American diplomats acknowledge that they do not have the votes to prevent the General Assembly of the United Nations from recognizing Palestine and granting it some of the rights of member states. The U.S. can block full membership only by exercising its veto in the Security Council, an act likely to intensify hatred of the U.S. in many countries around the world.

A far wiser strategy is for the U.S. to introduce a resolution to the Security Council providing full membership in the U.N. to Palestine while simultaneously reaffirming Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Both sides win.

The resolution should make clear that this recognition is contingent on both Palestine and Israel respecting the rights of all its citizens and offering them equal protection under the law, and not imposing any religious practices on any of its citizens.

Around the country, people will walk with their neighbors in remembrance of 9/11. Photo by Gordon Bell/Flickr

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many of us are wondering how best to honor the many victims of that tragedy and its aftermath in a way that does not yield to the militarism, chauvinism, and Islamophobia that have often been linked to or justified as appropriate responses to 9/11. So here is a note we got from one spiritual progressive, Bart Campolo, whose ideas are closely aligned with the NSP:

Here in Cincinnati, my wife Marty’s answer is inviting some of our friends to join us on a walk with some Muslim and Jewish families she invited by simply calling their congregations. She got the idea from me and my friends at Abraham’s Path, who are sponsoring www.911walks.org to help people find or pull together their own 9/11 Walks all over the USA and around the world. The goal of these walks is simple: To help people honor all the victims of 9/11 by walking and talking kindly with neighbors and strangers, in celebration of our common humanity and in defiance of fear, misunderstanding and hatred.

The violence vs. non-violence debate about how to build a new society with perspectives from Michael Nagler vs. Uri Avnery

This is a critical debate which evokes significant differences among secular and spiritual progressives. I hope you’ll let me know your reactions to it. I’m a huge fan of Avnery, whose articles regularly appear on our Tikkun web magazine site www.tikkun.org. And a dear friend of Michael Nagler whose writings have been an inspiration to me and many others. I can easily understand the power of Avnery’s argument, though personally I’m on the side of non-violence. Some people misunderstood the title of my last communication where I send “overthrow the Syrian regime.” Yes, but I didn’t mean violently, but instead was meaning to be supporting the non-violent struggle of Syrians against the violence of Asad and his army, and encouraging us in the West to find non-violent ways to help, like boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Uri Avnery is leader of Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace movement organization in Tel Aviv. Here is his piece:

To The Shores of Tripoli

Though The Bible tells us “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth” (Proverbs 24:17), I could not help myself. I was happy.

Muammar al-Gaddafi was the enemy of every decent person in the world. He was one of the worst tyrants in recent memory.

This fact was hidden behind a façade of clownishness. He liked to present himself as a philosopher (the “Green Book”), a visionary statesman (Israelis and Palestinians must unite in the “State of Isratine”), even as an immature teenager (his innumerable uniforms and costumes). But basically he was a ruthless dictator, surrounded by corrupt relatives and cronies, squandering the great wealth of Libya.

I’d like to draw attention to three different perspectives on the amazing growth of tent cities of protest across Israeli society — one from Uri Avnery, one from Zeev Sternhell, and one from Bernard Avishai.

How Goodly Are Thy Tents

by Uri Avnery

FIRST OF all, a warning.

Tent cities are springing up all over Israel. A social protest movement is gathering momentum. At some point in the near future, it may endanger the right-wing government.

At that point, there will be a temptation – perhaps an irresistible temptation – to “warm up the borders”. To start a nice little war. Call on the youth of Israel, the same young people now manning (and womanning) the tents, to go and defend the fatherland.

Nothing easier than that. A small provocation, a platoon crossing the border “to prevent the launching of a rocket”, a fire fight, a salvo of rockets – and lo and behold, a war. End of protest.

In September, just a few weeks from now, the Palestinians intend to apply to the UN for the recognition of the State of Palestine. Our politicians and generals are chanting in unison that this will cause a crisis – Palestinians in the occupied territories may rise in protest against the occupation, violent demonstrations may ensue, the army will be compelled to shoot – and lo and behold, a war. End of protest.

