Articles

Violence begets violence

By |

We at Tikkun were glad to hear Senator Bernie Sanders unequivocally condemn the shooting by Bernie supporter, James Hodgkinson, who injured five Republicans, one of them a Congressman, who were part of the Republican Congressional group going to play a for fun annual baseball game with Democratic Congresspeople in Washington DC this morning, June 14th. In his statement, Senator Sanders said: “I am sickened by this despicable act. Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society, and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only be obtained through nonviolent action and anything else runs counter to our most deeply held American values.” We at Tikkun are fully aligned in our opposition to violence of any sort and condemn it in the strongest possible terms. We do so on spiritual, religious, and ethical grounds. Human life is sacred and should be protected and helped to flourish.

Articles

Wonder Woman, Radiohead, and BDS by Mark LeVine

By |

Editor’s Note: Sadly, Tikkun does not have enough staff to be able to verify the claims made in our articles by various respected authors. Nor does Tikkun always agree with their political perspectives. Our aim is to foster vigorous discussion of issues and perspectives that are rarely aired in the mainstream media, and to encourage an attitude of compassion and generosity of spirit toward those with whom we disagree and to support an ethical and hopeful attitude toward the possibilities of healing and transforming our world. We have not taken a stand on BDS directed at Israeli policies, though we hope to encourage a vigorous discussion of that call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions  in a future issue of the magazine. We do strongly oppose Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank and have called upon people around the world to join us in supporting “One Person/One Vote” for all Palestinians living under Israeli rule in elections to the Knesset, hoping that such a call will encourage Israelis to recognize that they must either actively support the creation of an economically and politically viable Palestinian state independent of Israel or must become a democracy and allow the millions of Palestinians currently disenfranchised to shape Israel’s future.

Articles

Will the Neo-Cons’ Long War Ever End?

By |

June 5, 2017  

America’s Long War or Global War on Terror has taken some ugly turns as the West’s continued war-making in the Muslim world leads to new terrorism against Western targets, with no end in sight, explains Nicolas J S Davies.  

By Nicolas J S Davies

The recent news from Kabul (in Afghanistan), from Manchester and London (in England), from Mosul (in Iraq), from Raqqa (in Syria), from Marib (in Yemen) and from too many devastated and traumatized communities to list makes it only too clear that the world is trapped in an unprecedented and intractable cycle of violence. And yet, incredibly, none of the main parties to all this violence are talking seriously about how to end it, let alone taking action to do so. At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”
After 15 years of ever-spreading conflict has killed two to five million people, the main perpetrators are still getting away with framing their violence entirely as a response to the violence of their enemies. How much violence and chaos will the world accept before people start holding their own leaders morally and legally accountable for decisions and policies that predictably and repeatedly result in massive loss of life, cities reduced to rubble and shattered societies? The neoconservative vision of a “Long War” or “generational conflict” to reshape the Middle East and other parts of the world has, in effect, created its own reality, as its proponents in the Bush II administration promised. The new crony-capitalist order they envisioned has taken root in places where entrenched ruling classes were already predisposed to it, like the Persian Gulf monarchies. But wherever the would-be new rulers of the world – the U.S., NATO and the Arab royals – have made good on their threats to impose their new order by force, the results have only confirmed the soundness of the United Nations Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of force and the urgency of actually enforcing it.

Editorials & Actions

What would war with Korea look like?

By |

Here’s a reasonable question to ask in our unreasonable world: Does Donald Trump even know where North Korea is? The answer matters and if you wonder why I ask, just remember his comment upon landing in Israel after his visit to Saudi Arabia. “We just got back from the Middle East,” he said.  In response, reported the Washington Post, “the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, put his forehead in his palm.” Which brings us back to North Korea. As pollsters working for the New York Times recently discovered, were President Trump to have only the foggiest idea of that country’s location, he would be in remarkably good company. Of the 1,746 American adults the polling group Morning Consult queried, only 36% could accurately point to North Korea on a map of Asia.

Editorials & Actions

Civilian Victims of War

By |

Whose Children?  A World that Cares Little for Civilian Victims of War
www.counterpunch.org
A little over a month ago a suicide car bomb blast hit a convoy of civilians outside of the towns of Fua and Kefraya west of Aleppo in Syria. It is unclear who is responsible for the deaths from th…

 

 

 

Whose Children? A World that Cares Little for Civilian Victims of War

By Howard Lisnoff

June 01, 2017 “Information Clearing House” –  A little over a month ago a suicide car bomb blast hit a convoy of civilians outside of the towns of Fua and Kefraya west of Aleppo in Syria. It is unclear who is responsible for the deaths from the bombing of the buses carrying these refugees, among whom were 68 children. A total of 126 people were killed according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (“‘Sixty-eight children among dead’ of suicide bombing attack in Syria,” Guardian, April 16, 2017)Compare the latter to the horrific suicide bombing attack in Manchester, England, where 22 people were ruthlessly killed.

