A complaint lodged by former Israeli hostage Almog Meir Jan against the parent company of the Palestine Chronicle has been dismissed by a Seattle Federal Judge, according to the order viewed by the Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
Jan was taken captive from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023, and was held in Gaza before being rescued from the Nuseirat refugee camp in a daring event on June 8, 2024. The operation, since coined ‘Operation Arnon’ after the Yamam fighter Arnon Zamora, who lost his life, also brought back three other hostages, Shlomi Ziv, Andrey Koslov, and Noa Argamani.
The three male hostages reported that, during their full 246-day captivity, they were held in the house of Abdallah Aljamal and his family and that Aljamal was also a journalist.
Following an investigation, the IDF confirmed that Aljamal was a Hamas operative and also a correspondent for the Palestine Chronicle. Abdullah had previously served as a spokesperson for the Hamas government and, according to the Journal, was vocally supportive of the October 7 attack.
On July 14, 2024, just a month after his rescue, Jan filed a lawsuit against the Palestine Chronicle for its employment of his Hamas captor.
The Chronicle does business as a US-based, tax-exempt charitable organization called the People Media Project (PMP).
Jan alleged that PMP aided, abetted, and materially supported Hamas by employing Aljamal and publishing his work.
Furthermore, after the killing of Aljamal during the June 8 rescue operation, the Palestine Chronicle allegedly tried to veil its connection to the captor by changing his listed bio from “correspondent” to “contributor.”
Jan sought compensation with the Western Washington Seattle District against the company under the Alien Tort Statue.
The ruling
However, on Friday, 31 January 2025, District Judge Tiffany Cartwright ruled that “Jan’s complaint does not allege actual knowledge [and therefore] his compensation allegations must be dismissed.”
“Jan’s allegations are insufficient to state a plausible claim that Defendants aided and abetted his kidnapping and Hamas’s acts of terrorism,” the ruling said.
“The defendants also asserted that their decision to publish Aljamal’s articles is protected by the First Amendment and that Jan’s claims do not overcome the ATS’s presumption against extraterritoriality because the conduct relevant to the ATS’s focus—kidnapping and imprisoning a civilian hostage—occurred outside the United States,” it added.Â
Jan subsequently counterargued that by compensating Aljamal and providing him a US-based platform to publish articles justifying Hamas’s actions, the defendants materially supported terrorism.
The Judge, basing the ruling off the Ninth Circuit’s standard for AT accomplice liability, claimed that Jan’s allegations could corroborate a claim for aiding and abetting but only in the event that the defendants knew they were paying a Hamas operative.
Because Jan was unable to show that the company did, in fact, know that Aljamal was a member of the terror group, the claim was dismissed.
The case was also dismissed because Jan’s claims were based on the articles of the journalist-cum-terrorist, which are protected under the First Amendment’s protection of speech.
Jan has the ability to amend his case until February 21.
The Jerusalem Post reached out to Jan for comment.
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