When as a teenager I became immersed in the writings of the Prophets, I was most excited by the Prophet Jeremiah. My parents, who thought I was making a big mistake to have decided to become a rabbi, told me that I really sounded more like a prophet, and that one could not combine a deep prophetic vision with being a congregational rabbi, because the congregation would fire anyone who would challenge their comfortable life-style. Moreover, they warned me that people would always be offended by the “truth-telling” and “confrontational attitude” of the prophets in general and Jeremiah in particular. But their biggest challenge was this: “What’s the use of being a prophet when the prophets were all such failures? They were scorned in their life-times, and their message was not really heard by those to whom it was spoken or written. If you want to have influence, Michael, become a lawyer and then the first Jewish U.S. Senator from our state, not a rabbi, and certainly not a prophet!” My parents were loving and wonderful people, and their message was given out of love and a concern that I not waste my life. But it was not advice I could follow. I had become by twelve years old a disciple of Abraham Joshua Heschel, whose book on The Prophets remains one of the most important books in my own intellectual and spiritual development. So after reading his book on Jeremiah, I asked Mordecai Schreiber to write an essay for Tikkun on this important question: “Was the prophet Jeremiah a Failure?”

I hope you read it! Here’s how it starts:

Rethinking Jeremiah

No prophet among the Bible’s literary prophets provides us with more information about himself and about prophecy in general than Jeremiah. We first meet him as a young lad, and we follow his life, his prophetic career, and his thoughts well into old age. Anyone interested in better understanding biblical prophets and prophecies needs to study the book of Jeremiah, which is the subject of my latest book, The Man Who Knew God: Decoding Jeremiah. History, in a sense, has portrayed him as a failure. He failed to convince his contemporaries not to rebel against Babylon; he failed to save Jerusalem from destruction; and he is best remembered as the sorrowing prophet who mourns the destruction. Indeed, in English his name gave rise to the term for a bitter lament, a Jeremiad. Like Job, Jeremiah curses the day he was born. The burden he carries as a prophet who admonishes people who refuse to listen is unbearable. Several attempts are made on his life. He is sentenced to death and barely escapes execution. He is considered a traitor by the king and his counselors, by the priests, by self-styled prophets, as well as by ordinary people. He can count his friends on one hand. Aside from his loyal scribe, Baruch ben Neriah, he only has one constant friend, namely, God. No other prophet in the Hebrew Bible has a more intimate or passionate relationship with God than Jeremiah. It is this relationship that keeps him going and keeps him alive.

We at Tikkun have been saying for the past 3 years what former Sec. of Labor and economist Robert Reich says below and what Paul Krugman has been saying for the past 2 years: there is no serious budget crisis. Instead, we have an employment and housing crisis.

It is true, as Robert Reich says below, that the Republicans have been running with this lie for the past several years in order to prevent the Democrats, when they had the majority in both houses of Congress, and the presidency, 2009-2010, from doing what the country needed: a massive Work Progress Administration (WPA) employment program coupled with a freeze on mortgage foreclosures and a law requiring the banks to renegotiate mortgage interests to what it was when the mortgage was first offered to the buyers.

But Reich plays down the huge culpability of Obama and his economic advisors (who could have been Reich and Krugman, and no Republican forced Obama to go with the pro-corporate advisors he actually chose form the start).

In upcoming months, President Obama alone will decide on the fate of the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would bring dirty, muddy oil from Canada down to Texas to be cooked and processed to feed our addiction to this temporary resource. Please consider writing a letter to friends, family, or co-workers, or coming out to Washington between the and of August and early September.

I was honored to be invited to be on a panel with the Dalai Lama July 18 in Chicago. This is the third time I’ve been invited to be on a panel with him, and by now he recognizes me. His first words when we embraced yesterday were: “Last time your kippah was red, now it’s white–but very nice!” He was referring to the head covering that religious Jews wear on our heads, also known as “yalmekah” or skullcap. (He doesn’t seem to change his outfit very often–it’s beautiful color and simplicity bespeaks his philosophy).

He had his usual twinkle in his eye and smile on his face. This great spiritual leader is renowned for his impish qualities, his humility, and his smarts, and all were in full view both Sunday, July 18, when he addressed some 8,000 people in a huge auditorium in Chicago, and on Monday when we sat together on a panel in a smaller venue of 1,500 seats, every seat filled, and discussed interfaith connections.

