In an unprecedented move, a group of Lebanese Americans is suing the federal government over Israeli bombings that have destroyed their homes, businesses and property in their native country of Lebanon, alleging the U.S. and various military contractors are responsible for the overseas devastation.
Specifically, 17 plaintiffs from multiple states allege that the U.S. is giving Israel preferential treatment by allegedly supporting its attack on Lebanon, all while ignoring a federal human rights law that bans such support. More than 4,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon since March 2, including medics, women and children.
The lawsuit, though, is not about the loss of life.
It's about the loss of family homes, land and businesses
that belong to Lebanese Americans who believe the U.S. government and multiple corporations did them wrong by allegedly supporting this warfare − either in the form of weapons, machinery or equipment − and need to pay up for their losses.
"For Lebanese Americans who watched their homes, family property, businesses, villages, and generations of history destroyed from thousands of miles away, this case is deeply personal," the Arab American Civil Rights League said in a statement on the eve of filing what it is calling a landmark lawsuit.
"At the center of this case is a fundamental question: Are the laws of the United States meant to be enforced equally —or does Israel receive an exception?" the ACRL states.
In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Aug. 11, in U.S. District Court in Detroit, the Arab American Civil Rights League and 17 plaintiffs allege the U.S. has ignored a federal human rights law known as the Leahy Act, which prohibits the U.S. from giving aid to a foreign military when there is credible information that that country has committed a "gross violation of human rights."
That's what Israel has done, the lawsuit alleges, yet still gets U.S. support, allegedly in violation of its own human rights law. The lawsuit names numerous defendants, including: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, The Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Caterpillar Inc. On the corporate front, the lawsuit seeks to hold these private companies accountable for allegedly providing military equipment and machinery that were used to destroy civilian homes, land, businesses and other property in Lebanon.
The defendants are accused of multiple wrongdoings, including: negligent entrustment, willful and wanton misconduct, intentional infliction of emotional distress and aiding and abetting trespass to land.
“For me, this case could not be more personal,” said ACRL Executive Director Houda Berri-Harajli, a Lebanese American who recalled numerous attacks over the years that destroyed her grandmother’s home in Lebanon. These attacks, she said, were carried out with the help of U.S. tax dollars that – she argues – have long been unlawfully used to help Israel destroy property, homes and businesses belonging to innocent people.
Nasser Beydoun, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit and chairman of ACRL, agrees.
“There comes a moment when silence is no longer acceptable,” said Beydoun, alleging the U.S. needs to be held accountable for – as he sees it – ignoring its own laws and funding wars that are hurting U.S. citizens.
“We need to end the endless wars that our country has been funding,” Beydoun said, stressing that it's up to the judiciary to intervene, stop the U.S. funding of Israel, and hold the U.S. accountable for the loss of property suffered by Americans in Lebanon.
“Our saving grace is the judiciary,” said ACRL founder Nabih Ayad, the lead attorney handling the lawsuit, who is counting on judges to order the U.S. to cease its funding of Israel and pay back the billions of dollars in losses suffered by American property owners.
“They cannot sit here and watch as their taxes are being used to destroy their own homes,” Ayad said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “It’s outrageous. … We must stop this aggression from happening to our own U.S. citizens.”
Ayad likened what’s happening to Lebanese American property owners in Lebanon to a hypothetical situation of U.S. citizens owning homes in the Caribbean, Mexico or up North: How would they feel, he asked, if a local military or police department set out to target gang violence in a certain area, and wiped out their vacation homes in the process when they were merely innocent property owners?
That’s what is happening in Southern Lebanon, he said: innocent property owners are getting their homes destroyed out as part of a broader war effort by Israel.
This is a developing story.
Tresa Baldas:tbaldas@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Americans sue U.S. over Israeli bombings in Lebanon: You did us wrong
