In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Middle East

02 May

The media is reporting that the Obama administration is handling Usama bin Laden's remains in accordance with Islamic principles.  That decision is a stark reminder of why we are so fortunate that a Republican is no longer President.  When the Bush administration killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, recall, it infuriated Muslims and at least arguably violated the First Additional Protocol...

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17 Apr

Publicly, Israel has been nothing but critical of the Goldstone Report.  Netanyahu responded to Goldstone's recent partial retraction, for example, by calling for the "twisted and nonfactual" Report to be thrown "into the dustbin of history." Behind the scenes, however, Israel has taken a different approach.  According to the Jewish Press, the Report has led the IDF to adopt some very...

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14 Apr

Sari Bashi is the Executive Director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO that protects the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents. While many in the international community were unsure how to interpret Richard Goldstone's Washington Post op ed earlier this month withdrawing the allegation made in the Goldstone Report that Israel intentionally targeted civilians during the war in Gaza, within Israel,...

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06 Apr

This time concerning the Goldstone Report and whether Israel intentionally targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead as a matter of policy.  You know a post is in trouble when it's entitled "Human Rights Watch Lies re: Goldstone Retraction," but then states, three paragraphs later, "Well, maybe lying isn’t quite right. Roth chose his words carefully, and I suppose...

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04 Apr

The following is a guest-post written by Orde Kittrie, a professor at ASU's law school, and Sandy Spector, the deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  They very much want input from OJ's readership, so please post your thoughts.  Our thanks to Orde and Sandy for contributing the post! Seven years after A.Q. Khan publicly confessed to...

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05 Mar

So, you're a state senator in the deep South.  You love freedom, which is why you're a Republican.  You know that Shariah (aka Shari'ah) is the enemy of freedom.  You also know that, although Shariah currently plays no role in the law of your state, it will eventually supplant the Constitution (sometime in the next four decades, you estimate) unless...

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02 Mar

Just a quick update to point out that Pennumbra, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review's online companion, has published the fourth and final installment of my debate with John Dehn on the targeted killing of Al-Aulaqi.  You can find the entire debate, including my just-published Closing Argument, here. My thanks to Pennumbra for inviting me to participate, and to John for...

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02 Feb

This must be that vibrant democracy Richard Cohen recently extolled in defense of denying democracy to Egyptians: The Knesset House Committee on Wednesday approved the composition of two parliamentary panels to investigate the funding sources of human rights organizations. Most of the opposition parties have decided to boycott the committees. The motion passed at the House Committee by a...

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04 Jan

  What will daily life in Jerusalem be like a century from now? This is the theme of the Jerusalem 2111 International Animation Competition, organized by the Association of Planning and Conservation- Jerusalem (Beit Hamodel).  The blog io9 has a post with links to some of the submissions, which include visions of a depopulated Jerusalem under UN control, what looks like a...

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21 Dec

A stark reminder that freedom of expression is indeed a precious thing: Jafar Panahi is one of the most acclaimed film directors in the world. Admirers like myself were horrified and astonished at the news, announced yesterday, that Jafar Panahi had been sentenced not only to six years in prison, but to an unimaginable twenty-year total ban on...

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