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The Reporter: U.S. court: Israel not a �zone of war� after all
Netty C. Gross

In a precedent-setting decision, a full panel of judges at a Federal Court of Appeals in St. Louis has ruled that Israel is not a war zone and that two young boys taken to the U.S. in June 2000 by their mother were removed unlawfully.

The judges said Minnesota District Court Judge John Tunheim had erred in his May 2002 finding that Israel was a "zone of war" within the meaning of the Hague Convention on parental child abduction (The Report, January 13 2003; "Now it�s Official: Israel Is a War Zone"). Returning them there would not place the children at risk of serious physical harm, the court ruled.

The Appeals Court in early August referred the case back to Tunheim, who, typically, would have 14 days to order the boys back to Israel for a local judge to rule on custody. Tunheim subsequently refused a motion on the part of the mother, to stay the Appeals Court decision, pending her appeal to the Supreme Court. He similarly denied a request by the attorney of the father, to have the boys turned over to Federal marshals or have their passports taken from the mother.

According to Edwin Freedman, one of the father�s lawyers, the ruling has "voided the potentially dangerous, precedent-setting ruling, which placed Israel outside of the pale of the Hague Convention. No other court in the U.S. had ever ruled that Israel placed children at grave risk of serious physical harm, although Australia, Spain and Romania have previously so held."

September 8, 2003

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