Exactly what sorts of promises do these firms make to foreign governments?

Wexler seeks to block Saudi arms sale

He warned the could be "a change of leadership in Saudi Arabia that's even more dangerous than the type of leadership that exists and then they have these weapons to use as they wish."

Weiner rejected the Bush administration's argument that the arms sales could counter Iranian dominance in the region, arguing that thus far Saudi Arabia has done nothing to support U.S. efforts against Iran, including refusing to impose economic sanctions.

Wexler and Weiner acknowledged they face an "uphill challenge" in getting the resolution passed by Congress.

ALEXANDRIA , Va. - News organizations filed documents in federal court Monday (Mon Apr 9, 2007 5:33 PM ET )

of two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of violating the Espionage Act.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - 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 Friday they plan to appeal a critical ruling on how classified information will be introduced at trial. The ruling issued this week 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 lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 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 next month.

Even if the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond hears the appeal on an expedited basis, it will likely take at least several months.

The charges against Rosen and Weissman fall under the 1917 Espionage Act, a rarely used World War I-era law that has never before been applied to lobbyists. They are not charged with espionage.

The indictment alleges that Rosen and Weissman conspired to obtain classified reports on issues relevant to American policy, including and U.S. policy in Iran, the al-Qaida terrorist network and the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. The men are accused of sharing the information with reporters and foreign diplomats.

Rosen and Weissman have argued that the information in which they traffic is commonly traded by Washington insiders, and that government officials tacitly support such disclosures.

Over prosecutors' objections, Rosen and Weissman have already won the right to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top administration officials. The defense believes their testimony will support their claim that the United States regularly uses AIPAC to send back-channel communications to Israel.

Lawyers have been meeting for weeks in secret hearings in an effort to take classified evidence and develop unclassified substitutes that can be used at a public trial. The process is frequently unwieldy, but has been especially so in this case.

Ellis has voiced frustration several times at the inability of prosecutors and the defense to agree on the wordings of the substitutions.

Ellis previously rejected an earlier proposal by prosecutors to use a series of secret codes to conduct the trial, in which lawyers would have referred to "Country A" or "witness B" to keep classified information out of the public realm.

"This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me"
-Rachel Corrie

The Bush administration said

Bush has made clear that he wants Cheney to push both men to honor their obligations under the U.S.-backed road map,

Contact: Rabbi Hersh Lowenthal Representative of True Torah Jews, +1-888-560-9634

NEW YORK, March 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the election draws nearer, political debates and rhetoric increase. True Torah Jews are disturbed by the frequent references by politicians to the need for involvement in Israeli politics. The politics and policies of the so-called "state of Israel" should play no part in governing the United States or in our upcoming elections. Rather, the focus should be on the needs of the American people. Jews in the United States are United States citizens and are as concerned with improving the lives of the American people as any other American citizens. Our politicians should be addressing the many problems we are facing here in the United States, not in the "state of Israel."

Jewish voters will vote for politicians whose policies they believe are right for America,"

In an effort to bolster their popularity, politicians continually expound on their support for the state of Israel, thinking that this will sway the Jewish vote. But on the contrary,

dragging the problems in "Israel" into American politics and constantly focusing on the Jews is counter-productive.

It fuels anti-Semitism, furthers conflicts, and creates a potential danger to Jews worldwide.

This has been a basic norm of the Torah faith ever since the destruction of the holy Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people some two thousand years ago. The great Biblical prophet, Jeremiah, proclaimed G-d's message to all of Diaspora Jewry: "Seek out the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray for it to the Almighty, for through its welfare will you have welfare." (29:7). this message has been a cornerstone of Jewish conduct in exile throughout history.

As Jews, we must be ever mindful of the needs of our Jewish brethren, wherever they may live.

In a remarkable series of emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life

February 7 2003
It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when

I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our world and that we, in fact, participate in it.

This is not at all what the people here asked for when they came into this world.

Published: 03/23/2008
Rachel Corrie's parents dedicated a memorial to her in the West Bank city of Nablus.

The ceremony last Thursday marked five years since the U.S. peace activist was killed attempting to block an Israeli bulldozer razing a Palestinian house in the Gaza Strip. She was 23.

At the event her mother, Cindy, said her daughter believed that Palestine could become a "source of hope for people struggling all over the world," The Associated Press reported.
Corrie's parents have led a campaign to prevent Caterpillar from selling its bulldozers to Israel.

Yet another presidential election

brought Connecticut's U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman to

Lieberman told about 250 Republican Jewish Coalition members at Woodfield Country Club in Boca Raton.

says he is supporting McCain because the U.S. senator from Arizona would be the strongest commander in chief for that war and America's fight against Islamist terrorism.

"Some people think that to be a friend to Israel you have to be a Likudnik,"

"A real friend is someone who will make an effort to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

METHODOLOGY: The numbers above are based on contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more. All donations took place during the election cycle and were released by the Federal Election Commission . Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

He sings the praises, too, of Jewish civil rights workers who fought for blacks' rights in the U.S. And he says he wants to patch up "a historically powerful bond between the African-American and Jewish communities."

