Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/guest/page/32/)
Listen to Uri Avnery’s interview from Tel Aviv and then read some articles from Israel and Palestine, one on the demonstrators assaulted in Tel Aviv after protesting the Gazan War, and one about humanizing Palestine.
Long before Josh Fattal was released from Evin Prison in Iran, it had become abundantly clear to him and the rest of the world that his imprisonment had little do to with himself. His recent visit to Washington, D.C. comes at a crucial moment for the ongoing efforts to peacefully resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff.
We are holding a Conference Call on the Israel/Gaza war that you are invited to join! It is taking place this Friday with Uri Avnery, Rabbi Michael Lerner, and Cat Zavis. Sign up now!
For an author whose sympathies tend to lie with Israel, events of recent years (and recent days) have made it impossible for him to ignore the plight of the Palestinians. And it is in situations like these, where something must be done but it seems there is nothing to do, that the best of people make the worst mistakes. Lobbing rockets into occupied sections of Israel is counter-productive, but non-violent tactics are ignored by the international media and punished by the Israelis.
We cannot use the acknowledgement of injustice to excuse ourselves from doing anything to end it. We have to take the next step – to think about solutions; to work to hold Israel accountable to basic principles of human rights and self-determination; to recognize the rights of those who have been expelled from their homes. Sometimes the problem is understood as beginning with “the occupation” of 1967, but the root cause goes back to the Nakba and the refusal to allow the return of the refugees in contradiction of UN general assembly resolution 194.
Throughout the United States, under the battle cry of “preserving traditional American family values,” conservative and theocratic forces are attempting to prevent multicultural curricula from being instituted in the schools. For many youths, this information can underscore the fact that their feelings are in no way unique, and that others like themselves lead happy and productive lives. This in turn can spare them years of needless alienation, denial, and suffering.
How will you, Israel, manage to rise from the ashes, if there is no soul searching? How if, as Uri Avnery reports, most of your media have ignored the event– or have hidden the details on the back pages? Where is the public outcry? AYECHAH?!
The Berkeley Rep’s performance of Tony Kushner’s “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures” forces the audience to face the presence of human evil and the absurdity expressed in our age-old capacity to inflict pain on ourselves and others.
With still no end in sight to the latest round of violence in Israel-Palestine, UK blogger, Robert Cohen, reflects on why it’s more important than ever to ‘rescue the Hebrew Covenant’.
“God’s way up is down” – Which is why God says, “Go to hell.” Follow the One who was numbered with the transgressors to sit among the condemned, the written-off, the outcast. And while you are there, listen. Because Jesus didn’t go to hell to stay there.