Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/generalnews/page/56/)
Would prefer not to use this at all. It’s a default and can’t be removed.
There’s no question that Israel is vulnerable to attack, and unlike Iranians, Israeli Jews have a living memory of being subject to genocide. … Israel has about 1/10 the population of Iran and a little over one percent of Iran’s land mass.
Tim Wise has done it again. As America’s leading anti-racist educator and writer he’s identified the next greatest threat to racial justice. It’s a new group of people, that according to Wise, enable a similar world-view as that of the legendary racist and Nazi David Duke. He believes they are “are empowering the reactionary, white supremacist, Social Darwinists of this culture.” For even the most timid members of this group - the ones who utter a few words of support – Wise offers no sympathy.
The thing wrong with America is white racism. White folks are not right…It’s time for America to have an intensified study on what’s wrong with white folks. – Dr. King
There may be periods where segregation may be a temporary waystation to a truly integrated society…We don’t want to be integrated out of power; we want to be integrated into power. – Dr. King
I am inclined to think that they [white moderates] are more of a stumbling block to the Negro’s progress than the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner. – Dr. King
The “Decent White Majority”
The standard narrative regarding Dr. King’s approach to racial issues says that he was simply an integrationist who believed that with persuasion, nonviolence and love the conscience of the white majority could be won over and racial justice would be achieved.
When Jon Stewart is called a “smug, self-loathing Jew” by a right-wing Jewish personality (who is often called upon by conservative pundits to wax political), it’s tempting to dismiss the comment as a disgusting tribal dig. When Jon Stewart is called a Judenrat who “would have been first on line to turn over his fellow Jews in Poland and Germany” by this same hawkish voice, it’s tempting – even though this voice has a visible platform – to just ignore the comment as the product of the Republican, FOX-inspired echo chamber. However, ignoring these comments wouldn’t just be dangerous, it would be to allow a growing brand of hatred coursing through America’s veins – produced on the fringes – to continue infecting our public discourse (and public opinion) on matters both foreign and domestic. It’s a hate-filled islamophobia that masquerades as patriotic, as anti-terrorism, as proudly American and Zionist (as though the two are synonymous). It’s a brand of hatred that the current GOP seeks, a hatred it feels it needs, a hatred it foments for perceived political gain at great cost to civil society.
Next Sunday is the last installment of “All American Muslim,” the reality television series on TLC that was the target of fringe, anti-Muslim hate rhetoric. Interfaith authors reflect on the show’s impact and extent their thanks to everyone involved in getting the show’s message out.
What could possibly have caused even some of the most liberal and conservative of members of Congress to vote for such sweeping power, handed to whoever happens to be president, for as long as “the long war” (as the Pentagon supposedly calls it), continues?
What could explain the cone of silence when Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal announced that Hamas had decided to switch tactics and accept peaceful means to end its struggle with Israel? Meshaal even accepted the idea of using the 1967 borders as the basis for a Palestinian state. Yet he was ignored and the offer was called unserious.
We are community leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths who don’t normally look to reality TV to teach lessons of faith and religious freedom. But TLC’s new show, All American Muslim, is doing just that. It’s also come under recent attack from Islamophobic extremists who seem to have forgotten the values on which this country was founded. Rather than tune out in protest, as Americans, it’s time to tune in. On an upcoming segment this Sunday, commemorating the 9/11 tragedy, the audience meets real-life first responder Mike, who speaks of the bond of loyalty he shares with his fellow first responders and his heartfelt sense of loss for those who heroically gave their lives on 9/11.
It has been a year since I started blogging for Tikkun Daily, covering the Christian Right beat and other issues related to ideology. I remember my first post, which called for an end to toxic discourse, in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and Sarah Palin’s shameless commentary before and after. I am often very pessimistic about politics and the future of our society, but in reflecting on the past year, I realized that there are a lot of positive signs. Below is a list of the top ten that arise from my Tikkun Daily beat. 1.
Faced with Israel’s continued settlement expansion in the Palestinian territories, as well as Palestine’s statehood efforts at the U.N., European members of the U.N. Security Council released a joint statement Tuesday declaring the settlements as a principal obstacle to peace and illegal under international law. The joint statement – made by Britain, France, Germany and Portugal – came after the UNSC’s closed-door meeting on the state of the Middle East, at which every member (except for the United States) condemned both Israel’s continued settlement expansion as well as the increase in settler violence against Palestinians, including the repeated torching of mosques in the West Bank. According to Haaretz, Israel’s Foreign Ministry angrily responded by not just delegitimizing the critiques, but by denigrating some of its strongest allies in Europe:
A statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that the EU members of the Security Council would be well advised to exert their efforts on resuming direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, instead of “interfering” in Israel’s internal affairs. “If, instead of contributing to stability in the Middle East through these steps, they invest their efforts in inappropriate bickering with the one country where the independent law and justice system can handle lawbreakers of all kinds, they are bound to lose their credibility and make themselves irrelevant,” the statement said. Of course, the biting irony here is the Foreign Ministry’s claim that Israel is “the one country where the independent law and justice system can handle lawbreakers of all kinds.”