Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/editorials__actions/page/29/)
SELECTIVE EMPATHY
by Rabbi Zalman Kastel
National Director
Together for Humanity Foundation\
zalman@togetherforhumanity.org.au
www.togetherforhumanity.org.au
Selective empathy and relationships with ‘others’ – Vayetzei
Terror has struck ’us’ again. I write ’us’ referring to Westerners who identify with the Paris victims. I feel angry about this attack against ordinary people in a Western city.
A Post-Paris “Clash of Civilizations”?
It’s the Islamic State’s Dream and Marco Rubio Agrees
By Tom Engelhardt
Honestly, I don’t know whether to rant or weep, neither of which are usual impulses for me. In the wake of the slaughter in Paris, I have the urge to write one of two sentences here: Paris changed everything; Paris changes nothing. Each is, in its own way, undoubtedly true. And here’s a third sentence I know to be true: This can’t end well. Other than my hometown, New York, Paris is perhaps the city where I’ve felt most at ease. I’ve never been to Baghdad (where Paris-style Islamic State terror events are relatively commonplace); or Beirut, where they just began; or Syria’s ravaged Aleppo (thank you, Bashar al-Assad of barrel-bomb terror fame); or Mumbai (which experienced an early version of such a terror attack); or Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, now partly destroyed by the U.S.-backed Saudi air force; or Kabul, where Taliban attacks on restaurants have become the norm; or Turkey’s capital, Ankara, where Islamic State suicide bombers recently killed 97 demonstrators at a peace rally. But I have spent time in Paris. And so, as with my own burning, acrid city on September 11, 2001, I find myself particularly repulsed by the barbaric acts of civilian slaughter carried out by three well-trained, well-organized, well-armed suicide teams evidently organized as a first strike force from the hell of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. The Paris attacks should not, however, be seen primarily as acts of revenge from a distinctly twisted crew, even though one of the murderers reportedly shouted, “You killed our brothers in Syria and now we are here.” Instead, they were clearly acts of calculated provocation meant to reshape our world in grim ways. Worse yet, their effectiveness was pre-guaranteed because, as has been true since 9/11, the leaders of such terror groups, starting with Osama bin Laden, have grasped the dynamics of our world, of what makes us tick and especially what provokes us into our own barbarous acts, so much better than our leaders, our militaries, or our national security states have understood them (or, for that matter, themselves). Here in a nutshell is what bin Laden grasped before 9/11: with modest millions of dollars and a relatively small number of followers, he and his movement couldn’t hope to create the world of their fervid dreams. If, however, he could lure the planet’s “sole superpower” into stepping into his universe, military first, it would change everything and so do his work for him. And indeed (see: invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq), an operation mounted for an estimated $400,000 to $500,000, using 19 dedicated (mostly Saudi) followers armed only with paper cutters, did just that. And it’s never stopped since because, just as bin Laden dreamed, Washington helped loose al-Qaeda and its successor outfits from the constraints of a more organized, controlled world. In these last 14 years of failed wars and conflicts of every sort, American military power, aided and abetted by the Saudis, the British, the French, and other countries on a case-by-case basis, essentially fractured the Greater Middle East. It helped create five failed states (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen), worlds in which terror groups could thrive and in the chaos of which they could attract ever more recruits.
Race, Racism, & The Spirit:
Our Lives in American Society
By Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
[This exploration of the nature of race and racism in American society, as seen in the context of personal experience, social science, and spiritual tradition, was given as a talk to students and some faculty of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City, by Rabbi Mordechai Liebling. Rabbi Liebling is director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and a member of the Board of The Shalom Center. This was reprinted from the Shalom Center’s email with permission from Rabbi Liebling);
Shalom, thank you
It is an honor and privilege to address you Jewish leaders and Jewish leaders in formation. I appreciate the opportunity and feel humbled by the responsibility. Responsibility because racism has been called variously the core wound of American society, the cancer at our core, our original sin, deepest shadow, fundamental contradiction – choose your language- they all convey the same message that the United States can not and will not be a spiritually healthy just society unless and until we put an end to all forms of racism. I will address today some of the different aspects of racism, the process of racialization, how racism and its corollary white privilege constrict the spiritual growth of each one of us and some suggestions of what we can do, in between you will have opportunity to speak with each other and at the end there will be time for some questions.