Editorials & Actions

Israel denying human rights of prisoners

By |

Zeid urges Israel to respect the human rights of detainees
GENEVA (24 May 2017) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on Wednesday expressed serious concern as the mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons entered its 38th day without resolution, and the health of hundreds of participating prisoners began to deteriorate significantly. 

More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners began a hunger strike on 17 April, demanding, amongst other things, an end to administrative detention and solitary confinement. The hunger strikers are also demanding an increase in the number and length of family visits and improved access to healthcare. Both Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations have corroborated many of the complaints of the prisoners and have called on the Israeli authorities to improve the conditions of Palestinian prisoners. According to reports, the Israel Prison Service has evacuated at least 60 hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners to hospitals because their medical condition had worsened, while another 592 hunger strikers have recently been moved for observation to infirmaries set up in the prisons. 

“I am especially alarmed by reports of punitive measures by the Israeli authorities against the hunger strikers, including restricted access to lawyers and the denial of family visits,” Zeid said. “The right of detainees to access a lawyer is a fundamental protection in international human rights law that should never be curtailed.” 

The International Committee of the Red Cross, in a statement issued on 3 May 2017, also noted that the right to family visits is enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and should never be restricted for punitive reasons. 

The Israeli practice of administrative detention is in breach of the key safeguards of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Articles

The Psychopathology of the 2016 Election

By |

 

IT’S NO SECRET that the past several decades have witnessed growing economic inequality and deepening economic insecurity for a very large section of working people both in the U.S. and other capitalist countries around the world. Yet what most analysts miss are the hidden injuries of class that become dramatically intensified when the underlying psychological and spiritual dysfunction of global capitalism interacts with economic insecurity. Right-wing, ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist, and/or racist movements gain support as more people begin to lose faith in the efficacy of democratic governments and turn to authoritarian leaders in the hope that their own fears and pain can be alleviated. This has been happening around the world, not just in the U.S. As a nonprofit we are prohibited from endorsing any political candidate or party, so the reflections here are not meant to influence your voting in 2016, but to shape an agenda for how to build a healthier and more just society in the coming decades. In his presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders addressed some of these economic inequalities by advocating for New Deal-type reforms, but he shied away from any systematic critique of the capitalist order itself.

Culture

Seeing Double: A Middle Eastern Comedy of Errors

By |

In the 1980’s, few Americans knew much about life in the territories Israel had occupied in 1967. Fewer still understood the PLO’s historic offer to settle for a state in less than half what had been Palestine. Yet in 1989, the San Francisco Mime Troupe produced Seeing Double, a mistaken-identity farce that argued for a two-state solution. The seeming unfitness of the genre for the topic proved the secret of the show’s success: laughter allows room for hope.

Culture

The Women’s Balcony–a delightful film

By |

The Women’s Balcony, a movie which captures a beautiful
slice of Israeli life, is a huge upper at a time when many
people are feeling depressed and saddened by the state of our world. The movie captures the way that Jewish women have been
marginalized in parts of the Israeli Orthodox religious world,
and how they mobilize themselves to achieve power in the face
of rabbinic authority that is dismissive of their concerns. Yet this is
not another of those “religion is evil” or “men are jerks” kind of
dismissals, but rather a sensitive portrayal of how men and
women find a way, even within the boundaries of orthodoxy, to
recapture each other’s humanity, to stand up against irrational
rules, and find a path that is at once affirming of women and
affirming of parts of the Jewish tradition that these Israeli women
wish to retain in their lives. It is, in its own caring and complex way,
a celebration of the actual and potential power of Jewish women, and
it’s highly enjoyable to watch.–Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun Magazine

Still Immoral, Still Stupid Let’s End 50 Years of Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank – One Person/One Vote

By |

Family relationships can be very complicated. One can be extremely angry at a parent, a sibling, even one’s own child, deeply disapprove of some of their actions, and yet still love them quite deeply. That is the situation facing many Jews in the Israeli Left and increasing numbers of American Jews who are united around the following demands of the government of Israel:

End the Occupation and end the daily violence against Palestinians that is an intrinsic part of almost every attempt by one nation to dominate another by force. Acknowledge Israel’s role in creating the Palestinian refugee problem (not 100 percent Israel’s fault, but definitely a large part Israel’s fault). Stop calling Israel a “democracy” when it rules over two million Palestinians and does not give them the right to vote in Israeli elections or otherwise participate in shaping the decisions that impact their lives.

