Palestinians can now sue for Israeli abuses

I've been meaning to post about this all day. A unanimous Israeli court threw out a law forbidding Palestinians from filing claims for damages caused by Israeli quasi-military operations. This is revolutionary on its face but it's also a sign that Israelis are no longer seeing Palestinians as an enemy neighbor, but as an occupied people devoid of access to a court system, or any rule of law, or individual rights.

I don't know if this holding will stick, but if it does, it'll give the Palestinians something of a voice in court, and a stage to legitimize evidence of their status as an oppressed, permanent underclass. The ruling would also deprive the Israeli government of one of its favorite weapons in the information war--labeling its critics as anti-Semites. But again, I seriously doubt the holding will not be thwarted somehow.

In other news from the yet-another-reason-why-there's-no-way-we-should-leave-Iraq camp, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned Dick Cheney that if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, the Saudis would fund Iraq's Sunnis in their fight against the Shiites, funded by Iran.