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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Lawyers: Government pressured AIPAC
Prosecutors pressured AIPAC to cut off two employees charged with dealing in classified information, lawyers said in a motion to dismiss the case.
The brief filed Tuesday alleges that prosecutors conditioned their decision to drop an investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on AIPAC’s agreement to fire Steve Rosen, the group’s foreign policy director, and its Iran analyst, Keith Weissman, and to stop paying the pair’s lawyers.
Lawyers for Rosen and Weissman swear in depositions that AIPAC lawyers and senior staff informed them of these developments in conversations in March 2005, when Rosen and Weissman were fired, and that they subsequently acted as the government had asked.
They also say they confirmed those terms in conversations with prosecutors.
The brief says the pressure to cut off payment for Rosen and Weissman’s defense amounts to interference in their constitutional rights.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office did not return calls.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for AIPAC, called the brief “selective” and “a significant distortion.”
“All the decisions in this case including decisions about the dismissal and legal fees were AIPAC decisions alone,” he said.
Israel, U.N. envoy disagree
Israel’s foreign minister and a U.N. envoy reportedly disagreed over the sequence of steps necessary to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel wants the three soldiers recently abducted by Hezbollah and Hamas to be returned before it halts its attacks in Lebanon, while the United Nations team, headed by envoy Vijay Nambiar, proposed that the two steps be taken simultaneously, Ha’aretz reported. Israel also reportedly wants Lebanon to deploy its own troops along the Israel-Lebanon border.
The U.N. team also met with Lebanese government officials.
Also Tuesday, an Israeli defense official said Israel is not ruling out a ground invasion of Lebanon.
“The army has many possibilities for action,” said the deputy chief of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky.
Senate expresses support for Israel
The U.S. Senate supported Israel’s right to “take appropriate action to deter aggression by terrorist groups and their state sponsors.”
The non-binding resolution passed unanimously Tuesday night.
The vote, scheduled for Monday, was delayed after some senators expressed concern about a sentence urging the president “to continue fully supporting Israel as Israel exercises its right of self-defense in Lebanon and Gaza.”
The senators said the passage should include calls on Israel to show restraint, but after consultations, the passage remained as originally drafted.
A similar bill is to be considered Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee praised the resolution, which was sponsored by the leaders of both parties.
“Congress recognizes that Israel has been forced to respond to unprovoked attacks and, like the United States and all sovereign nations, has the right and duty to defend its citizens,” AIPAC said in a statement.
Pro-Israel rallies to take place worldwide
The World Zionist Organization is planning pro-Israel rallies around the world over the next week.
The group is planning events in some 40 cities, said David Breakstone, head of the organization’s Zionist activities department.
Rallies in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles took place this week; rallies in Washington and Brooklyn are scheduled for Wednesday, and rallies in London and Montevideo, Uruguay, will be held soon, Breakstone said.
Jews protesting Israeli actions arrested
Seventeen Jews were arrested in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco after they protested Israeli military actions.
Citing what they call Israel’s collective punishment of those in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as reason for their protest, they also called for an end to the 39-year-old “illegal, immoral and unjustified occupation” of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem.
They are members of Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for a Free Palestine and Break the Silence.
The protesters, who ranged in age from 20-something to 70-something, were cited with blocking traffic and released about two hours later.
http://www.jta.org/
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