A tale of two US court decisions, and the Palestine exception

Contrasting verdicts in two politically charged federal court cases raise questions about the US judiciary’s objectivity on matters relating to Israel-Palestine. In a January 31 written decision, US District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California quoted approvingly from the preliminary ruling issued the week before by the International Court of Justice in a case brought against Israel by South Africa, which found Israel’s current conduct in Gaza may plausibly amount to genocide and ordered it to stop killing and wounding Palestinians. Just a few days later, however, another court case against the Biden administration relating to the same conflict and evidently concerning “non-justiciable political questions” received a completely different verdict. US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas rejected the Biden administration’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit, brought by Republican Representative Ronny Jackson and three others, that alleges President Biden and Secretary Blinken violated the 2018 Taylor Force Act and put US visitors to Israel under increased risk of harm by providing economic aid to the West Bank and Gaza. Like many legal observers in the US, I was not surprised by the dismissal of the Defense for Children case under the political question doctrine, but was caught off guard by Judge Kacsmaryk’s decision to allow Jackson et al v Biden et al to move forward.