The damages were announced after two days of deliberation by the jury, which decided the defendants helped facilitate deadly shootings and bombings attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas in Israel in the early 2000s - attacks that killed 33 people and wounded more than 400 others. The plaintiffs were 10 American families affected by six specific attacks, including the 2002 bombing of a Hebrew University cafeteria and a 2004 suicide bombing on a public bus in Jerusalem.
"The message is clear," Kent Yalowitz, the Arnold & Porter LLP partner who represented the plaintiffs, told The Wall Street Journal. "If you kill or injure Americans, the long arm of the American law will come after you."
Comment: BS! That is only true when it suits America. Where is the justice for all of the innocent men, women and children the U.S. has funded to be tortured and murdered in Palestine? How about the Americans (and soldiers) killed and injured in the mythical war on terror? The occupation of Iraq? Afghanistan?
Notably, the damages are automatically tripled to $655.5 million under the 1992 US Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows US victims of international terrorism to seek remedy in federal courts.
Both defendants said they would appeal, though. The Palestinian Authority and PLO said they had no involvement in the attacks and shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of a handful of extremist individuals.
Comment: And it's absolutely ridiculous that they would be held accountable.
"This is not a verdict based on legal grounds," Ghassan Shakaa, chairman of the PLO's Department of International Affairs, said to the Journal. "It is a politically biased verdict based on [America's] bias and siding towards Israel."
Comment: Palestinian blood is on America's hands. All the while, turning a blind eye to Israel holding an entire country hostage. Karma is a bitch.
Even if the verdict is upheld, it is unclear how the Palestinian Authority and PLO would even meet the payments. The Palestinian Authority is teetering on the edge of economic crisis since Israel froze the transfer of at least $200 million in tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Authority. On Monday, Israel said it cut off electricity to parts of the West Bank because the Palestinian Authority has fallen behind on its payments to Israel.
Comment: Palestine is in economic crisis due to the illegal, violent occupation of their country and the rape of their resources by Israel.
"It's going to be difficult but not impossible to collect the monetary judgment," Jens David Ohlin, a professor at Cornell Law School who specializes in international law, told the Journal. "The best hope the plaintiffs have in this case is to either find assets in the US or convince the Israelis to help them collect the judgment."
Just five months ago, a federal jury in Brooklyn found Arab Bank PLC liable for supporting terrorist acts in and around Israel. It was the first time a bank was held liable in a civil lawsuit under the anti-terrorism statute. Legal experts say the verdicts could lead to more lawsuits against organizations, including global banks that facilitate or fund terrorist acts.
Palestine has been a United Nations "observer state" since 2012. The Authority is also expected to join the International Criminal Court, which is involved in an inquiry that resulted in war crime charges against Israel.
By fining the Palestinian government, the jury helped to protect the US financial and military support of the Israeli government and its policies, even if those policies are used against people whose only problem is that they have a different religion. If the jury hadn't fined Palestine, then it would have become a problem for the US policies with respect to Israel. Who know how that could have ended?