District Court Says No Standing to Sue U.S. Government for Actions of Israelis

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

Judge Randolph D. Moss (D.D.C.) ruled in Siegel v. U.S. Dep't of Treasury that plaintiffs lacked standing to sue the U.S. government for anti-Palestinian actions of Israelis. The court rejected the plaintiffs' theory that U.S. aid to Israel caused their harm, and that judicial relief would redress it. The ruling means that the case is dismissed.

The plaintiffs in the case were U.S. taxpayers and two individuals who claimed that Israeli settlers took their property with the support of the Israeli military. They alleged that U.S. aid to Israel contributed to Israeli actions that were detrimental to Palestinians. The government moved to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing; the district court agreed.

As to the taxpayers, the court said their "harm" was too diffuse to support standing. As to the two displaced individuals, the court said that they alleged a sufficient harm, but that they didn't sufficiently allege that U.S. aid to Israel caused their harm, or that judicial relief would redress it. The court said the two individual plaintiffs' "chain of reasoning is too remote and too speculative for several reasons." In short,

Plaintiffs ultimately ask the court to "pile conjecture on conjecture" and to reduce the complex decisions surrounding Israeli activity in the territory at issue to a single determinative variable. As this Court has previously explained, "[s]uch 'unadorned speculation as to the existence of a relationship between the challenged government action and the third-party conduct will not suffice to invoke the federal judicial power.'"