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Friday March 23, 2007

Shorts: U.S.

Supreme Court allows lawsuit against Coke

The Supreme Court declined this week to halt a lawsuit brought against Coca-Cola Co. by three Egyptian citizens living in Canada.

According to court filings in the case, the Bigio family moved to Canada after the Egyptian government expropriated their commercial property holdings in 1962. The Bigios have said the property was taken because they are Jewish.

Coca-Cola subsidiaries purchased a minority stake in an Egyptian bottler in 1994 that leases the Bigios’ property, the company said in court filings. The Bigios sued Coke in 1997, seeking damages for trespass against their property.

A federal district court dismissed the case, ruling that the Bigios’ claims should be litigated in Egypt. But the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the Bigios are unable to obtain relief through the Egyptian courts.

The Egyptian government has since ordered the Bigios’ property to be returned, but the state-owned Egyptian bottling company has refused to comply, the appeals court said. The Bigios also argue that it is not safe for them to litigate the issue in Egypt. — ap

Media coalition asks to join AIPAC case

A coalition of news media groups asked for permission to intervene in the classified information trial against two former AIPAC lobbyists.

The coalition cited an apparent secret request by the U.S. government to hold a substantial portion of the trial in secret. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 12 other groups, including the Associated Press and Washington Post, asked last week to enter the case for the limited purpose of challenging the government’s apparent request to close the upcoming trial in this matter.

Former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman were indicted in federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., under the World War I-era Espionage Act. “The media is particularly interested in the prosecution of the AIPAC lobbyists because it is the first time the government has indicted for espionage private individuals who received classified information from a government source and passed it along to others,” Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy Dalglish said. “Functionally this is not much different from what journalists covering national security issues do.” — jta

Navy officer accused of hate-group link

The Navy has relieved a public affairs officer of duty in Norfolk, Va., while it investigates accusations that he leads two anti-Semitic groups.

The Navy investigation of Lt. Cmdr. John Sharpe began after a magazine reporter asked about allegations of “supremacist” activity by Sharpe.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Sharpe leads the Legion of St. Louis and IHS Press. The center has described Sharpe’s groups as “nakedly anti-Semitic” and grounded in extremist Catholic traditionalism.

“The Legion of St. Louis, if it’s not the worst group we profiled in terms of anti-Semitism, is right up there,” said Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Sharpe says neither he nor his entities are anti-Semitic or affiliated with any supremacist groups.

IHS is principally a publisher of old titles by Catholic writers such as Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, Sharpe said. He said he founded the Legion seven years ago as a Web-based forum for discussion on how Catholicism related to contemporary social and economic issues. The site has been inactive since 2002, he said. — ap

Aliyah group starts monthly flights

The aliyah group Nefesh B’Nefesh this month launched a new program reserving special sections on El Al flights each month to ease immigration to Israel for Americans, Canadians and Brits.

Those traveling in the smaller groups will benefit from faster government processing as well as making aliyah in a group setting.

For more information, visit www.nbn.org.il.

Jewish Book Awards are handed out

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin was among the recipients of 2006 National Jewish Book Awards. Winners in 17 categories were announced.

Telushin won the Jewish Book of the Year Award for “A Code of Jewish Ethics,” a major work citing Jewish teachings on a variety of ethical issues. The awards are given by the Jewish Book Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes the reading, writing and publishing of Jewish content in English. — jta

George Soros calls for AIPAC reform

AIPAC is in need of reform, a leading Jewish philanthropist wrote. In a New York Review of Books article titled “On Israel, America and AIPAC,” George Soros wrote that Israel and the Bush administration backing it are mistaken in boycotting the new Palestinian Authority government in “a policy that is not even questioned.”

Soros claimed that by allying itself with neoconservatives backing the Iraq war and opposing any dialogue with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas, “AIPAC under its current leadership has clearly exceeded its mission, and far from guaranteeing Israel’s existence, has endangered it.” AIPAC denies any formal alliance with neoconservatives and never explicitly lobbied for the Iraq war.

Soros criticized the group for going on the offensive against its detractors, charging AIPAC with using accusations of anti-Semitism, “personal vilification” and “the lobby’s ability to influence political contributions” to silence debate. Though Soros was careful to denounce the “myth” of an “all-powerful Zionist conspiracy,” he alleged “that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs.”

AIPAC had no comment on his article. — jta

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