March 21, 2010

Broadcast Date: 
Mar 21 2010

The Lawfare conference brings Israel's campaign against human rights organizations, the UN and the Goldstone report to New York City; the EEOC rules that New York's Department of Ed discriminated against Khalil Gibran International Academy founding principal Debbie Almontaser; plus, was the assassination of a Hamas operative in Dubai a Mossad snafu or a sophisticated plan?

Episode segments
  • Lawfare Conference
    Max Blumenthal is an investigative journalist, documentary film maker and political blogger.  He is the author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. 
    Josh Nathan-Kazis. Ali Gharib provided support for this segment.

    In an elegant room at New York County Lawyers,  surrounded by portraits of eminent attorneys, many of whom were responsible for the development of  today's international law infrastructure (e.g.,the Geneva Convention, the convention against torture, and the genocide convention), a gathering of pro-Israel supporters met for the purpose of dismissing the very notion of international law and the NGOS that are a mainstay for its enforcement.  Beyond the Pale talks with journalist Max Blumenthal about who was there and what was said.

  • EEOC Rules In Favor of Debbie Almontaser
    New York Politics, Education, Jewish
    Alan Levine is a civil rights attorney and a contributor to Beyond the Pale
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Two years after Debbie Almontaser was forced out of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the EEOC has ruled that New York's Department of Education discriminated against Almontaser on account of her race, religion and national origin when it succumbed to the prejudices of a small segment of the community.  We talk with Alan Levine about the decision and the importance of Almontaser's supporters--Communities in Support of KGIA.

  • Assassination in Dubai
    International Politics, Middle East, Israel/Palestine, Occupation
    Ayman Mohyeldin is an Arab American journalist who reports from the Middle East for Al Jazeera.
    Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    In Israel, the sale of Mossad tee-shirts and "spy glasses" soared, along with calls to the intelligence agency from potential recruits.  Videos of the purported assassins went viral, and Western governments from Australia to Britain, France, Ireland and Germany expressed outrage that the assassins had carried their passports. The blatant behavior of the assassination team became the but of jokes and concerns that the Mossad had blown it, once again.  Israel, neither confirming nor denying their role, also asserted there was no evidence tying Mossad to the killing.  But the Arab world responded very differently to the assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.