The Quiet Redefinition of “Material Support to Terrorism” in U.S. Courts
One Case. One Stay. One Dangerous Move Risking Redefining Terrorism Law
I was catching up on Jan v. People Media Project (Palestine Chronicle), and what from the surface looks like a routine procedural move is should be treated as something far more consequential, an attempt to redefine what “Material Support to Terrorism” means.
The Palestine Chronicle is as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit, meaning American taxpayers are subsidizing an outlet with alleged ties to terrorism. According to the lawsuit, the The Palestine Chronicle provided material support to Hamas by employing an individual who was not only affiliated with a terrorist organization, but was directly involved in holding three hostages captive. The case also alleged that Abdallah Aljamal told the hostages that “Hamas was going to ensure that the United States, as well as Jews and Israelis, are hated everywhere and that Hamas in Gaza was coordinating with its allies, including its allies in the media and on college campuses, to foment hatred against Israel and Jews.”
In January, the court stayed the case pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe, a case that deals with a very different legal question: whether a U.S. company can be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute for allegedly aiding and abetting human rights abuses carried out by a foreign government. In Cisco, plaintiffs claim the company helped build surveillance systems used by Chinese authorities to track and repress dissidents, raising unresolved questions about corporate liability, intent, and the scope of U.S. courts over conduct abroad.
On paper, that sounds like judicial caution. In reality, it raises a far more serious concern: the quiet reopening of a legal standard that Congress already defined.
A settled statute, treated like an open question
Cisco deals with aiding-and-abetting liability under the Alien Tort Statute, an area of law the Supreme Court has repeatedly narrowed and questioned. It is unsettled, contested, and still evolving.
But the case against the Palestine Chronicle is not operating in that space. The case at hand does not rely on this unsettled, judge-made framework, but on clearly defined U.S. statutes governing material support to terrorist organizations, making the decision to tie the two cases together far from straightforward.
The Palestine Chronicle case centers on alleged material support to a terrorist organization under 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, a statute Congress wrote with precision and intent. Its meaning is not ambiguous. The Supreme Court already addressed it in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, making clear that liability does not require intent to commit violence, only knowing support to a designated terrorist organization. That clarity is not incidental. It is the entire point.
The danger is not delay, it’s redefinition
By tying the case against the Palestine Chronicle to Cisco, the court risks doing something far more consequential than pausing a case. It risks importing uncertainty from one legal doctrine into another where uncertainty was deliberately removed.
Material support laws were designed to be preventative. Congress made a conscious decision: in the context of terrorism, waiting for intent to become explicit is too late. The law therefore focuses on knowledge, not shared purpose.
But once courts begin to blur that standard, the definition itself starts to shift. And that is the real danger. Redefining “material support” does not require rewriting the statute. It can happen gradually, through interpretation, through comparison, through procedural decisions like this one.
Redefinition doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in steps. “Knowledge” begins to be treated as insufficient. Courts start looking for stronger evidence of intent or alignment. Indirect support becomes harder to classify as actionable. The threshold for liability quietly rises. At that point, the law still exists on paper, but it no longer functions as written. A statute designed to prevent support before violence occurs risks becoming something else entirely: a framework that tolerates ambiguity until it is too late.
The procedural pattern matters
The sequence in this case only deepens the concern.
The court first limited discovery, restricting access to non-public evidence. The case was then dismissed for “lack of evidence.” And in between, and now it is getting tied to a Supreme Court case from an entirely different legal domain.
Before the stay, Jan v. People Media Project had already moved into substantive litigation, where the central issue was whether the defendants knowingly provided support to a Hamas-affiliated individual. Plaintiffs were not relying on speculation, they put forward expert testimony and evidentiary arguments showing that Abdullah Aljamal’s ties to Hamas were widely known and readily discoverable through even basic due diligence. At the same time, defendants sought to exclude those experts, effectively attempting to limit what evidence the court could consider.
