October 7 Survivors Sue Student Protest Group SJP

Survivors of the October 7 attacks filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court last week alleging links between Hamas and the pro-Palestinian student groups leading nationwide protests against Israel’s war on Gaza. The survivors claim the student groups are liable for monetary damages because of the purported terrorism links.

“When someone tells you they are aiding and abetting terrorists — believe them.” That’s the opening line the suit filed Wednesday against the Palestinian advocacy groups American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine, the umbrella group supporting student organizers for Palestine, which supports more than 350 Palestine solidarity groups, including more than 200 campus organizations across the country.

The lawsuit is part of a nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine activism, especially on campus. It was filed a day after police in New York City deployed militarized forces to remove students from campus encampments protesting the war on Gaza and arrested hundreds.

Some or all of the nine plaintiffs in the suit are involved in a raft of other civil suits related to the October 7 attacks. Among the defendants they’ve pursued in court are major media organizations and United Nations agencies.

The survivors of the October 7 attack alleged that American Muslims for Palestine “serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States.”

“Through NSJP, AMP uses propaganda to intimidate, convince, and recruit uninformed, misguided, and impressionable college students to serve as foot soldiers for Hamas on campus and beyond,” the October 7 survivors wrote in their suit.

The lawsuits rely on anti-terrorism laws that made it possible to bring civil cases for acts of international terrorism, including provisions around bans on material support to terrorism that have long been controversially applied. At the time of their passage, members of Congress who pushed the anti-terror laws linked them directly to crackdowns on pro-Palestine activities, according to a recent white paper from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal.

“For years, CCR and others have been warning of the abuse of broad ‘material support’ laws to shrink the space for Palestinian rights,” said Diala Shamas, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The group represented another Palestinian rights organization in what Shamas said was “years-long, meritless litigation” brought by the Jewish National Fund, a group that funds Israeli settlements.

“The law’s provision of civil damages means that private actors — including those with seemingly endless resources — can bog you down in costly and distracting litigation,” Shamas said. “This means that Palestinians and those who support their rights become ‘high risk’ — and those who they rely on — charities, funders, banks or social media companies — are chilled from further engagement. The goal is to isolate Palestinians.”

Four Survivor Lawsuits

The nine plaintiffs include six survivors of the October 7 Hamas attacks. Five people attended the Supernova music festival, and another was attacked at Zikim Beach, where 19 civilians were killed as Hamas militants tried to overrun nearby military outposts.

Two other plaintiffs who were not home on October 7 had homes in Kibbutz Holit, the site of additional Hamas attacks. Another plaintiff’s brother was killed at the festival. (Lawyers for the plaintiffs, AMP, and SJP did not respond to requests for comment.)

The AMP suit is the fourth federal suit filed this year by members of the group.

Last month, eight of the same plaintiffs sued the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, claiming that it gave material support to Hamas by allowing the militant group to fundraise on the platform. In November, the Treasury Department said Hamas and “a range of illicit actors” had used Binance to funnel money to their groups. Binance lawyers asked for an extension to reply to the complaint and have until August to do so. In April, the company’s former chief executive was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering violations.

Five of the plaintiffs in the American Muslims for Palestine suit also sued the news agency The Associated Press in February. The plaintiffs alleged that the AP used photographs from “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks.” Lawyers for the AP moved to dismiss the complaint for failing to state a claim and asked to stay discovery pending adjudication of the motion to dismiss.

In March, the same group of nine plus another October 7 survivor sued the U.S. committee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNWRA, the largest humanitarian organization operating in Gaza. The suit against UNRWA claims that the group “financed and aided” Hamas, a frequent refrain from Israeli officials that has gone unsubstantiated, according to an independent review released in April.