.S. courts by Americans killed or wounded in terrorism attacks in the Middle East. The federal appeals court in New York has repeatedly ruled in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, despite Congress' efforts to allow the victims' lawsuits to be heard.
That court's latest decision, last year, struck down a law enacted in 2019 specifically to allow the lawsuits to move forward. The Supreme Court typically takes on cases in which lower courts have invalidated federal laws.
The question for the justices is whether the 2019 law is unconstitutional, as the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found, because it denies fair legal process to the PLO and PA. The case probably will be argued in the spring. Both the victims and the Biden administration had urged the high court to step in.
The attacks occurred in the early 2000s, killing 33 people and wounding hundreds more, and in 2018, when a U.S.-born settler was stabbed to death by a Palestinian assailant outside a busy mall in the West Bank.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/supreme-court-decide-palestinian-authorities-sued-us-attacks-116537233