Letters Blogatory

The Blog of International Judicial Assistance | By Ted Folkman of Folkman LLC

Posts tagged “Palestine

Case of the Day: Livnat v. Palestinian Authority

Posted on March 28, 2017

The case of the day is Livnat v. Palestinian Authority (D.C. Cir. 2017). In 2011, Ben-Yosef Livnat was killed, and Yitzhak and Natan Safra were wounded, in a terrorist attack at Joseph’s Tomb, a holy site in Nablus. The Livnat and Safra families sued the Palestinian Authority, alleging that the terrorists in the incident were the security guards the PA had hired to guard the site. The claims were under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333, and for common-law torts. The PA moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The district court granted the motion, and the plaintiffs appealed.

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Case of the Day: Gilmore v. Palestinian Authority

Posted on January 12, 2017

The case of the day is Gilmore v. Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority (D.C. Cir. 2016). Esh Kodesh Gilmore, a US citizen, was killed in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2000. His estate and survivors sued the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, asserting claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act and on common law theories. At first, the PA and the PLO defaulted, but they later moved to vacate the default and moved to dismiss, arguing that the suit “was a politically-motivated attack on the PA and therefore non-justiciable,” and that Palestine was a state and therefore entitled to foreign sovereign immunity. The court vacated the default and denied the motion to dismiss. But the PA then failed to answer, and again was defaulted. After a…

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