In short, this was not a weak or undeveloped case awaiting clarity, it was already testing concrete evidence, credibility, and compliance at the core of the claims.
Each step can be defended in isolation. Together, they form a pattern: narrowing the pathway for claims while simultaneously raising the bar for what qualifies as sufficient proof.
That is not just case management. It shapes outcomes.
Context on the Judge is not irrelevant
Tiffany M. Cartwright was appointed as a U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Washington by President Joe Biden and confirmed in July 2023 at just 38 years old, making her one of the youngest federal judges on the bench. Prior to her appointment, her background was in civil rights litigation, including high-profile lawsuits against law enforcement while working at MacDonald Hoague & Bayless.
Her nomination was strongly backed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of over 230 organizations that lobbies Congress on issues such as judicial reform, immigration, and voting rights, and has received tens of millions in funding from major foundations including the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and others. She was also supported by the Alliance for Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based network backed by similar funding sources, which actively works to promote judicial nominees aligned with progressive legal agendas.
Cartwright’s confirmation passed narrowly in a 50–47 Senate vote, with unified Democratic support. Given her age, relatively limited judicial experience, and the politically active network of organizations behind her nomination, her role in cases with significant national implications raises legitimate concerns about how legal standards may be interpreted and applied.
Her radical leftist views became evident in a previous ruling when she struck down the 30-day residency requirement for voter registration before the last November elections, a requirement embedded in the state constitution.
That context alone does not determine outcomes. But when decisions begin to move in a direction that effectively reopens settled law, it becomes relevant to ask whether this is motivated by inexperience and caution, or something more consequential involving attempts in shaping judicial philosophy and legal interpretation.
Possible Tax Fraud by the Palestine Chronicle
But the case deposition record goes further. Evidence and depositions raises serious questions about how payments were made and documented, pointing to practices that appear to fall well below basic compliance and recordkeeping standards for a U.S.-based 501(c)(3). The use of informal or poorly tracked payment channels does not just go to liability in this case; it raises broader concerns about financial oversight and whether the organization is meeting its legal obligations under U.S. tax law. Regardless of the ultimate outcome here, the state of the financial records alone would seem to warrant closer scrutiny, potentially even an IRS investigation into the organization’s practices.
Since before the case was even filed, there were already serious questions about the Palestine Chronicle‘s in regards to possible tax fraud. Reported by Eitan Fischberger, the People Media Project (the entity behind the Palestine Chronicle) has reportedly filed documents with the IRS not matching the filings with the State of Washington. To the IRS it claim it has gross receipts of under $50,000, allowing it to avoid filing the more detailed Form 990. However, in filings with the State of Washington, the organization reported much higher gross receipts.
This discrepancy raised questions about potential tax fraud. and on July 9, 2024, In a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, GOP lawmakers have urged the U.S. Department of Justice and the IRS to investigate the Palestine Chronicle and its parent organization, People Media Project, for multiple potential legal violations. These potential legal violations include providing material support to Hamas, violating tax laws, and filing false tax returns. The lawmakers called for a full investigation into these serious allegations, urging both the DOJ and the IRS to take immediate action.
On October 29th, 2024, Rep. Jason Smith, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, called on six state attorneys general to investigate terror-linked nonprofits and consider revoking their charitable status. These nonprofits are alleged to have ties to terrorism, tax fraud, or have been identified as being largely behind organizing the antisemitic protests in universities. One of these nonprofits includes the Palestine Chronicle.
The problem goes even further, Ari Hoffman reported, in an exclusive, that despite requests from Israel’s Consul General in the Pacific Northwest for an investigation into the Palestine Chronicle, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson remained silent and ignored the request and dozens of antisemitic incidents targeting Washington’s Jewish Community since October 7th, 2023.
A copy of the letter, was obtained exclusively by Hoffman. It reads:
“I am writing to you following recent publications according to which Abdallah Aljamal, who was involved in terrorist activity in Gaza, also had ties with the ‘Palestine Chronicle,’ a Washington-based 501C3.”
