Editorials & Actions

Barbarity in Gaza by Gideon Levy

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Israel’s Barbarity in Gaza
by Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy

On Saturday morning the Palestinian Health Ministry phoned A. from Rafah and asked him to open his vegetable refrigeration room. The idea was to make room for dozens of bodies piling up in the city’s small hospital. A.’s refrigerator quickly filled up with bodies, including of many children. In Rafah Saturday they counted 120 dead and about 500 wounded in one night of Israeli operations looking for 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin. At midnight between Friday and Saturday I got a call from Y., A.’s brother, who told me, in fluent Hebrew, in a choked voice that turned into weeping: “What happened in Rafah today is a massacre in every sense of the word.”

With his family, Y. had fled on foot from his home toward the sea as shells fell on his neighborhood.

Editorials & Actions

Uri Avnery August 1 on Gaza war

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Uri Avnery
August 1, 2014

Meeting in a Tunnel

THERE WAS this village in England which took great pride in its archery. In every yard there stood a large target board showing the skills of its owner. On one of these boards every single arrow had hit a bull’s eye. A curious visitor asked the owner: how is this possible? The reply: “Simple.

Editorials & Actions

Rabbi Nilton Bonder Remembers Zalman Schachter Shalomi

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Pardes in Rio
Rabbi Nilton Bonder on Zalman Schachter Shalomi
Ben Azai gazed and died. Ben Zoma gazed, and lost his mind…. Bonder gazed, and lost his job
RebZalman entered, and exited in peace. December of 1987, Reb Zalman came to Rio for Tikun Olam, an event which I had envisioned as a sort of Jewish Woodstock in Rio de Janeiro. Few months earlier I had gone to Philadelphia to convince Reb Zalman to come to the tropics for that occasion.

Editorials & Actions

US condemns shelling of UN school in Gaza but restocks Israeli ammuniton

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/us-firm-condemnation-shelling-un-school-gaza

US condemns shelling of UN school in Gaza but restocks Israeli ammunition

The United States issued a firm condemnation of the shelling of a United Nations school in Gaza that killed at least 16 Palestinians on Wednesday, but also confirmed it restocked Israel’s dwindling supplies of ammunition. The White House expressed concern that thousands of civilians who had sought protection from the UN were at risk after the shelling of the girls’ elementary school. Some 3,300 civilians were taking shelter there, after being told by Israel to leave their homes. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which runs the school, said its initial assessment was that it has been struck by Israeli artillery. “The United States condemns the shelling of a UNRWA school in Gaza, which reportedly killed and injured innocent Palestinians – including children – and UN humanitarian workers,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council.

Editorials & Actions

Conf Call with Sami Awad, plus Rabbi Seidernbeg on Jewish Ethics in GAZA, Noa Israeli singer, and Peter Beinart on the Myths about Gaza

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ALERT: Conference Call with Sami Awad from Palestine this coming Monday, August 4 on the Israel/Gaza War. Sami Awad is the Executive Director of Holy Land Trust (HLT), a Palestinian non-profit organization which he founded in 1998 in Bethlehem. HLT works with the Palestinian community at both the grassroots and leadership levels in developing nonviolent approaches that aim to end the Israeli occupation and build a future founded on the principles of nonviolence, equality, justice, and peaceful coexistence. For NSP–Network of Spiritual Progressives currently paid-up members, Tikkun subscribers and Beyt Tikkun members. The call will include Sami Awad calling in from Bethlehem, Palestine, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and Cat Zavis (executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives). TIME: 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.  (You may join the call if you join or renew membership in the NSP before Monday at www.spiritualprogressives.org).

Culture

Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

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Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Editorials & Actions

David Grossman on An Israel Without Illusions

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JERUSALEM —  Israelis and Palestinians are imprisoned in what seems increasingly like a hermetically sealed bubble. Over the years, inside this bubble, each side has evolved sophisticated justifications for every act it commits. Israel can rightly claim that no country in the world would abstain from responding to incessant attacks like those ofHamas, or to the threat posed by the tunnels dug from theGaza Strip into Israel. Hamas, conversely, justifies its attacks on Israel by arguing that the Palestinians are still under occupation and that residents of Gaza are withering away under the blockade enforced by Israel. Inside the bubble, who can fault Israelis for expecting their government to do everything it can to save children on the Nahal Oz kibbutz, or any of the other communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, from a Hamas unit that might emerge from a hole in the ground?

