Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/articles/page/57/)
Peace groups often lack a clear, realistic vision—something tangible to pin their hopes on. That can change now in Israel and Palestine. Many people realize that guns are not going to decide this conflict. And now there is actually something real and concrete to work with.
When John Kerry was asked about environmental issues in the second presidential debate leading up to the 2004 election, he initially changed the subject. Kerry has one of the strongest environmental records in the Senate, but instead of highlighting his environmental commitment, he chose to talk about welfare reform, supporting a balanced budget, and his commitment to national security.
Two pieces of religious literature indicate with special clarity the essential connectedness of spiritual maturity and cultural consciousness. The first call comes from Exodus 3:18. God teaches Moses that his holiness depends on finding holiness where he stands and then by taking that energy to other people for their liberation. The second story of culture and spirituality comes from the tales of the Hasidim: Holiness depends on our choosing the pieties proper to the times. Culture and spirituality, in other words, are of a piece.
How can we frame traditional progressive platform issues in a way that gives them the spiritual reverence they deserve?
One of the casualties of this culture of violence, injustice and war is the loss of our imagination. People across the country cannot even imagine a world without conflict, poverty or nuclear weapons. But our job is announcing a new world of nonviolence.
IF YOU LISTEN TO NPR AND THE BBC as frequently as the editorial staff of Tikkun does, in all likelihood you’ve heard the British-accented voice of Ali Abunimah. The editor and publisher of both the Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net) and Electronic Iraq (www.electroniciraq.net) since 2001, Abunimah has established himself as one of the single most influential Palestinian intellectuals in North America.
Excerpt from A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future by Roger S. Gottlieb. (June 2006, Oxford University Press)
We are, at long last, in the midst of a vigorous and comprehensive critique of the U.S. war in Iraq. People throughout the world decry the horrendous loss of lives, both civilian and military, and are critical of the arrogance and poor planning in this administration’s attempt at “regime change” in Iraq.
To the end of his political life, Ariel Sharon sought to foster the idea that he was committed to the roadmap. In his last interview before being felled by a brain hemorrhage in January, Sharon told Japanese journalists that his policy toward the Palestinians was based on it.
Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil
by Mark LeVine. One World Publications, 2005.
The Modern Middle East
by Ilan Pappé. Routledge, 2005.
We watch a group of five rappers prepare for their first show in their hometown. Dressed in requisite hip-hop style—football jerseys, baseball caps, and the like—the performers primp nervously and practice their rhymes, while they talk about their pre-show jitters. This could be any crew of kids in the world that’s recently found a voice in the global phenomenon of rap music. But the impact hits as we watch them enter a modest club to their friends’ greetings, and then hit the stage after one of them gets on the mic and announces: “We are PR, the first rappers from Gaza.”
The word “Hindu” derives from a Persian way of characterizing the variety of traditions and cultural practices that can be found on the other side of the Indus River, the great Himalayan cascade that now bisects Pakistan. “Hindu” describes persons practicing Vedic ritual or worshiping Krishna. “Hindu” also describes the shared customs of Jains, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians.
There is yet more for us to fear. The burden that debt puts upon the developing world endangers us all in an even more fundamental way. It threatens the air we breathe, the food we eat, the survival of our species. It poses a threat to our very planet.
The strong and vocal presence of the religious Right, with its emphasis on family values and sexual politics, and the virtual absence of any discussion of the environment in the recent U.S. elections, causes one to wonder how much importance religions place on the environment as a moral and spiritual issue. The reports keep pouring in that we are altering the climate and toxifying the air, water, and soil so that the health of humans and other species is at risk.
Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera has been a hotly contested entity since it first began broadcasting in 1996. Now reaching over 40 million viewers, this Qatar-based and government-funded broadcaster now rivals CNN and the BBC as one of the most influential television news outlets in the world. Due to the attacks of September 11 and the increasingly strained relations between the United States and the Arab world, Al-Jazeera’s status has come under scrutiny—more so in the United States than anywhere else. Famously derided by George W. Bush as “the mouthpiece of Osama bin Laden,” Al-Jazeera has come to be regarded as a distinctly partisan source for news coverage because of its critical treatment of both the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the occupation of Iraq.