The Ford Foundation is denying that it is ending its Israel funding over criticism leveled at the foundation and some of the groups it helps to fund. The Forward reported Thursday that the philanthropic foundation, which has contributed $40 million to civil society groups since 2003, will wind down its giving in two years.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says the Goldstone report is probably beyond fixing and should simply disappear. Rice, speaking to a hearing Thursday of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, was reacting to congressional calls on Richard Goldstone to amend the 2009 report on the Gaza War that was based on an investigation of a panel convened by the U.N. Human Rights Council.
A group of American Jewish lawyers is set to file a civil lawsuit against Richard Goldstone initiated by Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon. The class action suit against the author of the Goldstone Report, a United Nations document about Israel\’s conduct during the monthlong Gaza war in the winter of 2008-09, is set to be filed next week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by attorney Steve Goldberg, according to a statement issued Wednesday from Danon\’s office.
An Israeli teen was critically injured when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the school bus in which he was riding.
According to secret American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, Chairman of settlements council told U.S. Embassy officials in Israel he \’understands the Palestinians.\’
President Shimon Peres will ask United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to nullify Judge Richard Goldstone\’s damning report on the Gaza war in light of the author\’s expression of regret regarding some of his claims, sources told Haaretz on Wednesday.
Jewish groups and a key Jewish lawmaker condemned the U.S. House of Representative\’s budget proposal for 2012, saying it will hurt the Americans most in need. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs said in a statement released Wednesday that the Republican-backed budget proposal unveiled the previous day, which slashes nearly $6 trillion from federal spending over the next 10 years, \”relies on cuts which will be harmful to many of those in America who are most in need.\”
South African Judge Richard Goldstone said he will not seek to quash his report to the United Nations on Israel\’s conduct during the Gaza war, despite his retraction of a key finding. Goldstone told the Associated Press that reports that he told Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai that he would seek to quash the report prepared at the behest of the U.N. Human Rights Council are false. The report presented to the council in September 2009 accused Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
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