Editor’s note: In light of the Obama Administration’s 7 years of aggressive searches to find “undocumented” workers and arrest and expel them (more expulsions than the last three presidential administrations combined) and in light of the failure of the U.S. and most of the world community to open its doors more generously to the refugees from countries terrorized by Al Queda and the ISIL–Islamic State or by the drone attacks and bombings by those countries waging war against ISIL or Al Queda or against the Syrian dictatorship of Assad, I thought it appropriate for us to reread Catholic liberation theologian Leonrdo Boff’s recent statement about the moral obligations to hospitality (an obligation deeply embedded in Jewish law and embodied in the Biblical figure of Abraham who is said to have opened his tent in all four directions so he could spot anyone passing by who might need hospitality which he generously offered). In this regard, the decision of many U.S. politicians, including Republican governors of many states, to close their doors to Syrian refugees is a particularly offensive response to the ISIS terrorist acts in Paris, since the refugees are themselves fleeing these same terrorists.–Rabbi Michael Lerner
Hospitality: everyone’s right and everyone’s duty
Leonardo Boff
Theologian-Philosopher
As always, the global refugee problem presents an ethical imperative of hospitality at both the national and international levels. We are witnessing a human migration much as occurred during the decay of the Roman Empire. Millions of people seek new homelands so as to survive, or simply to escape the wars and to find a modicum of peace. Hospitality is the right of all and the duty of all. Immanuel Kant, (1724-1804), clearly saw that the interdependence between the rights and duties and hospitality, were necessary in order to construct what he called “perpetual peace” (Zum ewigen Frieden, 1795; see Jacob Ginsburg, Perpetual Peace,La paz perpetua, 2004).
AFTER PARIS: A World That Has Lost Its Ethical Direction & Spiritual Foundation and a Media that Cheerleads for Fear and Militarism
By Rabbi Michael Lerner
For many years, we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have warned that the domination and power-over strategies to achieve “homeland security” have been tried for over 7,000 years and all they have produced is more wars and violence, interspersed with short periods of peace that have, with the help of the sensationalist and natioanlist media and professional apologists for the existing inequalities, managed to hide from public view the degree of covert structural violence that every system of inequality and domination embodies. (Please read Cynthia Moe-Lobeda’s important study Resisting Structural Evil–Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation published by Fortress Press to get a full understanding of how deeply our own daily lives in Western societies are built on the exploitation and impoverishment of people around the world). We have called for a new approach to “homeland security”—the Strategy of Generosity, as manifested in part in our proposed Global Marshall Plan (please download the full version and read it at www.tikkun.org/gmp). Until the powerful countries of the world are seen as mainly driven by a desire to care for the well-being of everyone else on the planet and the wellbeing of the planet itself, and care not only out of self-interest but also out of a new consciousness in which we all come to truly understand our mutual interdependence and oneness, what we saw in Paris this past week is destined to be an increasing reality in the coming decades. The Global Marshall Plan we support would have the U.S. take the leadership with the advanced industrial countries of the world in working with local communities throughout the developing world, donating 1-2% of our Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty to once and for all end (not must ameliorate) global poverty, hunger, homelessness, inadequate education, and inadequate health care–and repair the damage done to the environment of 150 years of irresponsible forms of economic development sponsored by colonial and imperialist and materialist oriented capitalist, socialist and communist societies alike.
