Parents of American teen killed by Hamas target anti-Israel group protesting at DNC
Parents of one of the first Americans murdered by Hamas, are waging a legal battle against a Muslim advocacy group that's protesting at the Democratic National Convention this week.
Stanley and Joyce Boim are American citizens whose 17-year-old son David was killed by Hamas terrorists at a bus stop in Jerusalem in 1996.
The Boims filed a lawsuit in 2000 against three Islamic charities in the U.S. under the Antiterrosim Act, accusing the groups of providing material support for Hamas. They won the suit in 2004 and were to be awarded $156 million. However, the payment wasn't collected as the groups quickly disbanded after the judgment.
The Boims filed another suit in 2017, arguing that the principal defendant from that case, the Islamic Association for Palestine or "IAP," reemerged under a new name, The American Muslims for Palestine or "AMP."
The AMP purports that it "works to educate, organize, and mobilize the Muslim community in the US to take action for Palestinian rights."
The Boim suit argues that the AMP has the same "core leadership, fundamental mission and purpose" as IAP and holds "nearly identical conventions and events with many of the same roster of speakers;" "continues to espouse Hamas' ideology and political positions; and "continues to facilitate fundraising for groups that funnel money to Hamas."
The Boims claim that AMP and other defendants named in the suit are "therefore liable for the unpaid amount of the Boim judgment."
Their case is once again in the spotlight as the AMP's Chicago chapter will be joining other anti-Israel groups descending on the DNC this week.
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One of the group's founders, Hatem Bazian, is also the founder of the National Students for Justice in Palestine, "NSJP." The NJSP celebrated the October 7 terror attacks and held encampments on college campuses last spring where Jewish students were harassed.
The student group, which will also be protesting in Chicago, was found to have received funding from Hamas-linked groups, according to research from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.
The Boim family's attorney, Daniel Schlessinger, told Fox News Digital that their suit was not targeting these groups' free speech rights, and he hoped the demonstrations in Chicago remained peaceful.
Victory in their case against AMP is crucial, he argued, to ensure pro-terror groups in the United States are held accountable for their actions.
"The Antiterrorism Act —which is an important statute because it enables suits like the suit that the Boims filed — will have no meaning if the impact of a judgment against an organization like IAP is that they can simply change their name, move down the street and keep doing the same thing under a different name, and avoid paying the judgment," he said.
"So it's essential, really, that the courts recognize that cannot be tolerated," Schlessinger added.
"Holding them accountable isn’t just about refusing to allow them to make a mockery of our judiciary. It’s also about signaling to these defendants and anyone else providing material support to terrorists that we will no longer tolerate such conduct on American soil," he said in an op-ed for City Journal. "We cannot allow anyone to fundraise and operate in America on behalf of terrorist organizations actively harming American citizens."
AMP's attorney Christina Jump flatly denied the allegations in the suit in comments to Fox News Digital.
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"No court has ever found that AMP is liable, or that the Boims have actually proven any allegation. They still have to prove if anything they allege is true. And so far, they have not done that," Jump said of the longstanding lawsuit.
Jump said that while IAP ended in late 2004 and was an Illinois entity, the AMP began in August of 2006 out of California. None of AMP's creators held positions with the defunct group, she said.
"We are seven years into this case and the Boims still have not yet had any judge hold that they have proven a single allegation."
The Boims aren't the only family suing these groups and alleging they have ties to terrorist organizations.
Nine survivors of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks brought a federal lawsuit in May against the National SJP group and its parent organization AMP, alleging they are working in the United States "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas."
In 2010, AMP expanded its operation to American college campuses when it founded the NSJP "to control hundreds of Students for Justice in Palestine ('SJP') chapters across the country," the lawsuit says.
"This case is not about independent political advocacy. It is about organizations whose very creation was intended to provide continuous, systematic, and substantial assistance to a Foreign Terrorist Organization and its allies," the complaint states.
The AMP is also currently under investigation by the Virginia Attorney General for allegedly violating state charitable solicitation laws and "benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations." The AMP called the attorney general's probe a "baseless smear."
Fox News' Danielle Wallace and Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.