Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/peacemaking/page/53/)
About war and efforts to bring about peace. About changing a foreign policy of domination to one of generosity.
My lessons had finally come full circle. From 1989 when I thought it was ridiculous for anyone to claim that American soldiers would participate in torture and assassination, to 2003, when it was clear that we had, and soon thereafter the world would be horrified by the images of torture smuggled out of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, and today we sit and watch while unmanned drones assassinate people by the scores.
Does that mean the Israeli election changed nothing?
Absolutely not. It changed a great deal because Netanyahu did so poorly. Yes, he will likely remain as prime minister but in a far weaker position than he was before the election. Prior to this week’s election, Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party held 42 seats. It is now down to 31, a dramatic decline and a personal repudiation of the prime minister who leads the party.
Obama’s inauguration today provides the opportunity for a tentative overview of his still uncompleted two-term presidency. To be sure, he will always be remembered as the first African-American president, but what else will we remember him for? In this regard let us consider his domestic and his foreign policy achievements separately.
If we are to have a war on terrorism, if Al-Qaida and its ilk are going to have a war on us, if all of us, together, are going to make war, the suffering will go on and on. From torture, from bombs; of soldiers, of civilians; of men, of women, of children; of other species, of the earth.
Around the country, people are polarized about whether gun control or widespread ownership of guns would make us safer. I have written earlier about the U.S. culture of violence and the growing economic inequity, which is violent in itself and is linked to increasing violence. Today’s post addresses the violent “myth” that underlies our culture:
Having worked at AIPAC and having worked with it as a legislative aide in Congress for 20 years, I know that the lobby is not really about Israel. It is about exerting influence, pushing our government around and promoting war with Muslims and Arabs, but it hasn’t been about Israel for decades.
Juliane Okot Bitek knows the power of narrative. An award winning writer living in Vancouver, Canada, Okot Bitek is also an Acholi woman who calls Gulu in Northern Uganda home. Considering the civil war (1986- 2006) that plagued northern Ugandans, it’s no wonder much of Okot Bitek’s passionate writing focuses on social and political issues. In the last decade, through her poetry, essays, fiction, nonfiction and opinion pieces, Okot Bitek has fought both to make sense of, and to expose the tragedies of her homeland.
American Jews (with the exception of a tiny, tiny minority) will not tolerate the suggestion that they are anything but loyal Americans. Hence opposing a president in favor of the prime minister of Israel, after the president invoked the U.S. national interest, would not be sustainable. In that situation, the lobby would back down. And with it Congress and, then, the Israeli government (which depends on U.S. assistance to survive).
It is hard to believe that the lobby (call it the Israel Lobby, the Jewish Lobby or whatever) is going to oppose President Obama’s choice of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense in the name of Jews.
With Israel’s election only weeks away, a rather remarkable online initiative has begun: Israelis are offering to give their votes to Palestinians occupied by Israel in the West Bank.
The idea behind this initiative is simple: Palestinians subjected to a military system of justice in the Occupied Territories, and wholly under Israel’s control, have no democratic say in the process that binds them. And so Israelis, to protest the occupation and this undemocratic dynamic, are offering to give their vote to a Palestinian and cast a ballot as their matched counterpart in the West Bank desires.