Nine survivors of the October 7 attacks in southern Israel have filed a civil lawsuit against pro-Palestinian groups in the United States, alleging that their advocacy work on college campuses constitutes “material support” for “terrorism.”
But the defendants have pushed back, warning that the case is part of a pattern of legal attacks aimed at putting pro-Palestinian groups on the defensive and restricting free speech at American universities.
“It is absolutely a threat to free speech, and it is a threat to free speech on any front, on any issue, not just in Palestine,” said Christina Jump, an attorney for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), one of the two accused in the case.
The lawsuit, filed May 1 in federal court in Virginia, describes how the nine plaintiffs dodged gunfire and lost loved ones during the Oct. 7 attacks, led by the Palestinian group Hamas.
He then alleges that AMP and another university group, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), acted as a “propaganda division of Hamas,” targeting American students.
The lawsuit says AMP and NSJP worked to “recruit uninformed, misguided and impressionable college students to serve as Hamas foot soldiers on campus and beyond.”
The result, he argues, was “mental anguish, pain and suffering” for the nine survivors. But pro-Palestinian groups and free speech advocates fear that lawsuits like this seek to silence student protesters by equating nonviolent political activity with “terrorism.”
“There are legal outfits, whether they are nonprofit or quasi-governmental organizations or private companies, that are dedicated to using legal claims to intimidate political opponents,” said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Israel-Palestine program at the Arab Center for Washington. DC, a think tank.
“We see this in many different contexts, but especially in Israel-Palestine, where it has become part of a strategy aimed at silencing dissent.”
Debate on campus speech
It is estimated that in the October 7 attacks some 1,139 people died and almost 250 more were captured.
In response, Israel launched a war in Gaza, bombing the narrow Palestinian enclave and cutting off critical supplies such as food and water.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's attack, many of them women and children, and human rights experts warn of a “risk of genocide.” The United Nations has also declared a “full-blown famine” in parts of Gaza, caused by Israel's siege and efforts to block humanitarian aid.
College campuses have been central to the anti-war movement. Schools like Columbia University in New York have seen students set up camps and occupy buildings to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians.
A study by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a group that collects data on protests and political violence around the world, found that 97 percent of university protests have been peaceful.
But the reaction has been intense. Some pro-Israel groups and elected officials have called on universities to crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters in the name of fighting anti-Semitism.
Universities like Columbia responded by calling the police, resulting in the arrest of thousands of protesters across the country. Other students have been suspended or denied diplomas for their participation in the protests.
In at least one case at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), protesters were physically attacked with metal pipes and mace by pro-Israel counterprotesters while police largely stood by.
Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said the reaction, in some cases, has amounted to censorship.
“Freedom of expression on campus has really taken a hit in recent months,” Terr told Al Jazeera. “Most of the censorship cases we've seen have involved pro-Palestine people, although there are also some cases on the pro-Israel side.”
Chain of demands
Advocates also see this month's lawsuit as part of a broader trend of using the legal system to suppress media and advocacy perceived as critical of Israel. The case is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed by pro-Israel groups in recent months.
In March, October 7 survivors sued a U.S. nonprofit that supports the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), alleging complicity in the deadly attack.
However, Israel has provided no evidence that UNRWA was involved, and an independent investigation cast further doubt on those allegations.
Then, in April, relatives of the October 7 victims asked Canada's judicial system to prevent the country's government from restoring funding to UNRWA, which provides critical aid to Gaza.
Another federal lawsuit, filed earlier this year, targeted a news organization: The Associated Press (AP). He claimed that The Associated Press hired Hamas members as freelancers in its news-gathering activities.
The same organization that sued The Associated Press is also involved in May's case against AMP and NSJP: the Jewish National Advocacy Center (JNAC). The Associated Press called the complaint against him “baseless.”
The National Jewish Advocacy Center has claimed that the organizations named as defendants in its lawsuits have ties to Hamas.
“This case is very simple: When someone tells you they are aiding and abetting terrorists, believe them,” Mark Goldfeder, the center's director, said in a news release announcing the lawsuit against AMP and the NSJP.
Goldfeder did not respond to Al Jazeera's questions about the May lawsuit or the case against The Associated Press.
But Jump, the AMP attorney, said the case against her organization contained misrepresentations and falsehoods.
He said AMP operates exclusively within the United States and not, as the lawsuit indicates, in conjunction with foreign entities such as Hamas. He also added that NSJP is not a subsidiary of AMP, as the lawsuit claims.
“It's a lot of talking points, a lot of buzzwords, a lot of generalizations and jumping around,” Jump said of the lawsuit.
'Stress and intimidation'
Some critics believe certain pro-Palestinian groups should be scrutinized for the content of their messages, although they also dismiss the recent lawsuit as too broad.
Many pro-Palestinian organizations have called for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to support for Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories. The NSJP has expressed support for Palestinian armed groups, which they consider a legitimate form of resistance.
The NSJP, for example, published a document after the October 7 attacks, calling the violence “a historic victory for the Palestinian resistance.”
Dov Waxman, director of the Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at UCLA, said he believes the group's rhetoric seemed to “implicitly support Hamas.”
That, in turn, could alienate others who criticize Israel's conduct in Gaza, he added.
“I believe the SJP deserves to be condemned for its expression of support for terrorism,” Waxman said in an email. But he drew a distinction between free speech and what was legally actionable.
“Rhetorical support for terrorism, although egregious, is not the same as material support for terrorism,” he explained. “In the United States, the first thing is protected speech; The latter is a crime.”
Munayyer, the Arab Center analyst, said claims about links between pro-Palestinian advocacy groups and “terrorism” often crumble under scrutiny. But she believes that focusing on the cases' shortcomings is missing the point.
“The purpose of these efforts is to put targets on the defensive, to get them to spend time, energy and resources on a legal defense that they might otherwise be using to engage in activism,” he said.
“The point is reputational damage (stressing and intimidating organizations). “It’s not really about winning.”