32.1 Winter

Overcoming Trump-ism: A New Strategy for Progressives

By |

WE ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED about the path our country is going to take under Donald Trump’s leadership. The racist, sexist, and xenophobic signals given during the 2016 campaign led to an escalation of acts of public hate against Latinos, Muslims, and Jews. Much of what liberal and progressive social change movements have worked for these past decades is about to be substantially reversed and dismantled. We cannot expect that militant demonstrations or protests by themselves are going to help much until we understand more deeply why a larger majority of Americans have not been willing to give liberals and progressives the kind of electoral victories necessary to actually implement the Left’s policies and programs.

Articles

The American Way of War by William D. Hartung

By |

Editor’s Note: Thanks to our media ally TomDispatch.com for this valuable analysis of US spending for war (consistently and not a product of only one political party).  

The American Way of War Is a Budget-Breaker
Never Has a Society Spent More for Less
By William D. Hartung

When Donald Trump wanted to “do something” about the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Syria, he had the U.S. Navy lob 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield (cost: $89 million). The strike was symbolic at best, as the Assad regime ran bombing missions from the same airfield the very next day, but it did underscore one thing: the immense costs of military action of just about any sort in our era. While $89 million is a rounding error in the Pentagon’s $600 billion budget, it represents real money for other agencies.  It’s more than twice the $38 million annual budget of the U.S. Institute of Peace and more than half the $149 million budget of the National Endowment of the Arts, both slated for elimination under Trump’s budget blueprint. If the strikes had somehow made us — or anyone — safer, perhaps they would have been worth it, but they did not.

Editorials & Actions

Wisdom from a man who prosecuted Nazi war crimes

By |

Introducing: 60 MINUTES ALL ACCESS LEARN MORE +
Unlimited, ad-free viewing of 60 Minutes archives, Overtime and extrasToggle

 The Nuremberg Prosecutor

60 MINUTES OVERTIME
When Ben Ferencz met Marlene Dietrich

60 MINUTES OVERTIME
Learning history from a man who made it

60 MINUTES OVERTIME
Ferencz: Rejecting refugees is a “crime against humanity”

What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know
At 97, Ben Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive and he has a far-reaching message for today’s world

2017May 07
CORRESPONDENTLesley Stahl

COMMENTS 94
FACEBOOK 
TWITTER 
STUMBLE 

Twenty-two SS officers responsible for the deaths of 1M+ people would never have been brought to justice were it not for Ben Ferencz. The officers were part of units called Einsatzgruppen, or action groups. Their job was to follow the German army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and kill Communists, Gypsies and Jews. Ferencz believes “war makes murderers out of otherwise decent people” and has spent his life working to deter war and war crimes.  

Ben Ferencz

 CBS NEWS
It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz.  He’s 97 years old, barely 5 feet tall, and he served as prosecutor of what’s been called the biggest murder trial ever.

Articles

Which Version of Islam Should Muslims Follow?

By |

SHOULD MUSLIMS FOLLOW THE QUR’AN
EPISODICALLY OR CHRONOLOGICALLY? AND HOW DOES THIS IMPACTS RELATIONS WITH JEWS AND CHRISTIANS[1]
Saleem Ahmed, Ph.D[2]

Summary
      Many more Qur’anic verses promote violence than peace. Thus, non-Muslims cannot be faulted for concluding that Islam is not a religion of peace, especially when the actions of some extremist Muslims continue to confirm this perception.  Starting as a spiritual movement when Muhammad lived in Mecca, Islam evolved into a fighting force after Muhammad moved to Medina and confronted enemies on all sides. It was only in his 10th year in Medina, after many tribes had accepted his message, that the Qur’an adopted a peaceful posture towards non-Muslims and declared that all its earlier messages (of war) were being superseded by its new message of peace. However, since extremist continue to follow superseded Qur’anic verses, an uphill – but doable and necessary — task lies ahead for the Muslim majority.

Articles

National Faith Leaders Statement on Anti-LGBTQ Bills

By |

I’m proud to be part of this group of faith leaders challenging the anti LGBTQ moves that are being taken in many states in the wake of the Trump presidency. Please read our statement and the full list of faith leaders backing the statement below. As you might imagine, the statement is a little tamer and less addressing the psychological and spiritual dysfunctions that have led us to this moment when such a statement is needed than it would have been if it had just come from me and Tikkun’s editorial board, but there’s always a lot to be gained by being part of larger and more varied groups of people who fundamentally agree with each other on the substance of this letter.  –Rabbi Michael Lerner   rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com

National Faith Leader Statement on Anti-LGBTQ Bills

May 01, 2017

As religious leaders and people of faith, we are committed to creating a society that embraces the diversity of God’s creation and affirms the inherent dignity, agency, and worth of people of all gender identities and sexual orientations. We believe all people must be free to express their gender and sexuality, unburdened by discrimination, unequal treatment, or systemic injustice.