Editorials & Actions

Occupation Forces Demolish Palestinian Homes in Jerusalem (again and again and again)

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Editor’s Note: The events described below are part of a consistent pattern by the Israeli government to make life unbearable for the Palestinian people living inside Israel. We receive these kinds of reports every week, and rarely put them up on our website, and are only putting this story on the website to remind our readers that this is happening over and over and over again as the Occupation continues. Those who wonder why random Palestinians living inside Israel sometimes resort to violence (actions we condemn) need only place themselves in the position of those who see or personally experience this kind of violence on behalf of an Israel that shames the Jewish people and desecrates our Torah by calling itself “the Jewish state.”–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Occupation forces demolish Palestinian homes in Jerusalem for two consecutive days

Occupation forces demolish Palestinian homes in Jerusalem for two consecutive days
 

Published July 21st, 2016 – 05:00 GMT

Bulldozers escorted by Israeli policeand Jerusalem municipality inspectors demolished on Wednesday several Palestinian structures located adjacent to the Atarot settlement industrial park north of Jerusalem, a day after structures were torn down in neighboring Beit Hanina, as well as in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. One of the owners of the structures, Kamal Abu Sneina, told Ma’an that Israeli forces and municipality inspectors deployed into the area and started to tear down his structures while the owners were not present. “When we arrived, we were forced to stay away,” Abu Sneina said, adding that police officers detained him inside a police vehicle while the demolition was carried out.

Editorials & Actions

Could Hillary Be Any Worse? Sure, add Tim Kaine to the Ticket–by David Swanson

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Editor’s note: Tikkun magazine does not endorse or oppose any candidate or political party. But we do encourage our readers to send us articles representing their perspectives. We again request that those of our readers who support or oppose any of the major candidates for President of the U.S. in the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian or Green parties to submit articles reflecting their perspectives. –Rabbi Michael Lerner

Could Hillary Be Any Worse? Sure, Add Tim Kaine to the Ticket
By David Swanson
http://davidswanson.org/node/5225

Tim Kaine has been consistently ranked as one of the least progressive Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

Editorials & Actions

Is Violence Justified to Resist Racist Oppression?

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Is Violence Justified to Resist Racial Oppression? Editor’s Note: While I disagree with the author’s argument for use of violence to resist oppression, I do think that his points have validity and that those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life must confront the complex realities facing oppressed peoples in the US and around the world and come up with effective strategies so that people do NOT resort to violence. I believe we have done that with our interfaith and secular-humaist-and-atheist-welcoming NSP– Network of Spiritual Progressives (particularly thorugh the strategies inherent in the Spriitual Covenant with America www.tikkun.org/covenant, the Global and Domestic Marshall Plan www.tikkun.org/gmp and the ESRA–Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution www.tikkun.org/esra, we are in a weak position to effectively counter those who resort to violence until a lot more people who agree with our approach actually join our NSP and begin to develop active chapters that push for these programs, liberal foundations start to fund us, and people with some disposable income begin to financially and politically back our activities, including our Empathy Tribe notion described in the editorials of our Summer 2016 and Fall 2016 issues of Tikkun Magazine.  I should also point out that violence by the oppressed frequently leads to more violence, either the overwhelming violence of the oppressors who have control of the armies, or, in the few instances where the oppressed actually succeed in violently overthrowing their oppressors, they all to often have then created societies in which they use violence to perpetuate the new regime they have created, thereby oppressing others. –Rabbi Michael Lerner

Former Judge William Boardman of Windsor County, Vermont – is well known in the progressive community for putting politicians of both major political “parties” on the spot…

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President Obama observes a ceremony to honor NATO soldiers at the NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday.

Editorials & Actions

Stop the Violence!!!!!

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STOP THE VIOLENCE! We mourn all the victims of violence, including the large volume of violence against people that goes unreported and underreported, including poor people and people of color, but also we mourn for the very few police officers who have been hurt or killed by those outraged at the way police have been harassing or murdering members of their community, their people, their race, etc. EVERY HUMAN LIFE IS PRECIOUS. None of the violence is ok. Not black on black violence, not white on black violence or black on white violence, not police violence, not acts of violent retribution.

