Politics & Society

Another Way of Seeing The Ukraine

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The U.S. response to the situation in Ukraine should have been to participate with Russia to reinstate Yanukovich and use the UN to oversee fair elections within the year, the agreed-upon time in the Feb 21 agreement. But the United States didn’t do this; Putin legitimately felt the flow-calibration norms were no longer in place and that this fact threatened his ethnic identification group on or near his border; and Putin moved to protect “his” group, or sub-group.

Culture

A Hundred Years Later

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A hundred years after World War 1, we wonder if anything like this could happen again? Did we learn and absorb its lessons– or can an unintended chain of foolish acts lead yet again to another catastrophe?

Culture

What If They Gave a War and Nobody Paid?

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Does it make sense to work every day for peace and justice and then contribute one day’s pay each week for war and war-making? In order to wage wars, governments need young men and women willing to fight and kill, and they need the rest of us to pay our taxes to cover the cost of soldiers, bombs, guns, ammunition, planes and aircraft carriers.

General News

Ukraine + Flight 370 = Bad News for Neocons

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In America the news is big business. That’s not news. Everyone realizes that the corporate mass media make their money by delivering readers, viewers, and listeners to advertisers. The bigger the audience delivered, the bigger the profit. So corporate news editors have to know what good entertainers know: what the audience wants and how to give it to them.

Politics & Society

Lobby Fights To Boycott, Sanction & Divest From Free Speech

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I wonder what would have happened back in the 1960’s if fat cat donors to U.S. universities demanded that school administrators ban anti-Vietnam war action on campus or else lose donations. Judging by the way some universities are caving to donors on the Israel-Palestine issue, it is just possible that the donors would have succeeded in crushing antiwar activity, cutting the legs out from the movement that ultimately forced the end of the Vietnam war. Fortunately the donors of the 60’s didn’t care as much about Vietnam as many of them do now about Israel so they did not threaten to tear up their donations. Today it is something else Donors across the country, organized by AIPAC and other components of the Netanyahu lobby, are threatening to cut university funding and administrators are caving. This is the same tactic that the lobby has used against the media for years, with special emphasis on National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System which rely on donor contributions to stay on the air.

General News

Mondoweiss & Is Anti-Semitism Dead?

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Lately I have been struck by the raw anti-semitism evinced on anti-Israel websites (most egregious example, Mondoweiss). http://mondoweiss.net/
There is nothing novel about it. It’s not “the new anti-semitism” that the Anti-Defamation League likes to talk about. But the old kind, masquerading as anti-Zionism but manifesting itself as support or, at least, sympathy for every group or individual hostile to Jews: from Pat Buchanan to Hizbullah. The only difference between this anti-semitism and the old-fashioned kind is that it has no impact.

Inter-Culturalism

The Future of Jewish-Muslim Relations on College Campuses

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I’m one of only 11 full-time Muslim chaplains on a U.S. university campus, serving at Duke University. It’s the only place I know where it’s kosher and halal to pray for “the Devils.” Unfortunately, the future of Judaism and Islam on American college campuses is not a sports rivalry where it’s trophies that are at stake.

Politics & Society

Kerry, Anti-Semites & BDS, AIPAC Decline

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Time To Put Conditions On Aid
Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday that he doesn’t believe it is helpful for the Israeli government to keep bringing up the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, He has concluded that all that demand does is make achieving a deal less likely. I guess that kind of mental acuity is what made him Secretary of State. For future reference, Secretary, all Israeli demands not directly related to security are designed to make a deal impossible. Given that the United States is as zealous about defending Israel’s physical security as Israel itself is and demonstrates it continuously, it is safe to say that all demands that Israel puts to the United States are designed for no other reason except to kill negotiations. At some point, the United States will understand that and stop placating the Israeli government and instead use our $3.5 billion a year in aid to Israel as leverage to achieve a deal.