Nine victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel filed suit on Wednesday against U.S.-based pro-Hamas groups in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia, in Alexandria, Va.
The victims filed the complaint against AJP Educational Foundation Inc., also known as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP).
These organizations participate in the anti-Israel and antisemitic tent encampments peppering U.S. college campuses.
The plaintiffs allege these groups violate the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Alien Tort Statute and seek compensatory damages.
According to the complaint’s introductory section AMP “serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States.” It was built on “the ashes of disbanded organizations created by senior Hamas officials after those organizations and related individuals were found criminally and civilly liable for providing material support to Hamas and other affiliated terrorist groups.”
AMP founded NSJP, which coordinates hundreds of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters across the country. “Through NSJP, AMP 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 complaint states.
On Oct. 8, the day after the Hamas massacre, AMP and NSJP responded to Hamas’s “call for mass mobilization” by disseminating a manifesto and plan of attack (“NSJP Toolkit”), comprising materials apparently created before the attack, the complaint notes.
“In the NSJP Toolkit, AMP and NSJP identify themselves as ‘part of’ a ‘Unity Intifada,’ governed by Hamas’s ‘unified command’ of terrorist operations in Gaza,” it continued.
“The plain text of the NSJP Toolkit confirms that AMP and NSJP do not merely assist Hamas’s ongoing terror campaign abroad—they perpetuate it in the United States,” the complaint notes.
“Defendants act as Hamas’s public relations division and recruit domestic foot soldiers not only to disseminate Hamas’s propaganda but also to foment violence, chaos, and fear across the United States to intimidate citizens and coerce change in American policy,” it said.
The nine plaintiffs, seven of whom are U.S. citizens, continue to “suffer mental anguish and pain” made worse by the “defendants’ provision of material support” to their attackers, the complaint says.
All but two of the plaintiffs directly experienced the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.
Seven of them, like David Bromberg, barely escaped with their lives. Surviving the Nova festival massacre, Bromberg fled and hid in the bushes outside Kibbutz Be’eri for more than 12 hours until he was rescued. “Mr. Bromberg’s friends were murdered, and one is held hostage by Hamas,” the complaint notes.
Of the two others, Adin Gess lives in Kibbutz Holit but was not at home on the day it was attacked. He witnessed his friends and neighbors being murdered as they pleaded for their lives on a communal WhatsApp group. He has not been able to return home since the attack.
The second, Noach Newman, lost his brother during the terrorist assault on the Nova music festival.
“Since Oct. 7, our country has witnessed a shocking rise in antisemitism, verbal and physical threats against Jews on our campuses and in our streets, vandalism, blockades, economic disruption, illegal encampments, and hostile takeovers of academic buildings—largely and concertedly directed by Hamas and its collaborators, American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine,” said Scott J. Bornstein, senior vice president of Greenberg Traurig, one of the law firms bringing suit.
“Until now, they have seemingly operated in a world without consequence. With this lawsuit, we will hold Hamas’s collaborators accountable for their actions and show them and those in sympathy with them that no one is above, or beyond, the rule of law,” he added.
“It is deeply ironic that the same people carrying signs saying ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Jews’ claim they are protected by free speech. They are not,” noted Richard A. Edlin, vice chair at Greenberg Traurig.
“Free speech has never included the active support of terrorism, and it has never protected the destruction of private property or the brutalization of innocent men, women, and children of many faiths, not just Jews,” continued Edlin.
Also participating in the suit are the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Schoen Law Firm and the Holtzman Vogel Law Firm.
