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Monday, October 30, 2006
Some headlines and summaries from JTA
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Judge dismisses Air Force suit
A U.S. judge dismissed a lawsuit charging the Air Force with violating the constitutional rights of its troops through the promotion of evangelism.
In ruling last Friday, federal Judge James Parker of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico said the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the Air Force.
However, he left open the possibility that they could sue the Air Force secretary, Michael Wynne.
The lead plaintiff, Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force officer who helped publicize allegations that evangelists at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., were coercing cadets into attending services, said he would refile the case.
“While we respect Judge Parker’s ruling, we are deeply disappointed that our efforts have been delayed to protect the rights of the brave and honorable men and women serving in our nation’s armed forces,” Weinstein said in a statement.
“We will refile our lawsuit as quickly as possible.”
Parker also faulted the plaintiffs for not properly filing an amendment to their complaint and for not showing sufficient evidence of a pattern of abuse and of the damage the plaintiffs suffered.
Israeli Arab lawmaker raps Ahmadinejad
A leading Israeli Arab lawmaker came out against the anti-Jewish statements of Iran’s president.
Ahmed Tibi, whose United Arab List is openly anti-Zionist, said in an interview published Monday that he was opposed to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel to be eliminated.
“I am opposed to his statement,” Tibi told Ha’aretz.
“I am even more opposed to his Holocaust denial. I don’t understand his need and his obsession in repeating these things. There is no reason to deny the Holocaust, which was the worst crime in human history.”
Tibi has often courted controversy in Israel by serving as confidant to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and more recently by criticizing Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Foxman: No moderate Muslims
There are no moderate Muslims with whom to dialogue, Abraham Foxman said.
The Anti-Defamation League’s national director made the comment last Friday at the group’s National Commission meeting in Atlanta
in response to a call by Seymour Reich, president of the Israel Policy Forum, for the ADL to focus on dialogue with moderate Muslims.
“There’s always someone to dialogue with,” Reich, an ADL lay leader, told JTA.
Foxman responded that since Muslim groups refuse to issue a blanket statement rejecting terrorism regardless of the cause, “I don’t know what there is to dialogue about.”
In response, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the group repeatedly had condemned terrorism.
Doves urge U.S. intervention in Gaza
Americans for Peace Now urged President Bush to intervene immediately in the Gaza Strip.
“The situation in the Gaza Strip is becoming critical,” said the letter sent Monday by the group’s chairman, Franklin Fisher.
“Chaos and lawlessness are close to transforming into full-scale armed conflict that is liable to engulf not only the Gaza Strip itself, but spill over into Israel and spread to the West Bank, with possible destabilizing impacts elsewhere in the region.”
The letter urged Bush to make Gaza security the primary consideration for the Quartet, the grouping of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia that guides the peace process; to consider contacts with Hamas, the terrorist group governing the Palestinian Authority; and to explore the possibility of a U.N. role in Gaza.
http://www.jta.org/
posted by Somebody @ 11:54 PM Permanent Link
 
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