D.C. Circuit Says Palestinians' Genocide Claims Against Americans Can Move Forward

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

The D.C. Circuit ruled in al-Tamimi v. Adelson that claims by Palestinians that pro-Israeli American individuals and entities conspired to support genocide in disputed territories does not present a non-justiciable political question. The court remanded the case so that it can move forward.

The case involves Palestinian nationals' and Palestinian-Americans' claims that certain pro-Israeli American individuals and organizations funneled money to Israeli settlements, which then used the funds to train a militia of Israeli settlers to kill Palestinians and confiscate their property. In particular, the plaintiffs alleged that some or all of the defendants (1) engaged in civil conspiracy to rid the disputed territory of all Palestinians, (2) committed or sponsored genocide and other war crimes, (3) aided and abetted the commission of genocide and other war crimes, and (4) trespassed on Palestinian property. The plaintiffs brought their claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victims Protection Act.

The district court held that the case raised non-justiciable political questions and dismissed the complaint.

The D.C. Circuit reversed. The court said that the plaintiffs' complaint reduced to two questions for the court: (1) Who has sovereignty over the disputed territory?; and (2) Are Israeli settlers committing genocide? The court ruled that the first question raised a political question, because it "plainly implicates foreign policy and thus is reserved to the political branches." But it ruled that the second question didn't:

An ATS claim, then, incorporates the law of nations. And it is well settled that genocide violates the law of nations. Genocide has a legal definition. Thus, the ATS--by incorporating the law of nations and the definitions included therein--provides a judicially manageable standard to determine whether Israeli settlers are committing genocide. . . . We are well able, however, to apply the standards enunciated by the Supreme Court to the facts of this case. . . .

In light of the statutory grounds of plaintiffs' claims coupled with Zivotofsky I's muteness regarding Baker's four prudential factors, we believe that whether Israeli settlers are committing genocide is not a jurisdiction-stripping political question. Accordingly, although the question who has sovereignty over the disputed territory does present a "hands-off" political question, the question whether Israeli settlers are committing genocide does not.

The court held that the first question was extricable from the rest of the case, and therefore the lower court could move forward on the second question. (The second question doesn't require resolution of sovereignty over the disputed territories; it only asks whether Israeli settlers are committing genocide in the disputed territories.)