Unlike Sunday, when the sound system was imperfect and it was sometimes hard to make out what he was saying, on Monday July 19, it was impossible to not be astounded by the Dalai Lama’s combination of cleverness and spiritual depth. His themes are well known, and he returned to them over and over again: the need for compassion, the importance of recognizing that all religions are pointing to the same realities, the centrality of non-violence in changing the world, and the need to work on one’s own spiritual life simultaneously with any work in changing the world.

Make July 4 INTER-DEPENDENCE DAY! Do July 4 with a community of people who are not into the reactionary nationalist rah-rah, but into seriously thinking about and celebrating what is good in America! If you happen to be in the Bay Area July 4, come to the Tikkun, NSP, Beyt Tikkun picnic! If not, you can read and utilize in any way you can our guide to ideas to share at a picnic or July 4th celebration of your own, no matter how small! Just go to: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/an-interdependence-day-celebration-for-july-4.

***

2 p.m. Strawberry Creek, Berkeley 1260 Allston Way, Between Bancroft Way and Addison Street at West Street – Southwest Berkeley

The Supreme Court’s June 27 narrow 5-4 decision called McComish v. Bennett continues the Roberts Court’s retreat on fairness in elections, striking down trigger provisions that allowed publicly financed candidates in Arizona to receive additional funds for their campaigns when their spending was outstripped by their privately financed opponents.

Brenda Wright, Director of Demos’ Democracy Program, commented, “The Court’s ruling distorts the First Amendment into a caricature that would be unrecognizable to its creators. The very purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage public debate and dialogue in the political sphere. The Roberts Court has turned this tradition on its head by ruling that the First Amendment should shield privately financed candidates against any response by their opponents.”

This is why state actions are not sufficient–anything re-empowering ordinary citizens by a state legislature will be declared unconstitutional. And the Supreme Court’s decision also shows that merely overturning Citizens’ United will not stop the Supreme Court–only a Constitutional Amendment which explicitly mandates public funding of elections, forbids any other form of money in elections, requires equal and free time for major candidates in major media, and imposes environmental and social responsibility requirements on corporations would actually make a difference. Everything less is futile.

The White House and congressional leaders are in final negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can pay its current obligations. Yet in order to secure enough votes to raise the debt ceiling, some members of Congress are withholding their vote unless dramatic cuts are made to federal spending–including devastating and long-term cuts to programs for hungry and poor people.

Every deficit-reduction package of the last 30 years–under Republican and Democratic leaders–has exempted key programs for hungry and poor people from cuts. We must protect these programs now.

Final negotiations between President Obama and leaders in Congress are happening now. Call your senators through our special toll-free number (1-800-826-3688) and ask them to urge Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to create a circle of protection around funding for programs for hungry and poor people in the United States and abroad in the bill to raise the debt ceiling.

Oy, the war makers are now pretending to be ending the war. But they are not doing so.

Credit: Truthout.org.

How long will we tolerate these deceptions? Our tax money is paying for the continued use of drones against the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaida is relatively crippled. We don’t need to continue fighting in Afghanistan.

Last night, President Obama announced a plan for Afghanistan that will leave nearly 70,000 troops on the ground at the end of his first term. That’s still almost double the number of troops President Bush had in Afghanistan.

Call the White House now at 1-202-456-1111 and tell them you’re disappointed in President Obama’s plan and want to see the war end sooner.

Then, write to me to tell me how your call went.

While the press is portraying this plan as a large withdrawal from Afghanistan, the fact is that the administration is still investing billions of dollars and risking thousands of lives for a failed strategy. And risking the lives of so many civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we still don’t know when those 70,000 soldiers will come home to their families, because under the guise of withdrawing troops, this latest plan keeps the longest war in American history going indefinitely.

That’s why the NSP (Network of Spiritual Progressives) is teaming with Peace Action West to urge that President Obama bring all the troops home by September 2012, not just a symbolic fraction of the troops who are there.

This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Rev. Sarah S. Ray:

The Divine Glance

Rumi wrote of it. Christ Yahshua (Jesus) certainly experienced and shared it, when he spoke of “letting your eye be single,” and “full of light.” The Hindus and Sikhs call it Darshan.

And yet, with millions of Christians in this country, it seems virtually unheard of. Even feared.