"The Jewish community cannot be taken for granted," said Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, one of Obama's chief surrogates before Jewish audiences.

He said he has other foreign policy advisers from the Clinton administration who share his belief that Israel has to remain a Jewish state with special ties to the U.S. and that the Palestinians have been irresponsible. And he said critics' e-mails never mention Lester Crown, a member of his national finance committee who is "considered about as hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country."

that you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel."

This is not the world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me."

the threat of congressional opposition has resulted in some sales packages being reduced or cancelled in the past.

The World Bank recently warned that the checkpoints have "fragmented the economy into disconnected cantons.

" If the Palestinian economy is ever going to get on its feet, the World Bank and others assert,

Israel must remove the checkpoints and allow Palestinians freedom to move around the West Bank

JERUSALEM - Israel has closed all border crossings into Gaza, cutting off food and humanitarian supplies to the coastal strip in a bid to pressure its Hamas rulers to stop a barrage of rocket attacks on Israeli towns, defense officials said Friday. Ten rockets slammed into southern Israel on Friday, one damaging a day care center in the town of Sderot and another hitting Ashkelon, a town of 120,000 people. No injuries were reported.

The territory, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, receives food and humanitarian supplies from Israel and aid organizations.

"It's time that Hamas decide to either fight or take care of its population," Dror said.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since Hamas violently seized the territory in June, but continued to allow in basic food items and humanitarian supplies. With those now cut off, life is certain to become more difficult for Gaza's already impoverished residents, who have suffered from erratic supplies of some food, fuel, spare car parts, computer paper and goods.

The increasing violence has clouded Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, resumed after a Mideast conference in November sponsored by President Bush. The Israeli operations have drawn condemnations from moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules from the West Bank and is Israel's partner in the peace negotiations.

said Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees.

"can only lead to the further radicalization of a depressed and demoralized people."

Gandhi's grandson quits peace center

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Arun Gandhi said he learned at his grandfather's feet that the world's major conflicts can only be tackled by first solving the little problems.

the fifth grandson of revered pacifist Mahatma Gandhi said when he moved his M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence to the University of Rochester last June.

Now, intemperate remarks about Israel and Jews being "the biggest players" in a global culture of violence have gotten Gandhi removed as president of the peace center he launched in 1991.

"My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence,"

"Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment. I deeply regret these consequences."

"I think it's shameful that a peace institute would be headed up by a bigot," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, an international group that opposes anti-Semitism. "One would hope that the grandson of such an illustrious human being would be more sensitive to Jewish history."

Gandhi was on a panel of scholars, writers and clergy who discuss a new topic weekly on the Washington Post's "On Faith" page and his comments, posted Jan. 7, drew a torrent of criticism, much of it unfavorable.

"has been locked into the holocaust experience — a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of (how) a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends.

"The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. ... The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on, the regret turns into anger."

Describing Israel as "a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs," Gandhi asked whether it would

"Apparently, in the modern world so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept," he wrote.

We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players)

Israeli and American officials warned today that they might walk out of the United Nations conference on racism here, saying that diplomatic efforts aimed at eliminating criticism of Israel from conference documents seemed to be bearing little fruit.

The officials accused Palestinian and Arab delegations of using the conference as a platform to smear Israel.

The remarks by the Americans and Israelis came after a coalition of rights groups meeting here separately presented a report that attacked Israel as ''an apartheid regime'' that had committed ''racist crimes against humanity, including ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide'' in its treatment of Palestinians.

The rights groups submitted the report to the United Nations Human Rights Commission as delegates considered the wording of their declaration against racism, but it is unlikely that the governments would adopt such charged language.

Still, the report and its call for international sanctions against Israel were sharply criticized by the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, who described it to reporters in Tel Aviv as ''an outburst of hate.'' And delegates here said the document only inflamed tensions, making sensitive negotiations even more difficult.

''We are reaching a stage that we have to reconsider our participation, to consider whether to walk out of this conference,'' Mordechai Yedid, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's deputy director general for international organizations, said here tonight.

''We are doing our utmost,'' said Mr. Yedid, who is leading the Israel delegation. ''We would like to make sure this conference succeeds. The question is, if there is political will by the Palestinians and their supporters. Our feeling is, there is no political will.''

An American delegate, Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, said the United States was also considering abandoning the conference. Mr. Lantos said that he had met with the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, with foreign ministers and with dozens of delegates, but that little progress was being made.

Mr. Lantos said his team was working hard to resolve the dispute. But today, he said, when he spoke to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell by telephone, he advised him that the United States should withdraw if the talks remained deadlocked.

''If the conference fails, it will fail because the extremists are attempting to torpedo the conference,'' Mr. Lantos said in an interview. ''This inflammatory language of the NGO's is reflective of the divisive, discriminatory and hostile climate created by the Arab extremists at this conference.'' It was NGO's -- nongovernmental organizations -- that filed the report today to the United Nations rights commission.

