Lebanese Americans from Michigan sue US over continued aid to Israel

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Aug 11, 2026

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DETROIT — Several Lebanese Americans living in Michigan and the Detroit-based Arab-American Civil Rights League are suing the federal government and three military suppliers over the U.S.'s continued support for Israel.

The class action lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Michigan's eastern district, names U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar as defendants.

The lawsuit focuses on the "transfer of instrumentalities to Israel," when the U.S. and companies knew "that Israel was using them to commit gross violations of human rights," including in Lebanon. The proposed class of plaintiffs includes U.S. citizens or permanent residents who have had property in Lebanon since April 2024.

"Plaintiffs continue to suffer the indefinitely prolonged threat of death and grievous bodily injury to themselves, their family and their communities, indefinitely prolonged property destruction and expropriation of their lawfully-held land, and acute mental and emotional suffering related to the same," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction halting transfer and sales of equipment to Israel and an award of monetary damages related to destruction of property, business disruptions and mental and emotional pain and suffering.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Terrence Berg, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama.

The lawsuit names Lebanese American plaintiffs, some of whom are referred to as John or Jane Does, who have lost family homes in Lebanon as a result of Israeli strikes, particularly in Bint Jbeil, a town on Lebanon's southern border.

The lawsuit's lead plaintiff, Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun, argued in the suit that Israeli forces destroyed a family home in Bint Jbeil that his father, a more than 30-year employee at Ford Motor Co., had constructed in the early 2000s.

Beydoun, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2024, told The Detroit News that the majority of the Lebanese American plaintiffs named in the suit are living in Michigan and many have second homes or families still in Lebanon. All of the plaintiffs are either U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, Beydoun said.

He estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 Lebanese Americans living in southeast Michigan had roots in Bint Jbeil.

"You have a lot of people who have worked their lives here in the United States and built second homes in south Lebanon," said Beydoun, a board member of the Arab-American Civil Rights League. "For our government to be funding the destruction and supplying the weapons and supplying the political cover, somebody's got to say enough is enough."

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Nabih Ayad, argued that a nearly 20-year-old human rights law — known as the Leahy Law — prevents the U.S. from providing assistance to foreign militaries where there is "credible information that they have committed gross violations of human rights."

"The prohibition is categorical: 'No assistance shall be furnished' to such units, barring a determination and reporting that the country is taking effective steps to bring those units to justice," the suit said.

Plaintiffs argued the state has "abundant credible information" to determine that Israeli military units have committed gross violations of human rights, including genocide. Despite that information, the suit argued, "the United States has not suspended assistance to a single Israeli unit."

"In the entire 27-year history of the Leahy Law, the State Department has never found a single Israeli unit ineligible for assistance," the suit said.

The lawsuit noted that, in June, President Donald Trump also remarked on Israel's tactics in Lebanon: "You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah."

The filing also alleges negligence in relation to private sales of equipment to Israel by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar.

The suit argued Israeli Defense Forces had destroyed Lebanese towns and villages "both by the use of industrial construction equipment such as heavy tractors and through the use of shaped explosives and converted anti-tank mines."

Boeing, the lawsuit claimed, is the "largest supplier of munitions by volume to Israel" and became a contractor, with Lockheed, for a $3.8 billion sale of Apache helicopters and "related support to Israel."

Lockheed, the suit said, provided a good portion of Israel's aircraft platforms and "provides mission-critical support, software, training, maintenance, and components to Israel's missile systems and joint platforms such as Apache systems."

Caterpillar has supplied bulldozers, parts and related support to Israel, according to the suit, that have been used for "tunnel closure, route clearance and mine disarmament, but also to demolish civilian homes."

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