Editorials & Actions

A significant Muslim Voice on Recent Mass Murders Supposedly in the Name of Islam

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From the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (ICCNC)
 

July 4, 2016
It is with great sadness and profound grief that we have to once again express our deep sympathy to the recent victims of the savage crimes of ISIS in Orlando, Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Those who carry out these barbaric and vicious acts pay no heed to the religion or nationality of their innocent victims but are driven by sheer hate, animosity, and bigotry to promote their own political agenda. You must know that the overwhelming majority of their victims are Muslims and not people of other faiths or unbelievers. Thus, even though these terrorists claim that they are acting in accordance with the teachings of Islam, which is furthest from the truth and reality, the fact of the matter is that they have instrumentalized Islam for their ulterior motives and are exploiting the religious lexicon found in the Islamic tradition to recruit native Muslims and converts who are disillusioned, disenfranchised, lacking an identity, and mentally unstable. ICCNC would like to channel the sympathy and energy generated from this great tragedy and the enormous suffering and pain toward healing and constructive understanding of some of the potential causes that have given rise to radicalism and extremism among a fringe group of Muslims, with the hope of finding solutions to uproot this scourge.

Editorials & Actions

Will Marwan Barghouti Be the Palestinian Mandela?

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Nearly a decade and a half after he began serving multiple life sentences for his role in the killings of the second intifada, Marwan Barghouti is still seen – among most Palestinians, many Israelis and world leaders – as the man who could lead his people to independence. Through a mediator, Barghouti tells Haaretz that he remains a staunch proponent of the two-state solution and that he intends to run for Palestinian president should elections be held. This is one article we should all read! at Ha’aretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.728135

Editorials & Actions

Turn Columbus Day into Muhammad Ali Day

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MAKING THE CASE FOR A “MUHAMMAD ALI DAY”

by Abdul Cader Asmal MD PhD

Muhammad Ali’s legacy can perhaps best be remembered through the words of his wife Lonni who stated, ‘Muhammad wanted to use his life and his death as a teaching moment for young people, for his country and the world. He wanted us to remind people who are suffering that he had seen the face of injustice. But he never embittered enough to quit or engage in violence.’

Though initially treated with hostility for his attitude beliefs and actions, his steadfastness, courage and conviction eventually touched the hearts of millions around the globe so that in his passing there was a reverential awe that celebrated his unparalleled accomplishments with torrents of accolades. These achievements can be best recounted in his own words:

1.   As a humanitarian role model, ‘I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain’; ‘Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.’
2.   As an American patriot and civil rights activist: ‘America is the greatest country in the world’; ‘Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating.

Editorials & Actions

Hillary’s Militarism

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How Hillary Clinton Ignores Peace
July 2, 2016  by Robert Perry

[
In the 1980s, Robert Parry wrote the Iran-Contra news reports – exposing the Ronald Reagan / George H.W. Bush administration’s covert cocaine to money to weapons “triangle trade” / hostages for weapons operations –  for The Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek. He received the George Polk Award for National Reporting [ http://www.liu.edu/polk/ ] in 1984 for his work on Iran-Contra at the AP. Robert Parry was awarded the 2015 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence [ http://www.ifstone.org/medal.php ]  }

Special Report: Despite neocon-instigated chaos and bloodshed across the Mideast (and now into Europe), Hillary Clinton continues to advocate more “regime change” wars with almost no fear from a marginalized anti-war movement, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry

In Campaign 2016, the American people have shown little stomach for more foreign wars. The Republican candidates who advocated neoconservative warmongering crashed and burned, losing to Donald Trump who sold himself to GOP voters as the anti-neocon, daring even to trash George W. Bush’s Iraq War to an aghast field of Republican rivals.

Editorials & Actions

Connecting to God from Leonardo Boff

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How to experience God today
Leonardo Boff
        Theologian-Philosopher
      Earthcharter Commission

The present present times are so politically afflicted that we are psychologically altered. Seeing no path forward, walking blind, adrift like a rudderless ship, extinguishes our spark to live.  We wind up forgetting what is essential.  

Those who read my last article, Can present day Brazil be fixed?, find the background there for this refection on God. In moments like this, without being pietistic, we turn towards the Fountain that has always nourished humanity. Especially in somber times of generalized crises, we feel a longing for God.

Editorials & Actions

Leftist Follies

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Editor’s Note: We’ve been trying for a long time to get articles on the current elections and there aftermath that are not just praises of Bernie Sanders (not because we disagree with those, or agree, but because we are a not for profit magazine prohibited by the IRS from being in support of any candidate or political party. So below we finally got one such article, which we print without endorsement in any way of its thesis.–Rabbi Michael Lerner

4 July, 2016

Political Revolution and Self-Deceit

A large segment of the American Left seems to remain trapped within the compulsions of rote ideology. Despite all the blazing brilliance of the minds of American leftists, (we could hardly have a higher degree of raw human intelligence at our disposal), our collective mind cannot properly apply itself, in a self-aware manner, to the nuances of our predicament. Self-aware strategic thought and behavior remain beyond our capacity. We cannot ‘act’.

