General News

Normalizing Trump’s Authoritarianism is Not an Option

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Such actions by the mainstream media and such highly visible pundits point to not just a retreat from responsible reporting, discourse, and a flight from any vestige of social responsibility, but also the further collapse of serious journalism and thoughtful reasoning into the corrupt world of a corporate controlled media empire and an infantilizing celebrity culture. Normalizing the Trump regime does more than sabotage the truth, moral responsibility, and justice; it also cancels out the democratic institutions necessary for a future of well-being and economic and political justice.

General News

From Trump to Umm Al-Hiran

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As President-elect Trump consummates the victory of his racist and demagogic campaign, Israel’s discriminatory demolition of homes in Umm Al-Hiran yesterday signified another step away from democracy and towards Jewish ethnic domination. Human identity — the sense people have that they are Homo sapiens and morally responsible for other Homo sapiens — recedes before our eyes in both Israel and America. Trump and Netanyahu make clear in speech and policy that they do not see human beings as human beings but only as particular identities, such as Jews or Arabs, Americans or Mexicans, Christians or Muslims.

Culture

“Worst Campuses for Jewish Students”: A Laughable List

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Recently, the Jewish newspaper, The Algemeiner, released its list of the “40 Worst Campuses for Jewish Students in the United States and Canada.” Included in this list of infamy were such internationally known institutions as Columbia University (#1 for hostility against Jewish students), the University of Chicago, the University of Toronto, McGill University, the University of Washington, Vassar College, New York University, and many others. UCLA, where I have taught for almost four decades, came in at number 6. The Algemiener list is scarcely the only one of its kind. UCLA also makes the cut from the notorious David Horowitz, who is always on guard for any sentiments, especially on college and university campuses, that offend his right-wing agenda.

General News

Can a Two-State Solution Survive?

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French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault hosted the foreign ministers of some 70 countries on January 15 at a Paris conference to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “re-launch” the peace process. Mr. Ayrault hoped that the meeting would “reaffirm the necessity of having two states.” France supports “a viable and democratic independent Palestinian State, living in peace and security alongside Israel.” Jerusalem would be the capital of both states. The border between them would be based on the ceasefire lines prior to the Arab-Israeli War of June 1967, with mutually agreed modifications and equivalent land swaps.

General News

Considering DT’s Love of Professional Fighting, His Tough Talk of a New Arms Race Should Be Unsurprising—Especially to Cardinal Dolan, Scheduled to Lead Inauguration Prayer (or, Why the White House Must ASAP Return to Congress the Power to Declare War)

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To this disapproving conversation about casinos, Fr. McWeeny responded with, “It’s not as bad as boxing!” Of course, I agreed. After all, from a Jewish, theological perspective, there are numerous divine commands to protect the body’s health and integrity (from a Christian standpoint, “The body is the Temple”).

Politics & Society

Letty Cottin Pogrebin on David Friedman — Says He is Unfit to be U.S. Ambassador to Israel

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Read all about him here.Neither being Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer nor espousing extreme right wing views remotely qualify David Friedman to serve as America’s chief diplomat in Israel. In his own words.Thanks to APN’s Lara Friedman (no relation) for her exhaustive compilationof the statements David Friedman has made in the past on the subject of Israel/Palestine, expanding settlements, annexing the West Bank, discarding the two-state solution, moving the Embassy, and more. Who needs Christian anti-Semites when we’ve got Friedman calling his fellow Jews “kapos?” Urgent action.If you agree that this man must NOT be confirmed by the Senate, please call both of your U.S. Senators at 202-224-3121or click their email addresses which you’ll find listed here.And do it now!

Culture

Don’t Make A Mystic into a Martyr: Fethullah Gülen as Peacebuilder

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I can’t speak to the causes of the recent failed military coup in Turkey—although there is certainly precedent for coups in the history of the Turkish Republic (1960, 1971, 1980). But I can speak to the accusations by journalist Mustafa Akyol and the Turkish government that an imam living an ascetic life of prayer and teaching in a Pennsylvania retreat center was somehow “behind” the most recent military uprising: they’re preposterous.

Christianity

The 12 Truths of Christmas

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The 12 truths of Christmas are universal truths meant to be savored and reflected upon, for they are the product of over 45 years of my personal quest to deeply feel and understand a state of love and soul consciousness I once felt and knew as a child. I then found the courage to identify it as the Unified Field, a state of consciousness that exists not only beyond time and space but also beneath our deepest fears.