Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/generalnews/page/37/)
Would prefer not to use this at all. It’s a default and can’t be removed.
When Jenna answers you, she furrows her brow slightly and looks beyond you, into the distance. It might seem as though she’s concentrating hard, but you’re not taxing her seven-year-old intellect. No, you’re making her think of things, you’re making her remember things, that no seven year old should have to remember.
In a remarkable moment* Wednesday night at my book event in Washington, D.C., I was asked about my views on the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement by an audience member in attendance.
The New York Times devoted a few thousand words on Tuesday to telling us what we already know: the peace process is dead and Prime Minister Netanyahu killed it. Of course, it hems and haws, apportioning blame to both sides but, it is clear that the Times knows that the sole reason there was no chance that Kerry’s fool’s errand would succeed is because the Israeli right has no intention of giving up the West Bank. The good news is that this time the Palestinians did not play along with Israel’s (and America’s) game. That game required the Palestinians to sign on to some agreement that Israel would not abide by anyway. Then, following the deal’s collapse, the United States would join Israel in blaming the Palestinians for killing the deal.
During a closed door meeting on Friday with influential world leaders, U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, warned that Israel is in danger of becoming an “apartheid state” if the two-state solution is not achieved. Talking with leaders at the Trilateral Commission on Friday, Kerry said:
“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens – or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state…Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.” While President Obama rejected using the word to describe Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, it’s notable that State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not condemn Kerry’s sentiments, explaining that the Secretary of State was simply expressing an opinion shared my many: that the two-state solution is the only way for Israel to exist as a Jewish state. However, and perhaps predictably, Bill Kristol’s right-wing group, the Emergency Committee for Israel, has called for Kerry to be axed for using the term:
Secretary Kerry’s musings on the Jewish state’s dire future have become a regular feature of his public remarks.
As the former Chief Justice of Alabama, I am proud to have devoted my career to the cause of justice in our state. But as a lifelong United Methodist, it shames me to know that if Jesus came to our state today, he would chastise me and every other Alabama Christian for our nearly complete silence on a terrible injustice taking place under our noses and in our names every day: ineffective, absurdly harsh sentencing laws that lead to overcrowded, dangerous prisons that breed more crime. What would Jesus do? Fix our criminal sentencing laws.
Reliable estimates of the numbers of Jews now living in Ukraine are hard to come by. 80,000? 100,000? 200,000? Nobody really knows. This confusion is mirrored in any independent attempt to get a clear picture of how the recent turmoil is affecting them. After the Ukrainian president Yanukovych fled, back in February, those with seats in the new government included the far rightist anti-semitic group Svoboda, who have claimed in the past that the country’s been ruled by a ‘Moscow-Jewish mafia’; and there were reports of pro-Maidan paramilitary forces patrolling the streets of Kiev wearing swastika armbands and mouthing anti-semitic slogans.
On February 6, my inbox was inundated with messages from people I did not know. I’m so disgusted, they read; You’re going to hear from us again, they read; We’re going to fight this, they read. As someone who has grown accustomed to sporadic bits of hate mail for my progressive views on Israel, I was prepared for the worst. However, these emails, largely from residents of the D.C. metro area, were messages of support, messages of defiance. They were messages from those who had just learned that the D.C. Jewish Community Center, already under pressure from right-wing organizations and influences on a number of fronts, had quietly cancelled my high-profile book event, at which I was to speak about the themes of reconciliation and dialogue contained in my memior, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?
Add a 227-year-old Constitution with a 60-year-old collective military defense treaty, like the NATO Charter, and America could be at war in the blink of an eye. Will we reform our Constitution before getting dragged into another pointless war?
Make no mistake, the attack on the Jewish Community Center was an attack on all of us, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs – people of every religion and no religion. The perpetrator, apparently a former KKK member with ties to Nazism, is not just a person, but an embodiment of the hate culture rising around us.
The images that emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq sparked a movement against torture that has worked doggedly for many years now. Among those moved to action have been people of faith, religious people, who see torture as a moral issue. As one of those people who has written op-eds, letters to members of Congress and the administration in the White House, attended rallies/protests, and met with Congressional staffers, I wondered whether a group of committed religious people could have a real impact. Today, with the announcement by the Senate Intelligence Committee that they had voted to declassify their summary of what is being called a “CIA Torture Report,” the answer is finally “maybe.” Most people around the world and in the United States were outraged by the horrible conditions leaked through photos of torture and other depravity at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.