“As you recall, on October 7, 2023, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched an unprovoked brutal attack against Israel committing countless atrocities including the rape, mutilation, decapitation, and burning of hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians.”
“Hamas also abducted 251 Israelis including babies, children, young girls, and the elderly. 120 of them, including eight Americans, are still being held in Gaza experiencing unimaginable horrors at the hands of their terrorist captors. I call on your office to look into this matter in order to ensure that American public funds do not end up in the hands of individuals involved in terrorist activity and in the hands of those who employ them.”
Where Congress comes in
This is where the issue moves beyond the courtroom. Once courts begin to blur or redefine what “material support to an FTO” means, the responsibility shifts back to Congress, not to create new law, but to reassert the meaning of the law that already exists. Congress has several tools, and at this point, they are not optional, they are necessary:
1. Reaffirm the statutory standard clearly and explicitly
Congress can amend 18 U.S.C. § 2339B to restate, in unmistakable terms, that:
Knowledge is sufficient
Intent to further violence is not required
Courts are not to import external doctrines that raise the threshold
Explicitly state that material support statutes are to be interpreted independently of frameworks like aiding-and-abetting liability under the ATS
Not because the law is unclear, but because it is being treated as if it were. This would directly address what is happening here: The blending of distinct legal standards into something new.
2. Reinforce the preventative nature of the statute
Congress can clarify that the purpose of the law is to stop support before harm occurs, not after intent is fully proven. That distinction matters. Without it, courts can slowly shift the law into something reactive instead of preventative.
3. Conduct oversight and create a record
Congress can hold hearings examining how courts are applying material support statutes, especially in cases where:
Discovery is restricted
Standards appear to shift
Or external doctrines are being introduced
This creates a record that can guide future legislation and judicial interpretation, including in this case.
Why this cannot be ignored
If this were just one case, it might not matter.
Legal standards do not change only through landmark rulings. They change through accumulation, through small decisions, procedural moves, and subtle reinterpretations that, over time, reshape how laws function in practice.
And Jan v. People Media Project does not exist in isolation. It is part of a broader wave of litigation targeting U.S.-based nonprofits accused of providing material support to Hamas in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks. One such case involves American Muslims for Palestine, where overlapping individuals and networks appear across multiple complaints associated to organizations like CAIR and the Holy Land Foundation. Notably, Zarefah Baroud, the daughter of Ramzy Baroud, editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle, is also named as a defendant in separate, but related litigation.
What becomes increasingly relevant is not just the individuals, but the ecosystem surrounding them, including what Zarefah Baroud herself described as a “network of lawyers who make their work possible.” The statement raises a deeper question: who are these legal networks, and how far do they extend? The existence of parallel and coordinated legal support structure.
This is why it matters. These networks have the capacity to shape litigation strategy, influence discovery, and ultimately affect how courts interpret material support statutes across multiple cases. When the same individuals, organizations, and legal infrastructures appear repeatedly across cases, what might seem like isolated procedural decisions begin to take on broader significance. A shift in how one court treats evidence, intent, or liability does not stay confined to a single case, it echoes across a growing body of litigation.
Taken together, these cases are not just about individual organizations. They are collectively testing how U.S. law defines and enforces “material support” in real-world contexts. And that is precisely why incremental shifts, like staying one case based on an unrelated legal doctrine, matter. Because when applied across multiple cases, those shifts don’t stay procedural. They become precedent in practice.
“Material support to an FTO” was never meant to be flexible. It was meant to be clear, enforceable, and preventative. If that clarity is allowed to erode, even indirectly, the consequences extend far beyond this case. They affect how the United States identifies, prosecutes, and ultimately deters support for terrorist organizations.
Congress already defined what material support to terrorism means. The Supreme Court already upheld that definition. The question now is whether that definition will remain intact, or whether Congress will allow for it to be reinterpreted through legal pathways that were never meant to apply.
Once a clear law becomes questionable, it stops being a standard, and becomes a suggestion.