The dispute has completely overshadowed this conference and angered its organizers and many delegates, who gathered to promote racial tolerance and international understanding.

The meeting, which ends on Friday, is to produce a declaration against racism and a program of action to prevent future discrimination. Many people here still hope to reach some consensus.

The parallel meeting of civic and human rights groups has attracted an array of single-issue parties, ranging from the Untouchables in India to groups representing Gypsies and transsexuals, as well as the mainstream human rights groups.

The United Nations meeting welcomes their views, and Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, addressed the parallel meeting last week.

But the coalition's grab-bag report, incorporating many groups' pet views, put the official meeting in a bind by including the severe criticism of Israel.

So far there is little to suggest an imminent resolution, despite the efforts by negotiators from the United States, Norway, South Africa and the United Nations.

The conference's officially proposed documents are not nearly as critical of Israel as the report prepared by the civic groups. But even the United Nations' draft documents condemn what they describe as the ''racist practices of Zionism'' and ''the emergence of racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas, in particular the Zionist movement, which is based on racial superiority.''

Disappointment as U.S. Bolts Race Conference

(Durban, South Africa, September 3, 2001) -- Human Rights Watch today decried the decision of the United States delegation to withdraw from the United Nations World Conference against Racism.

"This Conference presents a unique opportunity for the nations of the world to define, condemn, and remedy racism and racial discrimination," said Reed Brody, Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. should be part of that process, and its departure is a deep disappointment to the victims of racism who have placed their hopes in this meeting."

Secretary of State Colin Powell announced today that the U.S. delegation was going home, saying that the conference was bound to contain hateful language against Israel, and that negotiations would be futile.

Human Rights Watch said that the U.S. should have stayed at the conference and worked to ensure that objectionable language on Israel that was proposed in the draft be removed. The group also emphasized that the question of Israel's treatment of Palestinians is only one of many before the conference.

"The U.S. is squandering a unique opportunity to stand against intolerance, take pride in its own successes, and face up to the challenges in the long fight for equality at home and abroad," said Brody. "This meeting is about the millions of refugees who are fleeing racism but who find intolerance, about the so-called untouchables of South Asia, about how HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects people of color, about the unique ways racism and sexism interact, and about racism in the application of the death penalty. These are issues that the United States wanted to avoid, but clearly it cannot."

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 61% of Americans would like to see U.S. troops brought home from Iraq within a year. That's up a point from a week ago and two points from two weeks ago. Over the last eighteen weeks, the number wanting troops home within a year has ranged from a low of 57% to a high of 64%

McCollum, Bill (R-FL)	$91,406
Wexler, Robert (D-FL)	$90,850
Meek, Kendrick B (D-FL)	$60,500
Diaz-Balart, Lincoln (R-FL)	$60,400
Smith, Larry (D-FL)	$40,257
Johnston, Harry A (D-FL)	$39,600
Diaz-Balart, Mario (R-FL)	$37,250
Schultz, Debbie Wasserman (D-FL)	$35,100
Bacchus, James L (D-FL)	$28,700
Lehman, William (D-FL)	$27,750
Meek, Carrie (D-FL)	$26,500
Foley, Mark (R-FL)	$25,750
Brown, Corrine (D-FL)	$19,100
Mack, Connie (R-FL)	$18,900
Putnam, Adam H (R-FL)	$18,750
Fascell, Dante B (D-FL)	$17,500
Brown-Waite, Ginny (R-FL)	$16,550
Bilirakis, Michael (R-FL)	$16,367
Stearns, Cliff (R-FL)	$16,250
Gibbons, Sam (D-FL)	$12,500
Boyd, Allen (D-FL)	$12,450
Thurman, Karen L (D-FL)	$11,850
Bilirakis, Gus (R-FL)	$10,410
Castor, Kathy (D-FL)	$10,350
Goss, Porter (R-FL)	$10,000
Scarborough, Joe (R-FL)	$8,610
Grant, Bill (R-FL)	$8,500
Harris, Katherine (R-FL)	$7,500
Davis, Jim (D-FL)	$6,550
Keller, Ric (R-FL)	$6,500
Mahoney, Tim (D-FL)	$5,600
Feeney, Tom (R-FL)	$4,000
Crenshaw, Ander (R-FL)	$3,500
Miller, Jeff (R-FL)	$3,500
James, Craig Taylor (R-FL)	$3,000
Mica, John L (R-FL)	$700
Peterson, Pete (D-FL)	$500
Young, C W Bill (R-FL)	$250
Nelson, Bill (D-FL)	$447,311
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL)	$264,830
Deutsch, Peter (D-FL)	$256,831
Shaw, E Clay Jr (R-FL)	$183,213
Hastings, Alcee L (D-FL)	$118,450
Klein, Ron (D-FL)	$93,084

Wexler seeks to block Saudi arms sale

brought Connecticut's U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman to

Gandhi's grandson quits peace center

Disappointment as U.S. Bolts Race Conference