Photo: A screenshot of drone footage released by the IDF on May 14, 2024, shows Palestinian gunmen next to UN vehicles at a UNRWA logistics center in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah. (Israel Defense Forces)
President Joe Biden's Administration has just convinced a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit filed by 8,000 Israelis which sought to permanently defund UNRWA, FAA News has learned.
In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attacks, Israel accused at least 12 of United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)'s - the UN aid agency for Palestinians - direct employees of participating in the Hamas-led attack.
Israel's report revealed as well that some of the hostages were held by UNRWA employees in their homes in Gaza and that UNRWA facilities have been used by Hamas.
UNRWA’s involvement goes beyond the atrocities that took place in southwestern Israel on Oct. 7. While 10% of UNRWA’s employees are confirmed Hamas terrorists, half of the workforce identifies with Hamas, with more than 6,000 Hamas members related to UNRWA workers.
Since the reports came to light, the US and other donor countries temporarily suspended funding of UNRWA “pending an investigation by the United Nations.”
Back in February 2024, represented by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin in Brooklyn and Nitsana Darshan-Leitner in Tel Aviv, founder of the Shurat HaDin Law Center, an Israeli human rights organization dedicated to combating terrorism and anti-Israel activities, more than 8,000 plaintiffs, including 1,500 dual American-Israeli citizens and 6,500 Israelis filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia claiming that the United States Department of State violated anti-terrorism laws by providing billions of US tax dollars to UNRWA.
The complaint demands a complete cessation of all funding to UNRWA in contravention of the law.
The defendants include US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is responsible for coordinating all US federal aid to UNRWA, among other US government employees who share the responsibilities.
The U.S. is a major funder of UNRWA. In 2023 alone, U.S. support for UNRWA reached a record high of $422 million. Deprived of it, UNRWA could collapse - which is the goal of the lawsuit, especially in light of UNRWA’s terror involvement.
The complaint reads: “UNRWA is not an impartial, non-governmental agency with the motive of simply providing humanitarian aid and relief to purported Palestinian civilians. Instead, UNRWA has become an instrumentality and agency of Hamas that employs terrorist members and individuals supportive of Hamas and other designated terrorist organizations whose mission is to eradicate Israel and kill innocent civilians. UNRWA staff has committed murder, rapes, and injury, with the financing being footed by the United States and other Western donor countries.”
It notes the US’s ignoring of this information, saying the administration “permitted millions of dollars to flow to UNRWA despite it being publicly known that such funding is diverted to terrorism and UNRWA employees are complicit” and thus, “United States’ support of terrorism that murders and maims American citizens must cease once and for all.”
As previously reported here on FAA News, the State Department filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the pause in funding has not yet been lifted, nor is there any plan to reinstate funding in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the Plaintiffs lack standing because; 1) the funding had stopped by the time they brought their claim, therefore there is no injury-in-fact and (2) they cannot establish an injury that is traceable to them personally and redressable by the Court even if the funding had not ceased.
In a written ruling note released, United States District Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed.
"Here, the Court does not doubt that Plaintiffs have suffered “very real and palpable injur[ies].” But those past injuries are insufficient to establish standing to seek prospective relief. As Defendants explain, “[a]lthough Plaintiffs undoubtedly suffered from the horrific events of October 7, allegations of past injury do not suffice to establish standing when Plaintiffs seek forward-looking relief.” Any claim of future harm to Plaintiffs caused by future unlawful United States contributions to UNRWA turns on speculation upon speculation. It requires the Court to assume that Congress will appropriate funds that may be used to make contributions to UNRWA, and that Congress will do so while simultaneously declining to address whether using those funds in that manner would violate federal statute. It requires the Court to assume that the then-serving Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary of State, or Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance will likely decide to use those appropriated funds to contribute to UNRWA. It requires the Court to assume that UNRWA will then likely use those funds (directly or indirectly) to support Hamas or other terrorist organizations in the Middle East and that Hamas or any other terrorist organization that receives those funds would likely use the funds (or other funds that are fungible with those funds) to commit an act of terrorism. And, it requires the Court to assume that at least one of the plaintiffs is likely to be a victim of that act of terrorism. This chain of possibilities is far too remote and speculative to support standing to sue.
"Plaintiffs allege, in the alternative, that they are suffering ongoing injury resulting from the “millions upon millions of dollars Defendants sent to UNRWA in the past,” and that Defendants should be required to claw back those unlawful contributions. This theory - that is, that Plaintiffs “live in perpetual fear of further terrorist attacks,” - is also unpersuasive, even when considered in conjunction with the past injuries that Plaintiffs have suffered. To start, Plaintiffs have not alleged, and have not carried their burden of showing, that efforts by the State Department to claw back contributions that the United States made to UNRWA prior to January 26, 2024 - at which point the United States suspended its contributions - would redress that harm. Indeed, the complaint does not even allege that any unspent United States contributions remain in the UNRWA coffers, much less that those specific funds could be recouped. Nor do Plaintiffs allege - and it seems unlikely that they would have any basis to allege - that clawing back any remaining portion of the contributions that UNRWA received from the United States almost a year ago would (even if possible) redress Plaintiffs’ “fear of further terrorist attacks.”
"The Court, accordingly, concludes that Plaintiffs have not adequately pled a sufficiently particularized or concrete ongoing or future injury caused by any financial support that the United States has provided or will likely imminently provide to UNRWA," wrote Judge Moss.
As previously reported here on FAA News, the U.S. Department of Justice is also defending UNRWA against a separate lawsuit which claims $1 billion in damages from UNRWA, accusing that it aided and abetted the terror group’s assault by "helping Hamas build up the terror infrastructure and personnel that were necessary to carry out the October 7 attack."
That case remains pending.
To join the FAA News WhatsApp Status, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment