Overview
In an opinion yesterday, Judge Furman dismissed a suit brought by 13 West Bank residents who alleged that Israeli settlers victimized them in various ways, including by stoning and vandalism. The plaintiffs did not sue the perpetrators, but instead sued five U.S. groups that allegedly provided financial support to the settlements. Judge Furman found that the plaintiffs had failed to plead a claim under the Anti-Terrorism Act because (among other reasons) they failed to plead that their harms were proximately caused by the defendants:
Essentially, the Amended Complaint alleges that Defendants transferred funds to an unorganized group of approximately five hundred thousand people, and that some people in that group committed attacks against the American Plaintiffs. Those allegations are not even sufficient to show but-for causation . . . let alone the more demanding standard of proximate causation.
