Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied the Palestinian Authority's emergency request to halt a $655.5 million judgment won by American families whose loved ones were killed or wounded in terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, leaving the PA and PLO with no shield against enforcement.
Sotomayor acted Monday without referring the stay application to the full Supreme Court and without offering any explanation, Newsweek reported. The denial clears the way for American victims and their families to pursue collection on a judgment that has wound through federal courts for more than a decade, a judgment rooted in a string of shootings and bombings that killed and maimed Americans in and around Jerusalem between 2002 and 2004.
The ruling marks a sharp turn in a case the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization had fought at every level of the American court system. Their attorneys filed the emergency stay application in late July, warning that enforcement would cripple government services across the West Bank. Sotomayor, who handles emergency matters from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, shut that argument down in a single, unexplained order.
The underlying lawsuit dates to a seven-week federal trial in New York in 2015. A jury found the PA and PLO liable under the Anti-Terrorism Act, the federal statute that allows American victims of overseas terrorism to sue in U.S. courts, and returned a verdict of roughly $655.5 million.
One year later, the 2nd Circuit threw out the verdict entirely, ruling that American courts lacked jurisdiction over the Palestinian entities. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in 2018, and the case appeared dead.
Congress intervened. In 2019, lawmakers passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, a law designed to make it easier for American terrorism victims to haul the PA and PLO into U.S. courts. In 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld that statute in Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, finding that Congress had validly expanded jurisdiction.
Armed with that ruling, the 2nd Circuit reinstated the original $655.5 million judgment in March 2026. The appeals court concluded the new law provided a valid basis for jurisdiction and allowed the previously vacated verdict to come back to life.
PA and PLO attorneys called that decision unprecedented. In their Supreme Court filing, they argued the reinstated judgment was "the first time an American court has ever held that a money judgment made without jurisdiction may be resurrected years after all appeals were exhausted." They insisted the original verdict had become a "nullity", "absolutely void", and could not legally be revived.
Sotomayor disagreed. Or at least, she saw no reason to intervene. Her order gave no rationale.
The PA and PLO's stay application painted a dire picture of what enforcement would mean on the ground. Their attorneys wrote that "immediate enforcement of such a large judgment will destabilize critical government services Petitioners provide in the West Bank, injure innocent citizens, and jeopardize regional security."
They pointed to specific services at risk:
"The security, sanitation, and school services provided by Petitioners in the West Bank are hanging by a thread."
The filing also flagged the mechanism plaintiffs plan to use. The PA's attorneys wrote that the American families "plan to enforce the judgment against clearance revenues collected by Israel, which is the PA's source of income under the Oslo Accords." Those clearance revenues, taxes and customs duties Israel collects on the PA's behalf, have themselves been under strain. Israel suspended transfers of those revenues to the PA since 2025.
Court filings cited a World Bank report describing the PA as being in "deep fiscal crisis." That report found that "the total deficit [before grants] amounted to US$605 million in the first nine months of 2025." The financial pressure has only grown since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
For the American families, the financial condition of the PA is beside the point. AP News reported that the attacks at the center of the lawsuit killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more. Among the dead were five Americans killed in a 2002 bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the families welcomed the 2nd Circuit's reinstatement of the judgment, saying it would allow "justice to be done" after a long legal process.
Winning a $655.5 million judgment is one thing. Collecting it is another.
Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor and executive director of George Mason University's Center for the Middle East and International Law, told Newsweek by email that the PLO has structured its American presence to avoid exactly this scenario.
"The next step would be enforcing the judgment, which would be difficult to do in the United States because the PLO maintains very limited assets here, specifically to avoid having them seized to satisfy judgments by terror victims."
But Kontorovich noted that the judgment is not confined to American borders. He said "a judgment in the United States can be taken abroad, including to Israel and enforced there." That opens a potential path through the clearance revenues Israel collects, assuming Israel resumes transferring them.
The current Supreme Court has shown little appetite for shielding foreign entities from the consequences of American law. The unanimous 2025 ruling in Fuld sent a clear signal that Congress has the power to ensure American terrorism victims can seek accountability in American courts, even against sovereign-adjacent defendants who resist jurisdiction.
The attacks at the heart of this case took place during the Second Intifada, a period of sustained violence that erupted in September 2000. The uprising was triggered in part by a visit from then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to a compound in Jerusalem housing holy Islamic and Judaic sites. Sharon arrived accompanied by hundreds of armed officers. Many Palestinians viewed the visit as a provocation; Sharon and his supporters said it affirmed Israel's right of access to the site.
The violence that followed killed more than 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,000 Palestinians before a 2005 ceasefire agreement at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, brought the worst of the fighting to an end. Various Palestinian groups and individuals carried out the shootings and bombings between 2002 and 2004 that killed and injured Americans and gave rise to this lawsuit.
The PA was established in 1994 under the Oslo Accords to administer parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The PLO, founded in 1964 with backing from the Arab League, signed those accords with Israel in 1993 and serves as the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people. Both entities were named as defendants under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The legal odyssey that followed, trial, reversal, congressional action, Supreme Court review, reinstatement, and now a denied stay, spans more than a decade. At each stage, the PA and PLO argued that American courts had no business adjudicating claims against them. At each stage after 2019, the courts disagreed.
Liberal justices on the current Court have drawn attention for a range of decisions and public statements that have surprised observers across the political spectrum. Sotomayor's denial here, without explanation or referral to the full bench, suggests she saw no serious legal basis to delay what Congress and the courts have now repeatedly affirmed: American victims of terrorism abroad have standing to hold the PA and PLO accountable.
Several open questions remain. It is unclear whether the PA and PLO can refile their stay request with the full Court, or whether Sotomayor's denial forecloses that avenue. Newsweek reached out to the defendants' legal representatives for comment but did not report receiving a response. And the practical question of enforcement, where the money comes from, and whether Israel cooperates, remains unresolved.
But the legal trajectory is unmistakable. Congress acted. The Supreme Court upheld the law unanimously. The 2nd Circuit reinstated the judgment. And the justice assigned to handle the emergency request declined to stand in the way.
American families waited more than twenty years for a court to tell the Palestinian Authority and PLO that terrorism has a price. The bill is now due, and nobody in Washington seems inclined to delay it any longer.
