In memory of Felicia Langer (1930-2018) – lawyer, person of conscience, fighter for human rights and a true friend, who passed away in Tübingen, Germany on June 21, 2018. It has been many years since we last saw…
Tag: Human Rights
The Goldstone Report: Fierce but Toothless
Judge Richard Goldstone of the UN Human Rights Council has issued a devastating report on war crimes during the latest campaign in Gaza, arousing much ire in Israel. During his investigation, the government refused to cooperate. In fact the Goldstone…
Daniel Friedmann versus the High Court of Israel
WHEN EHUD OLMERT became Prime Minister of Israel, he appointed his good friend Haim Ramon to head the Justice Department. Ramon had a number of achievements behind him. In 1994, as chairperson of the Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor),…
The Loophole
Torture in Israel TWO RECENT REPORTS by human rights organizations open a small window into the torture chambers of Israel. Eight years have passed since the High Court made its historic decision forbidding torture, and now it is clear that…
Take Your Family and Scram
IT WOULD APPEAR that the IDF Commander for the Central Region, headquartered at Bethel in the West Bank, wanted to come up with a creative gesture to aid us in remembering the late Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955, Parks…
Medical Closure
IN EARLY MAY, aid organizations warned that the Gaza Strip was on the verge of a humanitarian disaster. They claimed that the health and welfare system of the Palestinian Authority was collapsing. International aid funds had been frozen since the…
Racism in High Places
WHERE RACISM takes root, it must be identified. Blindness to it is a common but dangerous blight. Equally common are the ploys used to excuse it. The most recent decision of Israel’s High Court of Justice, approving the “Law of…
Watching IDF Checkpoints
“No one will be able to say, ‘I didn’t know.’” IMAGINE a cold concrete shed, sides open to the elements, divided into stalls by low walls, with metal turnstiles at either end. The cattle gather at one end, lowing and…
Two Courts and a Wall
TO be a judge, you sometimes need to be a good acrobat. You must be able to walk a tightrope between the law on one hand and, on the other, the inclinations of the heart or political exigencies or a…
Gaza: A Decade of Disengagement
NOT a single Israeli has yet disengaged from the Gaza Strip, but disengagement has been underway for several years where Gazans are concerned, cutting them off from the world outside their prison-enclave. Strange to think, but until 1993 Gaza was…