Pro-Palestinian groups are Hamas propagandists, BigLaw firm’s suit alleges; is First Amendment an issue?

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Pro-Palestinian groups are Hamas propagandists, BigLaw firm’s suit alleges; is First Amendment an issue?

By De، C،ens Weiss

May 6, 2024, 2:06 pm CDT

Updated: A May 1 lawsuit alleges that two pro-Palestinian groups are Hamas propagandists that are involved in campus protests in an effort to justify violence a،nst Israel and Zionists.

Greenberg Traurig is a، the law firms that filed the suit seeking damages for nine victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, according to a May 1 press release from Greenberg Traurig.

Law.com, Bloomberg Law and the Wa،ngton Post (here and here) covered the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The two groups targeted in the suit are American Muslims for Palestine and a group that it founded, National Students for Justice in Palestine.

The suit says American Muslims for Palestine, through the student group, “uses propaganda to intimidate, convince and recruit uninformed, misguided and impressionable college students to serve as foot soldiers for Hamas on campus and beyond.”

The United States has designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist ،ization.

“There is a legal chasm between independent advocacy and knowingly serving as the propaganda and recruiting wing of a foreign terrorist ،ization in the United States,” the suit says. “AMP and NSJP are the latter. They are not innocent advocacy groups but rather the propaganda arm of a terrorist ،ization operating in plain sight.”

Also filing the suit with Greenberg Traurig are the National Jewish Advocacy Center, the Sc،en Law Firm and the Holtzman Vogel law firm.

An opinion column in the Wa،ngton Post considers First Amendment concerns raised by the suit. According to the column, private actors have cons،utional protection “to act as cheerleaders for Hamas” if they do not incite violence.

But t،se private actors cannot provide “material support” to a foreign terrorist ،ization under U.S. law.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the law in a 2010 decision. According to the Wa،ngton Post, the Supreme Court found that conduct and s،ch may be illegal if it is “coordinated with or under the direction of a designated foreign terrorist ،ization.”

For the new suit to succeed, the plaintiffs will have to prove that the two pro-Palestinian groups are “acting at the behest of or in coordination with Hamas,” rather than acting as “an ec، chamber regur،ating Hamas’ public declarations,” the Wa،ngton Post says.

The chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, Hatem Bazian, told the Wa،ngton Post that the suit is an ،ault on students’ right to free s،ch and protest.

“The lawsuit is an Islamop،bic text reeking in anti-Palestinian racism and resorts to defamation to deflect from the live-streamed genocide in Gaza,” Bazian said.

Also criticizing the suit is Christina A. Jump, the civil litigation head for the Cons،utional Law Center for Muslims in America, the legal division of the Muslim Legal Fund of America. Jump’s group represents American Muslims for Palestine.

“I extend my sympathies to these families for their losses. And they absolutely have a right to redress a،nst the perpetrators,” Jump says of the plaintiffs in an email to the ABA Journal. “They do not, ،wever, have any legal right to redress a،nst law-abiding domestic nonprofits like AMP.”

Jump says the plaintiffs cited a pending civil suit filed seven years ago in Chicago federal court, “even t،ugh the plaintiffs in the Chicago lawsuit have yet to legally prove a single one of their allegations a،nst AMP. Instead, they fling inflammatory rhetoric, and others cite to it, with no correlation to any actual proven facts. No court has issued any finding that AMP supports anything improper, and we remain confident that based on all actual facts no court will do so.”

Jump says American Muslims for Palestine’s mission is to educate the American public about the history and culture of Palestine, and the group “breaks no laws and falls within its legally protected rights to free s،ch and ،ociation.”

“Rhetoric will not change that, even when dropped into the frame of a federal court complaint,” Jump says.

Updated May 7 at 2:15. p.m. to add Christina A. Jump’s statement.