The New Abnormal–Reflections on Paris
Posted on November 14, 2015by Prof. Michael Nagler
We are hearing expressions of shock and sympathy for Paris on all sides, which is appropriate as far as it goes – but it’s not nearly enough. It is clear now that instead of lurching from crisis to crisis, we need to get off this disastrous path. After expressing our condolences we should be saying, “Let us now pledge ourselves to get to the root of this problem” – and have the courage to follow that inquiry wherever it leads. When Mahatma Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule in 1909, as it were firing his first shot across the bow of the empire that he would finally sink, he addressed the now classic essay not to the British (the original was published in Gujarati; only when the British banned it did he bring out the English translation, ironically, and reach a vastly greater audience) but to his own countrymen. And he told them, “The British did not take India; we gave it to them.” His purpose was not to offend but to awaken them, namely to the fact that they were not helpless, as they supposed.
Editor’s Note: Sean Kelly presents a brief overview of the evolution of the consciousness of the universe and its current crisis as humanity continues to destroy the life-support system of Earth. It is a deep and profound article worthy of reading fully to the end. –Rabbi Michael Lerner
Cosmological Wisdom and Planetary Madness
Sean Kelly
Introduction:
It is a bitter irony of our times that, just as the collaborative effort of natural scientists and other researchers have revealed the outlines, at least, of a comprehensive cosmology,[i] we should find ourselves plunged into a maelstrom of unparalleled planetary madness. The madness: runaway catastrophic climate change, an accelerating mass extinction of species and generalized ecological deterioration, and a brutal, empire-driven regime of planetary apartheid. The wisdom: among the proposals for “Big History” type grand narratives[ii], Swimme and Berry’s The Universe Story (1992) that I will draw from in these pages.
J
Jay Janson says: Veterans Day: Honor Capitalism’s Genociders Assassins Invaders Bombers of Children? Hell No! November 10, 2015
[
Editor’s Note: In sharing articles in Tikkun, we often print articles with which we don’t agree
to make Tikkun a lively forum for ideas
. This
article
is a classic case. Though Jay Janson has a very strong point in critiquing the way that veterans lives have been sacrificed to serve the imperial goals of America’s elites (as has been true for veterans in almost every war in history as people died to serve their own country’s elites), it is not true when thinking about the veterans who served the North in the Civil War nor those who fought the Second World War.
Editor’s Note: From time to time I will be posting articles here from TomDispatch. http://www.tomdispatch.com, a very wonderful website run by Tom Engelhardt who works with The Nation magazine. Sometimes I will include commentary from Tom Engelhnardt about the piece he has chosen to highlight, sometimes just the article itself. In the article on Kissinger below, you will first find Engelhardt’s comment, then the article about Kissinger by Greg Grandin. This piece seemed particularly appropirate to put on our Tikkun website on Kristallnacht annviersary–the anniversarly of the 1938 assault on Jews by Nazis that moved the fascist attack from racist discrimination to widespread violence against Jews in Germany on November 9-10 1938. Henry Kissinger wears his Jewish identity proudly, yet played an important role in the genocidal war against the Vietnamese, a war that I personally struggled aginst (eventually ending up in federal penitentiary for my non-violent role the anti-war movement).
Editor’s note: Kristallnacht is the name of the night and following day Nov.9-10 1938 when the Nazis launched full scale assault on Jewish stores, Jewish homes, and Jews walking the street in Germany. From the time Hitler took power in 1933 there had been increasing assaults on the rights of Jews (banning them from the universities, firing them from teaching jobs, jobs as doctors in hospitals, working for any government funded program or institution, forcing them to wear yellow stars) but it was only at Kristalnacht that every Jew in Germany was forced to face the fact that their lives were in danger. Around the world Jews and humanity had been alerted that the Nazis would stop at nothing in their assault on Jews. No wonder, then, that so many Jews today feel sickened when they read of physical assaults in Israel itself on random Palestinians and random refugees from Africa and Asia residing in Israel. Joe Newman doesn’t touch that in what he writes below, but his reminder that “Never Again” might apply to never again for anyone not just Jews, brings to mind the way that some Jews are willing to close their eyes to the suffering that a segment of the Jewish people, in the name of the entire Jewish people, are perpetrating against another people! But there the comparison must stop–Israel is not acting like the Nazis were–Palestinians living in Israel still have employment, vote, and live in conditions far better than most people living in surrounding Arab countries (and for that reason, Israeli Arabs make clear that their demand is for equal treatment, NOT to move to an Arab country).