I experienced it for the first time at the Healing Center in Columbia, SC, sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, if I recall. It was a group that focused on “A Course in Miracles” and they had a leader from “The Academy” as it was referred to.

I came in a little late and the group had already started. The leader, Peter, was standing with his arms up in the middle of the room. I think someone told me later that what he was doing was called, “creating the space,” but I can’t be sure. Peter was a tall, thin man with a fascinating accent (Australian, maybe?) and medium brown close-cropped hair. He looked at me with this loving smile of joy on his face as I came into the room. I felt instantly connected to him even though I had never met him before and then I felt a force come from him that touched me all around my head and shoulders.

I didn’t recognize what it was at the time and Peter himself did not seem to know what he had done. When I told him after the meeting what had happened, he said, “That wasn’t me, that was you!” Actually, I think it was both of us. I was ready to receive it and he was ready to give it.

The corporate machine’s drive for profit has resulted in a race to the bottom. The bottom line is profit at the expense of people, social justice, and the environment. In the United States, wages are stagnant, unemployment and homelessness grow, and more families are finding themselves unable to afford food.

Food Not Bombs is doing something about hunger. A worldwide all-volunteer organization that has existed for 30 years, Food Not Bombs feeds people vegetarian meals and protests war and poverty. Around the world, nearly one billion people go without food every day, and more than 25,000 die each day as a result. Hunger is growing in the United States, where more than 44 million people rely on food stamps and food pantries and kitchens are so overwhelmed that they are turning people away. This is unacceptable, especially in one of the richest nations of the world.

It is even more unacceptable that people are being arrested for sharing meals with the hungry. Volunteers with Food Not Bombs were first arrested in Orlando, FL, on June 1. They continue to return to feed the hungry and undergo arrest. Cities throughout Florida are introducing laws that could restrict Food Not Bombs to sharing food only twice a year per park. Can you imagine that now it is a crime to give food to hungry people?

Tikkun ally and policy analyst M.J. Rosenberg looks at the recent behavior of the right wing pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and detects an agenda of undermining and discrediting Obama, not to mention anyone seeking peace between Israel and Palestine. Meanwhile, Obama says he will veto the Palestinians’ attempt to get UN recognition, because he thinks they should instead go back and negotiate with Netanyahu who meanwhile is building more and more Israeli presence in the West Bank. That demand for “negotiations now” is shown to be a non-starter in the editorial today in Ha’aretz newspaper and in the analysis provided by the moderate King of Jordan. Please read this to understand why, unless Palestinians get more leverage through the UN, no move toward peace is going to happen as long as Netanyahu or his right-wing supporters are still shaping Israeli policy.

While the media continually underplays the crimes committed by the United States government both in its daily acts of murder against innocents in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and in its flagrant disregard for the well-being of the people of the US by ignoring the pain they suffer as a result of inadequate jobs and health care, polluted air and water, homelessness, etc., nothing is ever missed when a political leader does some lewd sexual act. The current media circus around Rep. Weiner is just another way the media focuses on the trivial and ignores the significant crimes and problems of our time. But since this is happening, we present three very different perspectives on the current reality.

This is the first article I want to share:

Everything Said About Anthony Weiner Is Bull

by Michael Bader

There’s only one legitimate reason to be upset with Anthony Weiner, and that’s because his behavior and its discovery has taken away a bold and effective voice in the Democratic party. Everything else you think and feel about him is bullshit.

By bullshit, I mean it has nothing to do with him, and also little to do with broad generalizations made nowadays about the sex and powerful men. The first is too personal and private for anyone to ever know. And the second is so abstract as to be useless in understanding any individual situation. What it does have to do with is you and me, with all of us, who are repeatedly enticed to either buy-in to or create fictive stories about sexual scandals that are little more than projections of our own forbidden or feared desires.

This week’s Spiritual Wisdom is about Shavuot, the Jewish holiday celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments (actually more literally translated as “10 Speech Acts”). Shavuot begins this year on Tuesday night, June 7, and goes through June 9. The tradition is to stay up all night June 7th studying, so as to be prepared for the moment of revelation at dawn Wednesday, June 8.

