Daily Alert Archives

Legal Rights Scholar Justus Reid Weiner Dies at Age 70

(Jerusalem Post) Dore Gold - On Sep. 5, Justus Weiner, an international lawyer at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, passed away at the age of 70 after a long illness. Weiner was a human-rights lawyer who exposed the persecution of Christians in the territories under Palestinian jurisdiction. He was most noted for an extremely courageous article he published in the September 1999 issue of Commentary, in which he exposed the Palestinian polemicist Edward Said, who had grown into being one of Israel's most formidable intellectual adversaries. A Columbia professor, Said served as the main author of Yasser Arafat's 1974 address to the UN General Assembly. The article was entitled "'My Beautiful Old House' and Other Fabrications by Edward Said." Weiner proved that in pursuit of the truth, he was prepared to defy conventional wisdom. That was a secret source of his strength. A key part of Weiner's story related to Said's house in Jerusalem, including the legal title the Said family supposedly had to the house. By initiating a title search in Jerusalem, Weiner disclosed that the house that had been so pivotal in Said's writings and speeches never had the name of the Said family on it, punching a huge hole in Said's argument claiming rights to the land. Said sued Weiner in court after the article appeared - and lost. The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2020-09-07 00:00:00
Full Article