Editorials & Actions

A variety of perspectives on Elie Wiesel

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Editor’s Note:  Elie Wiesel was an important leader of the section of the Jewish world which believes that the highest, perhaps the only, commandment left to observe after the Holocaust is “don’t forget what happened to us Jews.” He used his growing fame in good ways at times, bringing attention to the suffering of other peoples. His attention to the Holocaust and his ability to educate large numbers of people to the suffering of the Jewish people, was a valuable contribution–and helped make clear to people around the world that the Jewish people should never again be powerless to defend itself against those who choose to make our entire  people into their enemies. Yet it is important to realize that there are good ways to protect our people and bad ways–and that was not a distinction Wiesel helped people make.  He never asked why Jews should have a Holocaust museum on the national mall in D.C. before there was a museum about US enslavement of African or US genocide of Native Americans.

Editorials & Actions

Turn July 4th into INTER-Dependence Day

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Turn Independence Day Into an Interdependence Day Celebration  July 4th  

(by Rabbi Michael Lerner   rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com)

 (and if you happen to be in the S.F. Bay Area and want to come to our pre-Interdependence Day celebration and potluck on July 2nd, go to www.beyttikkun.org for details. Can’t make it this year? Well, how about coming to do our High Holiday celebration with me at Beyt Tikkun synagogue this coming October–you don’t have to be Jewish to get a huge amount of spiritual sustenance from participating. Info also at www.beyttikkun.org)

 

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

 
 A July 4th  “ Seder” 
 

Faced with July 4th celebrations that are focused on militarism, ultra-nationalism, and “bombs bursting in air,” many American families who do not share those values turn July 4th into another summer holiday focused on picnics, sports and fireworks while doing their best to avoid the dominant rhetoric and bombast.  

We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives  believe that this is a net loss.

Editorials & Actions

Palestinian Man Kills 13-Year-Old Girl Asleep in Her West Bank Settlement

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The brutal murder of a young girl asleep in her bed in a West Bank settlement  (Kiryat Arba) justifiably has evoked outrage and condemnation–including from me and Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives. While anti-occupation activists have pointed out that parents ought not put their children in danger by raising them in Kiryat Arba, the settlement with the most extreme hate-filled anti-Arab racists who have repeatedly been engaged in acts of violence against Palestinians, including 5-7 year old Palestinian children on their way to school,  we at Tikkun believe that there is NEVER an excuse to target civilians, and all the more so when the civilian in question is a child.  We unequivocally condemn this act. We also call upon Israel to end the Occupation, now in its 50-th year, and remove from the West Bank the most virulent settlements including those in Hebron and nearby Kiryat Arba so as to protect those Israelis from the hatred generated by the extremists in Hebron and Kiryat Arba who have honored their most famous killer Baruch Goldstein who went into the famous mosque in Hebron and murdered some 29 Muslims while they were in prayer in the early 1990s. But these cycles of violence and retribution must stop–and many of us Jews remember the slaughter of jews in Hebron by Palestinian extremists in 1929.

Editorials & Actions

The Real Meaning of Brexit: A Cry of Pain

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Editor’s Introductory Note:  The vote by a majority in the UK to exit from the European Union  (Britain exiting, now called Brexit) is actually a cry of pain by the working people of Britain, and a reflection of the growing pain that will shape the social and political lives of our world in the coming decades till that pain is fully addressed.      Unfortunately, the media and the ruling elites refuse to take responsibility for the global mess they’ve been making. Instead they seek to put the  blame on a sudden surge of ultra nationalism and hatred of immigrants. But this is a distorted picture that seeks to blame working people’s fears on their own reactionary ideologies, and misses the way the ruling elites of the society, the !% of richest people and their millions of allies in the upper levels of banks and corporations, media, academia, law, government and politics, who have developed a neo-liberal economic strategy that has resulted in massive loss of jobs and a triumph of the values of materialism and selfishness in daily life, are actually now trying to blame everyone else for the global mess they have made. Don’t get taken in by the media and the politicians and their superficial explanations–read the two articles below please!

Grieving the Orlando Massacre

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True solidarity needs to go beyond standing with the victims of hate crimes, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, xenophobia and all the other variants of hatred. True solidarity should lead us to the imperative to develop strategies to heal the distortions and pains that lead people into communities of hate.