Beyt Tikkun synagogue will hold a Sunrise Shavuot service in Berkeley, California, from 5:45 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. (including bagel and lox breakfast) at the westernmost end of the Berkeley pier at the westernmost end of University Avenue. If it rains, it will be moved to 951 Cragmont, Berkeley. All are invited.

The following passage comes from Rabbi Phyllis Berman and Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s recent book, published by Jewish Lights: Freedom Journeys: The Tale of Exodus and Wilderness across Millennia.

Sinai: The universe says “I”

The Israelites stood at the foot of Sinai.

They gazed at the holy mountain, but could not see its crags, its precipices. The clouds enfolded it into an enormous mirror.

More than enormous: Infinite.

In that mirror each one saw a self, and the entire people: saw all who had just trekked out of slavery, and ancient Sarah with her husband Abraham, and many many descendants, beyond the generation that had just fled slavery and on and on, to many centuries later.

This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Rev. Sarah Ray. She writes about her personal experience with God and gives insight to how we can find love in God, others, and ourselves.

Looking into the Eyes of God

by Sarah Ray

Will the Universe implode if I tell you this? This ultimate secret?

I hope not. Actually, what I think will happen is that you won’t see this if you’re not meant to. Someone will walk in and interrupt you and you will click off the page, the phone will ring, your computer will crash, something like that. There are certain truths that can only be shared when the recipient is ready.

The truth that I want to share is something that must be experienced. I want to share my experience with you, but be forewarned, if you are not ready then what you experience will be terrifying. If you are angry and fearful and want to cling to that anger and fear, read no further. If you cherish your lust, stop right now.

This truth has been shared before, but somehow we manage not to hear. We are like children bent on annoying their mother, running around with our hands over our ears, singing, “La, la, la – I can’t hear you!” And then we crash into the coffee table and cry.

Former managing editor Dave Belden, Associate Editor Peter Gabel, and I were honored to receive the Utne Independent Press Award won by Tikkun Wednesday night at a ceremony attended by staff from some of the most significant magazines in the United States (Managing Editor Alana Price was unable to attend but was with us in spirit). The awardees were selected from some 1,300 magazines reviewed.

Tikkun won in the category of Best Body/Spirit Coverage. The other nominees were: The Christian Century, Commonweal, Geez, Resurgence, Sojourners, Tricycle, and Yes!Magazine. In accepting the award, we want to acknowledge the excellence of the other nominee magazines as well!

The irony: we are unable to afford to print our Summer issue for lack of funds, or to remain in print.

We at Tikkun magazine commend President Obama for his call for the US to align with democratic forces in the Middle East, and for a resumption of negotiations between Israel and Palestine based on the 1967 borders, his recognition that the Palestinian people have the right to govern themselves and reach their potential in a sovereign and contiguous state, and his re-affirmation of Israel’s right to complete security.

However, we share with many in the peace movement a deep disappointment that President Obama is not willing to present a detailed US plan for what a just and lasting agreement would look like, and then spend time selling that plan to the people of Israel and Palestine (even though that will require going over the heads of the leaders of both countries).

Instead, by putting forward only a small fragment of what a genuine peace accord would include, President Obama set himself up for the response that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave: that giving up the West Bank settlements would endanger Israeli security. Only a full blown plan including the details of how to provide security and justice for both sides, will advance the peace process–and the absence of such a plan was precisely what made the Oslo Accord signed under President Clinton ultimately a failure. President Obama must not hide behind the empty slogan that no one but the Israelis and Palestinians can determine the contours of the peace they seek–this merely avoids what the peace movements have asked for, namely his strong intervention to win over the hearts of Israelis and Palestinians to a peace plan that he could propose (e.g. one based on the proposal of Tikkun magazine). Vigorously seeking to build support for such a plan by visiting and presenting it directly to the Israeli and Palestinian people, does not constitute imposing a solution, but introducing concrete ideas that could re-invigorate the voice of the peaceful in both Israel and Palestine.

President Obama was foolish to describe Palestinian attempts to gain recognition at the United Nations this coming September as an attempt to “delegitimate” Israel. That Palestinian strategy is completely non-violent and helps clarify to Israel without any anti-Semitic elements the strong desire of the world community that Israel should return to the pre-’67 boundaries with some minor border changes that will allow Israel to incorporate some of the West Bank settlements closest to Jerusalem.