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Friday March 28, 2008

Shorts: U.S.

Rice to return to Israel next week

Condoleezza Rice will visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority next week to encourage peace negotiators to “do more.”

The U.S. secretary of state will tour the region to “urge compliance by both sides with their road map obligations,” her spokesman, Sean McCormack, said, referring to the U.S.-guided peace plan calling for a freeze on Israeli settlement in the West Bank and an end to Palestinian violence, culminating in Palestinian statehood.

The precise dates of the trip have yet to be announced. — jta

Another delay for AIPAC trial

Yet another delay is expected in the trial of two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing U.S. secrets after prosecutors told a judge earlier this month that they plan to appeal a critical ruling on how classified information will be introduced at trial.

The subsequent ruling issued by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III is sealed, but a lawyer for one defendant portrayed prosecutors’ decision to appeal as the latest in a series of setbacks to the government’s case.

Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, former AIPAC lobbyists, were accused in 2005 of illegally disclosing sensitive national defense information. Their trial originally was set for 2006 but will now have to be rescheduled an eighth time — the latest date had been set for April.

“It’s now pretty clear that the government does not want to try this case,” said Rosen’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell. “They filed these charges without thinking them through, and there appears to be no one in government with enough authority or courage to admit they made a mistake.”

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Alexandria, Va., declined to comment. — ap

Fraternities promote campus tolerance

A black fraternity and a Jewish fraternity are running joint programs to promote tolerance on U.S. campuses.

Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity, and Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically black fraternity, have begun to honor past members who made outstanding contributions to civil rights.

They include Michael Schwermer, a young Jewish man who was murdered during the voting rights drive of the 1960s, and Ralph Abernathy, a former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who was an outspoken supporter of Israel.

The program, launched in February, has included a talk at the University of Florida by LaVon Mercer, an African American who played for Israel’s national basketball team in the 1980s and served in the Israeli army, and a New York University program on the crisis in Darfur.

B’nai B’rith International, which announced the joint effort last week, is a sponsor. — jta

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