Making the Funders of Terrorism Pay

Order Jamie Glazov’s new book, ‘United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas’: HERE.

Recent legislation, and a Supreme Court case, have made it easier to prosecute not just terrorists, but those who fund them. Now it looks as if hundreds of millions of dollars may be recovered for victims of Hamas attacks on October 7, and much more for the nearly 3,000 people killed by the Saudi-funded terrorists on 9/11. This new way to discourage terrorism by making its funders pay, is discussed here: “After a $655M PLO verdict, Oct. 7 victims go after Hamas’s money – interview,” by Sarah Ben-Nun, Jerusalem Post, April 21, 2026:

The next legal front for victims of terrorism, including those affected by Hamas’s October 7 massacre, may lie not only in proving who carried out an attack, but in tracing the money that made it possible. For attorney Gideon Fisher, that is the heart of the matter.In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, he said his office has been handling cases involving victims of hostile acts for years and was now also representing October 7 massacre victims. In addition to using civil litigation to pursue compensation for victims and bereaved families, it is also targeting the financial infrastructure that allows terrorism to function, he added.“Terrorism without finance [means] there is no terrorism,” Fisher said. Terrorist groups cannot survive without money, and litigation can be used not only to seek damages, but to strike at terrorism’s “economic bunker,” he said.

Since the October 7 massacre, Fisher said, his firm has been approached by more than 2,000 recognized victims of hostile acts. His office only works with people already recognized by the National Insurance Institute as victims of hostile acts, he said, adding that Israeli citizens, dual nationals, and foreign nationals who have been affected by the massacre have contacted the firm….

For Fisher, the significance of the current moment is not that compensation is suddenly guaranteed. It is a route that, once appearing largely blocked, may now be reopening.

If plaintiffs can show that an attacker, or the attacker’s family, received or stood to receive funding from a defendant, that may justify legal action not only in Israel but in the US as well, he said.

Think of what this could mean for the Palestinian Authority, with its Pay-For-Slay program that provides payments to imprisoned terrorists or to the families of terrorists who are killed while engaged in their attacks.

Imagine if not only Hamas, but the funders of Hamas, including well-off Muslims in the U.S. Europe, and the Middle East, were to be held liable for the mass murders carried out in Israel on October 7, 2023. Not all of them have assets that can be located and seized, but some will. And eventually, if judgments in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars were repeatedly reached for the thousands of victims not just of the October 7 attacks, but of other acts of terrorism, the funding for terrorism would dry up. There would still be the lone wolf terrorists, needing nothing more expensive than a pistol to commit murder, but the terrorist organizations themselves would shrink for lack of funding and then, one hopes, disappear.

Photo Credit: Hadi Mohammad, Creative Commons.