Israeli Elections Come and Go, But Israel Remains an Outlaw State
A Palestinian family reacts after Israeli bulldozers demolished their home in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Feb. 5, 2013. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Two Views: Israel’s Parliamentary Elections
Newly elected Israeli Knesset member Yair Lapid (l), leader of the Yesh Atid party, speaks to Naftali Bennett, head of the hard-line national religious party the Jewish Home, during a Feb. 5 reception in Jerusalem marking the opening of the 19th Knesset. (URIEL SINAI/GETTY IMAGES)
Richard H. Curtiss (1927-2013) Devoted His Life to Telling People Stories
Richard Curtiss at work in his Washington Report office. (STAFF PHOTO D. HANLEY)
Israeli License to Cheney-Linked Energy Firm on Golan Heights Raises Eyebrows
Then-Vice President Dick Cheney (l) and Likud chairman Benyamin Netanyahu, out of office at the time and serving as the official Israeli opposition leader, at a March 23, 2008 breakfast meeting at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Peace at Last in the Southern Philippines?
Philippine President Benigno Aquino III (r) shares candies with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chief Murad Ebrahim during a Feb. 11 visit to the rebels’ stronghold in Sultan Kudarat on the island of Mindanao. (KARLOS MANLUPIG/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Two Palestinian, Israeli Documentaries Depict Evils of Military Occupation
Emad Burnat views his five broken cameras in his documentary of the same name. (PHOTO COURTESY KINO LORBER)
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Page 45
Human Rights
Obama Justice Department Seeks Dismissal of Torture Lawsuit
In a June 12 court filing that disappointed many of President Barack Obama’s supporters, the Justice Department asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to set aside its April 28 ruling which allowed plaintiffs Binyam Mohamed, Abou Elkassim Britel, Ahmed Agiza, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah and Bisher al-Rawi to sue Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., for participating in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program (see July 2009 Washington Report, p. 58). The administration filing contended that in defending itself in a lawsuit the San Jose-based flight planning company “would be required either to admit or to deny the existence of a secret relationship with the CIA—information that...is a state secret.”
Calling the CIA’s rendition and torture program “an international scandal,” not a “state secret,“ plaintiffs’ lawyer, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ben Wizner, lamented, “The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions.”
—Elaine Pasquini