Editorials & Actions

Gaza, Israel, and Genocide by Akbar Arman

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Editor’s Note: I find it disturbing that writers like this find a need to describe Israel’s immoral assault on the Gazan people as “genocide.”  What Israel is doing is bad enough without trying to fit it into a category which brings up memories of real genocides–the attempt of the Nazis to wipe out every Jew and every gay person and every gypsy, the attempt of American settlers to wipe out every Native American, etc. It then shifts the discussion from the immorality of Israel’s actions to the validity of labeling it “genocide,” a discussion which deflects from the key issues: how to stop Israel from killing more Palestinian civilians and push it toward a genuine reconciliation with the Palestinian people. Any such move would be greatly aided were Hamas to stop its bombing of Israel and declare unconditionally that it has changed its charter, no longer seeks the destruction of the State of Israel, and will no longer engage in armed struggle against Israel once Israel allows a Palestinian state to come into existence alongside the State of Israel and with full cooperation of Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq and other Islamic societies and with the Palestinian state given the financial support from the international community to make it economically and politically viable. In making that statement, Hamas would derail Israeli war-justifying propaganda and become the facilitator of a change of consciousness in Israel sufficient to elect a new kind of government within the next decade. Meanwhile, we print the article below because we don’t believe in  only presenting positions with which we fully agree.

Editorials & Actions

Is Blasphemy Punishable by Death in Islam?

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Is Blaspheme Punishable by Death in Islam? 5/7/2011
By: Dr. Aslam Abdullah
IslamiCity* –  

There is nothing in the Quran or the authentic teachings of Prophet Muhammad justifying the killing of people for opposing, criticizing, humiliating or showing irreverence toward holy personages, religious artifacts, customs and beliefs of Islam. The Quran says:

“Revile not ye those whom they call upon besides Allah,
lest they out of spite revile Allah in their ignorance. Thus We have made alluring to each people its own doings. In the end will they return to their Lord,
and We shall then tell them the truth of all that they did.

2014

God and Goddess Emerging

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In this historical moment, we need to blend a panentheism that recognizes humans as in and part of God with the radical visions of God as YHVH (source of transformation) and El Shaddai (a love-oriented Breasted God).

2014

Midterm Elections 2014

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After years of Obama’s capitulation to the corporate, military, and “security” elites, Dems may have a hard time selling themselves as populist champions.

Editorials & Actions

Prayer for Peace

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A Prayer for Peace
Avinu ve’ emoteynu sheh ba shamayim, tzur Yisra’el ve’ go’aloe

Our Father and Mother energies in the cosmos, the rock of Israel and our salvation

Bless all the peoples of the Middle East with peace, security, environment sanity, and a sense of being genuinely cared for by the world and by the God/dess of all flesh, however they conceive of this God or Goddess, whatever names or language they give to the ultimate source of love and meaning in the universe. In this hour of war, violence, and pain, we reaffirm the humanity and decency of all the  people on our planet, and our ability to see the humanity and God-presence in the Palestinian people, the Israeli people,  and all people on the planet. We understand that each of the many sides of the conflicts tearing our world apart today have their own legitimacy, but we also know that violence cannot be the path to a peaceful and safe world. We may be outraged at the behavior of governments, political parties, or groups acting in hurtful ways, but we will not accept any attempt to generalize that righteous indignation into generalities about all people of a certain nation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other such grouping. We ask you, the Force of Healing and Transformation in the Universe, Yud Hey Vav Hey, ALLAH, the Cosmic Christ, Krishna, whatever name people give to this Force,  to open up the hearts of all humanity to each other and to the earth itself.

Editorials & Actions

Israel: STOP the Invasion and Bombing of Gaza, and Let the Palestinian Prisoners Go

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This article can be read on the home page of Huffington Post as it appears Friday morning, July 18. Israel: Stop the Invasion of Gaza, Stop the Bombing of Gaza, Free the Palestinian Prisoners
According to Ha’aretz correspondent Amira Hass, the IDF has been conducting mass arrests in the West Bank, between 10 and 30 every day. Twenty-four of the arrested are members of the Palestinian parliament from Hamas’ Change and Reform party. The number of those arrested since the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli teens has already exceeded 1,000. The Palestinians are convinced that most of those detained have nothing to do with the kidnapping and that these are mainly political arrests for purposes of intimidation and revenge.

Editorials & Actions

Each Person a Full World

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Each one is a world
7:34pm

We were sitting at Lincoln Park in West Seattle, with a handful of friends who had gathered for a picnic potluck, awaiting others who would be joining us shortly. A Facebook message came through on my Smartphone from my friend Yousef Munayyer. Hey Jen, just saw some news about a young man from the Shurrab family in khan yunis being the latest victim, Name is Tayseer. Have you heard from Amer recently? Amer Shurrab was, as a matter of fact, sitting across the picnic table from me at that very moment.  He  had come for a few day visit from Monterrey, where he is finishing his MBA.