The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated a $655.5 million jury verdict against the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday, ending a two-decade legal battle over terrorist attacks that killed and wounded American citizens in Israel.
The ruling in Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization holds the PLO and PA liable for their role in a wave of suicide bombings and attacks carried out in Israel between 2002 and 2004. The attacks claimed hundreds of lives and left American citizens among the dead and injured.
The case was first filed in 2004 by victims and their families under the Anti-Terrorism Act. A seven-week trial concluded in 2015 with a jury finding both organizations liable and awarding hundreds of millions in damages. The Second Circuit vacated that judgment in 2016, ruling that U.S. courts lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendants.
The legal path forward came through Congress. In 2019, lawmakers passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, legislation led by Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford. The law established a “deemed consent” framework, treating certain conduct, specifically the PLO and PA’s continued “martyr payments” to the families of terrorists, as consent to U.S. jurisdiction.
The PLO and PA challenged that law too, arguing it violated the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections. The Second Circuit initially sided with the defendants. But the Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2025 in Fuld v. PLO, ruling that the Fifth Amendment allows greater jurisdictional flexibility than the Fourteenth Amendment when national security and foreign policy interests are at stake.
The Second Circuit said the PLO and PA effectively invited the court’s jurisdiction by continuing their martyr payment program even after the PSJVTA became law. “By continuing to make those payments, they made the earlier court decision against them legally binding,” the court found.
The defendants made a final attempt to avoid payment by seeking a new trial, claiming the original district court had admitted improper expert testimony about their internal structure and support for terrorism. The Second Circuit dismissed those arguments, finding the jury had been properly instructed and the district court had not committed “manifest error.”
The court noted that 21 years of litigation, combined with the age and deteriorating health of many original plaintiffs, weighed heavily in favor of finality. Several plaintiffs have since died.
“The interests of justice, judicial economy, and finality outweighed the defendants’ procedural complaints,” the Second Circuit wrote.
The ruling affirms that Congress and the executive branch have the authority to hold foreign entities accountable for terrorism against American nationals, and that those entities cannot invoke due process protections while continuing to fund terrorists.
