Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/tikkun-admin/page/44/)
Is it true? she says. Do you think the world is going to end in 2012?
Roberto takes a deep breath, like this topic is a secret that’s painful for him to even acknowledge. He looks out at the tombs of Tikal, full of who knows how many ancient kings. After what feels like an eternity, he gravely looks back at the Italian woman and gives his answer.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
The American Jewish Committee was the latest Jewish organization to enlist in the battle to prevent President Barack Obama from naming former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense. The onslaught is unprecedented. Never before has virtually the entire organized Jewish community combined to stop a presidential cabinet appointment because it deems the potential nominee insufficiently devoted to Israel.
… we need to chip away at the mistaken notion that the Second Amendment to the Constitution is about the private ownership of firearms….
At first glance, the only thing surprising about the Congressional letter demanding that the Palestinians be punished for taking their case to the United Nations is that AIPAC’s role in producing it is stated openly.The cover letter to House members asking for their signatures (from a staffer working for House Foreign Affairs Committee chair, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) reads as follows:
I wanted to draw your attention to a bipartisan letter(supported by AIPAC)to President Obama from Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member [Howard] Berman, Chairman-designate [Ed] Royce, and Ranking Member-designate [Elliot] Engel. The letter calls on the President to impose strong, specified consequences on the Palestinian leadership and the United Nations for the UN General Assembly move to upgrade the status of the mission of “Palestine” (the PLO) to “Non-Member Observer” state.
We live in a time of great ingenuity, incredible scientific advances that extend life, repair damaged cells, modify food supplies, expand the limits of our universe and yet we’ve lost touch with the most important thing in life – the thing that keeps us all alive – our humanity. Consider the reality of our world today:
The United States has the second highest child poverty rate worldwide
The prison-industrial complex warehouses human beings like animals only to have them either released into society without any greater skills than which they arrived, or left to languish until their final breath
We are warehousing and torturing animals in the name of increasing food supplies without a care for how that impacts the animals, the planet or our own health. We are destroying our planet, food and water supply
Our corporations’ profits exceed reasonable needs while their employees cannot afford to put food on their tables
1% of the population owns 99% of the wealth
We are buying and building bombs instead of supplying food, shelter, education, and health care
The list goes on and on but need I really say more. We seem to have arrived at a place where getting, achieving, taking and winning are more important than caring, concern, generosity and love. And I am left wondering, “when did this happen?”
Grieving and mourning is the birthplace of healing, repair, and transformation. Once we begin our healing process we will begin to open our hearts with compassion to the experience and suffering of Palestinians.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, in a moment of disturbing candor, revealed what is for many in Netanyahu’s government the ultimate goal of its escalating military campaign on Gaza:
“The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.” Now, part of Yishai’s bombast comes from the fact that, as a known racist and head of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, he’d feel much more comfortable in the Middle Ages himself. However, his statement reveals an essential truth few Israeli leaders dare to articulate. And that truth is this: the current military throttling of Gaza has less to do with security and more to do with destabilizing Gaza as much as possible.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie has penned a Haaretz opinion piece directed at progressive, U.S. Jews that is so deluded and insidious, it’s as though it was written in the same political and psychological vacuum inhabited by Netanyahu’s government. Yoffie, former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, argues that progressives should champion Israel’s “get tough” Gaza stance. It’s a call he makes using shockingly misguided and narrow arguments. It’s a call I, and all progressives, should reject. Here’s why:
First, Yoffie fails to understand the strategic motivations behind Israel’s current “Pillar of Defense” campaign.
Armistice Day Peace. Let us not forget the start
of Veteran’s Day. Cool November days,
Eleven Eleven is
a time to think peace. Let us not allow
our love for warriors to
become love of war. Veterans have seen
humanity at its worst.
When Binyamin Netanyahu began meddling in the U.S. election on Mitt Romney’s behalf, he began an unprecedented and brazen gambit that, this morning, has disastrously backfired. And Israelis know it. With Netanyahu’s own election only months away (set for January 22), pundits this morning in Israel recognize the clear damage Netanyahu has done to himself by disrespecting President Obama and betting on the wrong man. Larry Derfner of +972 Magazine thinks last night may soon lead to Netanyahu’s demise:
If there is one loser in the U.S. election outside the U.S., it is Benjamin Netanyahu – and all of Israel knows it. No one is fooled by his denials that he backed Romney and opposed Obama as demonstratively as he possibly could.