U.S. report cites Israel, P.A. on rights

washington (jta) | Israel and the Palestinian Authority are both cited for “problems” in the U.S. State Department’s 2005 report on human rights.

The report lists issues for each country. Israel’s include “serious abuses by some members of the security forces against Palestinian detainees” and “institutional, legal and societal discrimination against the country’s Arab citizens.”

The Palestinians are cited for “insufficient measures to prevent attacks by terrorist groups either within the occupied territories or within Israel” and “numerous instances of violence against Israeli civilians, resulting in deaths and injuries in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.”

washington (jta) | Two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffers subpoenaed top Bush administration officials to testify at their trial.

Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, its former Iran analyst, filed subpoenas Friday, March 10 for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley; Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams; William Burns, the State Department’s former top envoy to the Middle East; and a number of former officials.

The court later suppressed the names on the subpoenas, but JTA viewed a copy of the original docket with all the names.

new york (jta) | A kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa violated animal cruelty laws, according to an internal report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Government inspectors also were faulted for sleeping on the job as well as playing video games, making faulty inspections, taking gifts of meat and failing to rectify sanitation issues at the AgriProcessors plant, the New York Times reported.

The plant raised the hackles of activists in 2004 when a videotape by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals showed workers pulling out animals’ tracheas after their throats had been cut.

(ynetnews.com) | Talk show host Geraldo Rivera, in a recent interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, said he may trade in his microphone for Israeli politics.

“I’ve wanted to make aliyah for years, so I could run for the Knesset and further my ideas to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace,” said Rivera, who was raised Jewish.

“I would die for Israel,” the 62-year-old told the Inquirer.