The Palestine Chronicle case: When truth becomes the crime

The complaint filed against Ramzy Baroud and the organization (People Media Project) that runs the Palestine Chronicle rests on the Alien Tort Statute, grotesquely overstretched to criminalise editorial decisions rather than acts of war. It alleges that by publishing articles from Abdallah Aljamal — described by Israel as a Hamas operative killed during a hostage rescue — the Chronicle “aided and abetted” terrorism.

But here lies the first fissure: this characterisation of Aljamal comes exclusively from Israeli military sources, themselves a belligerent party. It has never been independently verified. The claim that he was both a journalist and a Hamas operative remains an allegation, not an established fact. To treat it as judicial evidence is to replace proof with propaganda.

Even if—hypothetically—Aljamal had, at the demand of a militant group, harbored hostages, such a circumstance would not in itself render him culpable: what ordinary civilian in a war zone can refuse the command of militants under threat of force? And even if it occurred, how could Ramzy Baroud have known of it? Even taken at face value, the allegation collapses upon scrutiny.

No evidence demonstrates that the Chronicle or its editor had actual knowledge of Aljamal’s supposed operational role, nor that modest freelance payments — if any at all — bore any causal nexus to hostage-taking. The federal judge, in February 2025, dismissed the original complaint precisely for lack of proof of knowledge or intent. The plaintiffs returned with an amended filing, repackaged in rhetoric and pathos, but still devoid of the material elements required under international law: actus reus (a substantial contribution to the crime) and mens rea (intent or knowledge).

To equate the publication of articles with material support for terrorism is not jurisprudence but a juridical contortion. It is the substitution of law by politics, the criminalisation of journalism under the mask of counterterrorism. What is sought is not justice but intimidation — to cast suspicion on every Palestinian voice, to brand their words as weapons, their witness as crime