Healing Israel/Palestine

Dershowitz and Yeshiva University Diss President Carter & the USA

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The good news is that Dershowitz and Joel represent a tiny fraction of Jewish Americans. To say that Jews are loyal Americans is almost embarrassing. Of course, we are. But we are also a tiny minority and, historically, a vulnerable one. Dershowitz and Joel increase our vulnerability by sending out the message that we aren’t Americans at all, that our loyalty is not to this country but to Israel. That may be true about them, just not the rest of us. (Note: Dershowitz hates me for calling people like him and Joel Israel Firsters. Uh, ok.)

art

Another Anne Frank and a Jewish Oskar Schindler

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I’m wondering if — 68 years on — “Holocaust fatigue” is setting in, perhaps reinforced by a certain weariness regarding “Jewish dramas” in general, because of the seemingly endless succession of world crises directly or indirectly related to Israel.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Obama's Risky Mideast Fantasyland

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Barack Obama came to Israel and Palestine, saw what he wanted to see, and conquered the mainstream media with his eloquent words. U.S. and Israeli journalists called it a dream trip, the stuff that heroic myths are made of: a charismatic world leader taking charge of the Mideast peace process. But if the president doesn’t wake up and look at the hard realities he chose to ignore, his dream of being the great peacemaker will surely crumble, as it has before.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Democrats Not So Into Israel Anymore

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A new Pew Research Center poll demonstrates that Republicans are much more sympathetic to Israel than Democrats, a wider partisan divergence than has ever existed before. The poll finds that when asked if their sympathies are more with Israelis or Palestinians, 66 percent of Republicans choose Israel compared with 49 percent of independents and just 39 percent of Democrats.
The divergence is significant for several reasons.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Petition for Int'l. Solution to African Refugee Crisis

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We call on the nations of the world to accept their responsibility to share the burden of resolving the African refugee crisis. We hope Israel will play an appropriate role in such an effort alongside other nations that are committed to doing their fair share. With the approach of the 75th anniversary of the original Evian conference, in July 2013, we urge men and women of good will to come together in a partnership of humanity to face this crisis.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Exodus (the movie) A Passover Maundy Thursday Reflection

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When Holy Week and Passover are the same week, the simultaneity reminds us that Jesus was not a Christian. He was a radical Jewish rabbi who called himself the Son of Man, teaching his followers to understand their tradition at its basic purpose – love for God and for all of God’s creation. The Last Supper, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist began as a Passover meal, the purpose of which is to remember Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt. Jesus instructed his disciples to use the table meal to remember him, and he gave a new commandment: Love one another.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Obama's Sycophancy Toward Netanyahu Damaged Chances Of Peace

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Catching up on some of the news stories I missed about President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and Ramallah, it struck me how offensive his words and gestures must have been to Palestinians.
At every stop, he made clear that the United States is 100 percent on Israel’s side. Almost in so many words, he said that the United States and Israel are one.

Healing Israel/Palestine

A Poem on the Impossibility of Passover

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I’d always been on the liberal end of the Zionist spectrum but the more I read about the history of this 100 year conflict between Zionists and the indigenous Arab population, the more I had come to realize that we had become the ‘oppressors’, we were now the Pharaoh for another people. Once my enlightenment on the Palestinian narrative was ‘out of the box’ it was impossible to put it back in. And how could we celebrate Passover without making any mention of this?
These days I use my own Haggadah, one that both acknowledges Jewish tradition and recognizes that it is possible for the victim to become the victimizer. The poem below is an attempt to express the moral question that now surrounds and profoundly challenges our annual commemoration of the Exodus:

Healing Israel/Palestine

Why Did the Sunday Times Run A One-Sided Piece On The Occupation? Because There's Only One Side

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Ehrenreich’s piece neither adhered to the Israeli line nor was it balanced. It had a clear point of view: the occupation is a terrible thing that should not continue.
Does that make it biased? It would, if there was another side to the argument. But in the case of the occupation there isn’t. Imagine Ehrenreich’s counterpart on the right explaining that the 45-year occupation is a good thing which should continue forever.