Editor, Tikkun Magazine
Obama and Netanyahu’s “Make Nice” Meeting: Bad for Peace, Bad for Israel
Posted: 11/09/2015 8:24 am EST Updated: 11/09/2015 8:59 am EST
Editor’s Note: Though I published this in the Huffington Post before the meeting, the outcome was exactly as predicted. Netanyahu affirmed his “commitment” to a two state solution, which he has said for years as he continues to expand Israeli settlement in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and continues with a cabinet filled with overt racists against Palestinians and other refugees. Obama promised him huge new military hardware, as predicted. Netanyahu is paid off for being obnoxious toward the President and arrogant toward the Palestinian people (the latter being the ultimate losers in all this). Of course, I have compassion for Obama, see him as a decent human being, just as I have compassion for the Jewish people still so dominated by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and seeing the Palestinians through the framework of our past suffering.
Editor’s note: Not everyone is rejoicing at Hillary Clinton’s choice to embrace the Israeli government
at the moment when Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama. See below Hillary’s statement the statement from one prominent Israeli critic of the Occupation. How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu
Hillary Clinton
November 4, 2015
We have recently marked the 20th anniversary of the assassination of then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, a good friend, a courageous warrior and a great statesman. This somber anniversary, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington on November 9, is an opportunity to reaffirm the unbreakable bonds of friendship and unity between the people and governments of the United States and Israel. The alliance between our two nations transcends politics.
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We at Tikkun’s Network of Spiritual Progressives are part of the Citizens Trade Campaign coalition of forces that have challenged the Clinton Administration and now the Obama Administration in their proclivity to create trade policies that are destructive to the environment and to the well being of working people here and around the world. The latest such is the Trans-Pacific Partnership which, while having some positive aspects, would restrict countries from passing important environmental and health care related legislation that might interfere with corporate profits. This latest effort to give multinational corporations powers that supersede the powers of national governments is one more reason we need the ESRA–Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ESRA would, among many other important measures, overturn any such international agreement that has been approved by the U.S. government or will be approved in the future–please help us get it endorsed after you read it at www.tikkun.org/esra.
Rabbi Michael Lerner issued the following response about the newly released full version of the TPP:
The TPP agreement violates a basic command of the Bible: that human beings must protect and act as stewards for the earth. Instead, it provides a path for corporations to overturn the most moderate environmental restraints on corporate avarice, much less the far more stringent actions that environmentalists tell us are needed to even begin to reverse climate change and preserve the earth for future generations.
Tikkun does not endorse candidates or political parties. But we do seek to inform you of perspectives that have been publlicly articulated. Here is Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, articulating her stand on what she would do were she to be president. We have repeatedly tried to get an interview with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and several Republic Party candidates on these and related issues without any success. So the best we can say is that our readers should compare Jill Stein’s statement with others running in all of the political parties, particularly anyone whom you have chosen to support for the nomination to be your party’s candidate for president of the U.S.
Dr. Jill Stein on Israel, Palestine and The Middle East
Green Party Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein
says U.S. Policy Towards Israel, Palestine and the Middle East Must Change.
Netanyahu: Have You No Shame? By Rabbi Michael Lerner Oct. 25, 2015
Israel’s Prime Minister attributing the Holocaust to Palestinian influence over Hitler is a “Blood Libel” level lie. In the Middle Ages, some Christians claimed that Jews were kidnapping Christian children and using their blood to make Passover Matzah (which in Jewish law would make the Jewish kidnapper a murderer, deserving the death penalty, and the Matzah itself unkosher, because Jews are forbidden to eat blood). This “blood libel” lie has been repeated by anti-Semites and sometimes is accompanied in bookstores with a book called “The Elders of Zion,” who purportedly met and planned to rule the world.