“For months, Zionist organizations like Betar […] have encouraged violence against my family and me,” the plaintiff said in a statement, adding that she “will not stop speaking up for the people of Palestine.”
A pro-Palestinian activist claims that her home was targeted with a foiled fire-bombing attack several weeks after she filed a federal lawsuit accusing a far-right, pro-Israel group of threatening her life and attempting to intimidate her into silence.
According to NBC News, activist Nerdeen Kiswani filed a lawsuit against the Betar Zionist Organization and its leaders under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a Reconstruction-era law that was originally designed to combat racial terror in the post-Civil War South.
Several weeks later, New Jersey officials arrested a man accused of plotting to launch Molotov cocktails at her house.
In Kiswani’s lawsuit, originally filed in late February, the activist describes a months-long campaign of terror that allegedly involved stalking, intimidation, and racially-motivated threats. The defendants purportedly offered a cash bounty to anyone who harmed Kiswani and encouraged demonstrators to confront her at demonstrations in and around New York City.
The lawsuit claims that Betar USA, for instance, offered $1,000 to any member of the public who handed Kiswani “a beeper,” an apparent reference to a September 2024 operation spearheaded by the Israeli military. During the operation, Israeli intelligence and military operatives remotely detonated pagers belonging to Hezbollah members in Lebanon, killing several dozen people and injuring thousands. Lebanese officials say that most of the injured were civilians.
Betar USA members also allegedly confronted Kiswani at pro-Palestine demonstrations and repeatedly petitioned the Trump administration to revoke her U.S. citizenship; her name was submitted to federal authorities for that specific purpose.
In a statement to NBC News, Betar USA reaffirmed its stance on Kiswani’s activism, describing her as a “violent terrorist who wants to globalize the intifada” and accused her of regularly employing language “that targets Jews.”
Kiswani claims that, this past Thursday, she was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of a plot against her life that was “about to” be carried out.
“For months, Zionist organizations like Betar […] have encouraged violence against my family and me,” she said in a statement, adding that she “will not stop speaking up for the people of Palestine.”
Her attorneys say that Kiswani has been targeted by right-wing and “Zionist extremist groups and individuals” for several years, largely in an effort to dissuade her continued advocacy.
“Their encouragement of physical violence against her has now resulted in an attempt on her life,” the law firm of Lee & Godshall-Bennett said in a statement. “Those responsible for this attempted act of terrorism must be held to account. Regardless of opinion, everyone who cares about our freedom to express our views and beliefs should unequivocally stand with Nerdeen.”
Sources
Pro-Palestinian activist filed lawsuit alleging threats weeks before foiled firebomb plot
US law enforcement foils plot to assassinate Palestinian American activist
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