Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/tikkun-admin/page/33/)
Congressman Keith Ellison, who represents Minneapolis/St Paul in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced a resolution in effect endorsing the NSP version of a Global Marshall Plan into the House of Representatives as H Res 439.
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Why the enduring “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel? Cultural historians, who look at symbols and stories more than politics and policies, say a big part of it goes back to the late 1950s, when Leon Uris’ novel Exodus reached the top of the bestseller list and was then turned into a blockbuster film, with an all-star cast headed by Paul Newman. Scholar Rachel Weissbrod called it a “Zionist melodrama.” M.M. Silver devoted a whole book to the phenomenon: Our Exodus, with the subtitle, The Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story. A preeminent historian of American Judaism, Jonathan Sarna, came closest to the truth in his blurb for Silver’s book: Exodus “consciously linked brawny Zionist pioneers with the heroes of traditional American westerns.”
Whoever means to be serious about the possibility that there is a God somewhere needs to be serious about the possibility that the way we worship is no good. The trouble with worship is that we have it so controlled that we already know all that’s going to happen. Quit your worship charades. Let go of your control and let God in.
Pope Francis praises women while asserting that their gender-based skill set is not fit for leadership. He thinks women are geniuses, but still not sharp enough to be priests or govern their own bodies. This flattery strategy will not work for those of us who would like to see women ordained to the priesthood, and we can not allow such superimposed gender norms to be delivered around the world.
Even after waking up to the role that Israel was playing in the region, enough to where I wanted to leave because I didn’t want to have certain things done in my name, I still believed what I had been told about the United States of America. It took several more years for me to repeat the feat of questioning to the point of losing that faith. It seems to me that three things combine to make it so unlikely for people to become aware of and take personal responsibility for what is done in their name in this country…
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in his vociferous opposition to U.S. negotiations with Iran, has argued with particular force against the easing of international sanctions against Iran. His logic? No sanctions should be lifted until Iran abides completely by those international agreements it has been violating in the pursuit of nuclear advancement. Israel’s problem is that this is a similar argument many Palestinians and peace proponents have been making for years: that Israel should be pressured by the international community to forgo its settlement enterprise, deemed illegal by international law. As Jodi Rudoren reports in The New York Times:
In some ways, Israel’s approach to Iran has echoed arguments long made by its Palestinian adversaries.
All the pain and anxiety about money arises in forgetting that our only mission is to love. Detoured from our inner aim, we focus on distrust and power and fear.
It’s been clear to me for about ten years that the primary problem the United States faces in crafting Middle East policy is not so much the Arabs or the Israelis. It is the Israel lobby (led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC but consisting also of all the major Jewish organizations that include Israel in their portfolio. Writing about the lobby’s influence (from the perspective of someone who had spent 20 years dealing with AIPAC as an aide to a senator and several House members), I initially felt like a voice in the wilderness. Yes, there were always people pointing to the power of the lobby but many of those had no use for Israel to start out with. For them, attacking the lobby is a subset of attacking Israel in general.
The Dixie Narrative takes on the quality of the crucifix on the Inquisitor’s wall; the greatest crime has already been committed. We must avoid this tendency; if we give into it, we run the risk of becoming passive facilitators of the very crimes we condemn.