Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/dharris-gershon/page/8/)
It has become normative in American political discourse for progressive Jews, such as myself, to be labeled as ‘anti-Semitic’ by more conservative Jews for recognizing the humanity and human rights of both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Israeli government is offering full and partial scholarships to university students who dedicate their time to posting Israeli propaganda on social media networks and online forums.
The program, funded by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office, will hire students to become social media warriors asked to target criticism of the occupation and its settlement enterprise, both of which have drawn international rebuke and boycotts.
The largest mobilization of fast food workers in U.S. history, organized by Fast Food Forward, begins today in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City and Flint, Michigan.
According to a new poll published by Pew Research, U.S. citizens are more concerned about the potential violations of their civil liberties from anti-terrorism measures (such as NSA surveillance) than the threats such measures supposedly aim to stop.
Clayton Seymour, a 36-year-old IT specialist from Hilliard, Ohio, recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NSA, curious as to whether any data about him was being collected. What he received in response made his blood boil. Seymour had his FOIA request denied by the NSA, and he isn’t the only one to have recently been denied – dozens of citizens have emailed me to say they’ve received a similar, if not identical, letter. And it’s clear from the exemption the NSA is using that every single American is having their FOIA requests similarly rejected.
Today, I learned that – due to my writing for Daily Kos and Tikkun – I have been officially declared a self-hating Jew, joining the likes of Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman on a list I’m only too proud to embrace (links to which appear below). How did this happen? It’s quite simple and rather mundane.
Let’s get John Kerry to set up camp and demand that Netanyahu prove, before the Israeli public and the world, that he’s ready to sit down for final status negotiations with Palestinian leaders. If we get 100,000 signatures, the White House will respond to this issue and Netanyahu’s claim. If you are with me, please sign.
The fantasy the NYPD has been living in – that stop-and-frisk is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment – is about to come to an end. The question will be whether or not this national, secret stop-and-frisk infrastructure which has been established by the security establishment in this country will suffer a similar fate, eventually. Either that, or as American citizens, we will continue to have our private, digital data be stopped, frisked and released (or not) without our knowledge.
Now, giving cash cannot solve every problem. However, doing so directly can dramatically help the world’s poorest people, who routinely must weigh unspeakable financial choices: Shelter or clothes? Food or education for my children? Perhaps the idea of direct giving in the United States is one that should be receiving more public attention. And by direct giving, I don’t necessarily mean giving to panhandlers. I mean this: if there was a way, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, to give direct donations to people left homeless rather than to the Red Cross, would you prefer the former?
Put simply: Israel chooses to leave security to its professionals. And not to a gun-wielding citizenry. Which is why after a lone-gunman shooting, such as the one which happened yesterday, Israel’s response was not an NRA style call to “Arm the victims!” Rather, it was a call to get more guns off the streets. It’s a call America would do well to heed.