The woman suing Al Jazeera over news network’s alleged ties to Hamas

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Maurice Shnaider was shattered when he learned his niece, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Ariel and Kfir, had been torn from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. After 500 days, their bodies were returned to Israel, Feb. 20.

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Now, Shnaider stands at the forefront of a legal battle seeking justice for all those affected by the horrors of that day.

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He joins American victims of October 7 that have now filed a lawsuit against Al Jazeera Media Network and its U.S. subsidiary, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit, brought under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), alleges that the Qatari-based news organization provided direct support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), designated terrorist groups.

The plaintiffs claim Al Jazeera acted as accomplices for terrorist propaganda and recruitment, incited violence through its broadcasts, employed people with connections to Hamas and PIJ, paid terrorist leaders for interviews, and disseminated extremist narratives. These actions, according to the lawsuit, contributed to the planning and execution of October 7, which left more than 1,200 people dead and some 250 people held hostage.

The allegations against Al Jazeera contained in the lawsuit have not been proven in court.

Al Jazeera did not respond to National Post’s queries about each allegation, and had not filed a legal defence as of March 20.

The case is being led by attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of Shurat HaDin, a 22-year-old Israeli NGO that uses legal action to combat terrorism. She spoke to Dave Gordon for the Post:

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Q: Was this suit a while in the making, or arose from the return of the Bibas children?

This is something that we’ve been thinking of, and researching, for a very long time. We were really investigating how to bring a lawsuit against Al Jazeera based upon all the evidence we had amassed. Once the Bibas family was found, and declared to be murder victims, we were determined to file this case and to get it into court as soon as possible. This was our response. We wanted to hold accountable all those parties and groups that assisted Hamas in murdering the innocent Bibas family, and also all the victims of October 7.

Q: Can you elaborate on the financial interactions that Al Jazeera allegedly provided to terrorists?

When we are allowed to demand discovery from Al Jazeera, I’m sure we’ll know quite a bit more. But right now, what we have are interviews that Al Jazeera conducted with the leaders of Hamas, and in return, we know that they received funding in order to secure these interviews. We already have documents that are presented in the complaint. And we anticipate we are going to receive more during the discovery stage, and the depositions that we’ll be permitted to conduct.

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Under the ATA, any American institution, organization or company, that provides any sort of services to the designated (terror) organization is liable, criminally and civilly for the wrongful acts of the designated organization.

Al Jazeera provided services to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. They pay Hamas terrorists to serve as their journalists. They’re not really journalists, but they give them access to what’s going on inside closed doors, inside the Hamas command, inside the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera provides Hamas with tremendous services to spread their propaganda, to disseminate their genocidal narrative, to help them to achieve their goals, which are committing terrorism and destroying the State of Israel.

Q: Qatar funds all, or part of Al Jazeera, and Qatar funds all, or in part of Hamas, and has hosted Hamas on its soil, so do these dots connect to suspicion?

(Al Jazeera is) independent from the Qatari government. It’s not that Qatar gives money to Hamas through Al Jazeera, however. Qatar does give money to Hamas, but it does it through (a charity), or directly by the suitcases full of cash that Israel foolishly and mistakenly agreed to be transferred to the hands of the Hamas organization in Gaza in the years prior to October 7.

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Q: Are there any precedents for holding media organizations accountable for supporting terrorist activities?

Not yet. We do have precedents for holding banks and financial institutions responsible for acts of a terror organization. We have a precedent for a civil rights organization, for providing services to the terrorist group.

We are talking about a relatively new law, right? The Anti-Terrorism Act is actually only 28 years old and obviously there have not been enough cases to provide every type of precedent. It’s still a work in progress and we are determined and hopeful.

Q: What specific damages are the plaintiffs seeking in this lawsuit against Al Jazeera?

The direct damages that arose from the harm to the plaintiffs, meaning death and injury, pain and suffering for the relatives, and punitive damages. Punitive damages are triple damages that are granted by the law. You take the compensatory damages and direct damages and you triple them. So Al Jazeera might face hundreds of millions of dollars in judgment against it.

Q: Do you have a favourite (previous) win?

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I call it a win, although we didn’t technically win yet. That’s a judgment against the Palestinian Authority that the victims received in a jury trial in New York in 2015, that found the Palestinian Authority responsible for 10 acts of terrorism, during the Second Intifada, and forced them to pay US$655 million as compensation to the terror victims. Unfortunately, the judgment was overturned on appeal, based on a lack of personal jurisdiction, basically a technical argument. The PA claimed that it didn’t have any ties to the United States, and therefore American courts lack jurisdiction over them.

We helped change the law in Congress. The statutes said that when the PA receives funds from the United States government, that should be seen to establish personal jurisdiction. And now we are back in court on this issue. We are actually in the Supreme Court to hear and rule on this case next month.

I strongly believe that in this case, the judgments will be reinstated, and will have the Palestinian Authority held liable for US$655 million in damages to the terror victims.

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And another case that we had is in Israel, where the victims actually collected $250 million shekels ($100 million CAD) from the Palestinian Authority on behalf of terror victims from the Second Intifada.

The Palestinians have lawyers representing them. In Israel, they were represented by an Israeli law firm, and in the United States they are represented by a Washington, D.C., law firm. They cannot say they weren’t able to defend themselves in court.

Q: Besides monetary damages, what do you hope this Al Jazeera case will do?

Ultimately, if we win this case, Al Jazeera will not exist as it does today. They will have to shut down, because the way Al Jazeera is handling their media broadcasts and handling their biased journalism, is literally aiding and abetting terrorism. Wherever they go, whatever they do, they endorse extremist terrorism, not only Hamas but also every other anti-Israel, anti-Western terror organization.

Its reporters are embedded with all the Palestinian organizations in the Middle East, and elsewhere in the world. We know that Qatar is the ATM for many terror organizations in the world. And therefore Al Jazeera is the voice of Qatar, supporting them as well, not necessarily monetarily per se, but with the media broadcasts and services, and therefore, if the families win a judgment, every terror victim can bring a similar lawsuit against Al Jazeera.

Providing material support to Hamas creates liability.

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