FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)The Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington is being sued for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said July 20 that it is charging the Rockville, Md., center with demoting rather than accommodating an assistant nursery school teacher because of her disability, the Washington Jewish Week reported.
The teacher, Carole Schulman, has a hearing impairment.
Michael Feinstein, the JCC’s chief executive officer, said July 20 that the JCC had no comment, as “We haven’t been filed with a lawsuit at this time.”
PLO’s D.C. Office Will Fly Palestinian Flag
The Obama administration will allow the PLO office in Washington to fly the Palestinian flag and assume the title of “delegation.”
The change in status comes with no enhancement in diplomatic status, U.S. officials said.
The new privileges for the Palestine Liberation Organization office do not mean the representation has “any diplomatic privileges or immunities,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last Friday.
“At the request of the PLO representative, which we have granted given the improvement in the relations between the United States and Palestinians, they have requested permission to fly the Palestinian flag,” he said. “And they have requested permission to call themselves the General Delegation of the PLO, which is a name that conforms to how they describe their missions in Europe, Canada, and several Latin American countries.”
Crowley said the steps have symbolic value and reflect improved relations between the United States and Palestinians, but they have no meaning under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
A White House spokesman suggested the changes would help spur the Palestinians toward direct peace talks with Israel, a key demand of the Israeli and U.S. governments.
“This decision reflects our confidence that through direct negotiations, we can help achieve a two-state solution with an independent and viable Palestine living side by side with Israel,” Tommy Vietor said. “We should begin preparing for that outcome now, as we continue to work with the Palestinian people on behalf of a better future.”
PLO representation in Washington was made illegal under a number of laws in the mid 1980s, when the group was widely regarded as terrorist.
Since 1993, at the launch of the Oslo peace process, U.S. presidents have exercised their prerogative to waive the ban every six months. Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, have cultivated the PLO and its leadership of the Palestinian Authority as a means of stemming the influence of Hamas, a radical Islamist terrorist group.
A number of lawmakers have sought to reinstate the ban, saying the Palestinian Authority has not moderated enough, citing among other factors the Palestinian refusal to enter direct negotiations.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, tied her efforts to eject the PLO from Washington to congressional efforts to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, another law that presidents have routinely waived since its passage in 1995.
“Instead of giving more undeserved gifts to the PLO, it’s time for us to kick the PLO out of the U.S. once and for all and move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, where it belongs,” she said in a statement.
Hill Interns Learn About Civility
Several hundred Capitol Hill interns attended a daylong summit aimed at promoting civil discourse on college campuses.
Interns at the July 22 Facing Change summit, which was organized in part by Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, learned several rhetorical techniques meant to help neutralize the vitriol that infests many campus discussions, such as those surrounding Israel and other hot-button political topics.
“I don’t think the correct dialogue is being used [by students] because people are so focused on being anti-the other group,” Lyndsi Sherman, 20, a student at San Diego State University, told the Washington Jewish Week. “I’m really hoping to go back to my campus and change it.”
Campus conversations about Israel, Sherman added, are particularly contentious.
“It’s really bad,” she said.
Presenters, such as Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer and Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit that promotes religious pluralism, emphasized the need to respect those with different viewpoints.
“You should always be ready to give respect to your interlocutors,” said Krauthammer, adding that civility doesn’t equate to compromise. “I don’t believe the only civil outcome is compromise.”
In addition to Hillel, the event was sponsored by Interfaith Youth Core and AshokaU, an association that promotes innovation in social programs.
Attendees also were treated to a congressional reception co-hosted by U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Jared Polis (Colo.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.).