General News

Understanding Obama

By |

The following is a thought experiment: an attempt to understand the Iranian deal by way of logical speculation regarding the issues and facts as perceived by the Obama administration. I am assuming that Obama is not a Marxist/Islamist/Kenyan, consumed by post-colonial resentment and dedicated to destroying the Constitution and the United States. Nor a Black Nationalist anti-Semite, whose most important priority regarding Iran is to screw Israel. I am assuming he is a patriotic American who desires to be a historically great President. I believe he is unsentimental regarding Israel (neither pro nor hostile) – unlike Truman, Clinton and Bush II; more like Eisenhower and Bush I. I believe he thinks that starting a 3rd Middle East war with Iran would be criminally stupid and devastatingly harmful to the United States.

art

Why I'm Not Going to Burning Man This Year

By |

Burning Man has accomplished amazing things, opening up whole new realms of individual freedom and culture expression. At the same time the festival has become a bit of a victim of its own success. It has become a massive entertainment complex, a bit like Disney World for a contingent made up mostly of the wealthy elite.

Culture

Noam Chomsky on "The Iranian Threat"

By |

Noam Chomsky’s analysis is an important counter to the endless drum of US propaganda from both parties about the threat from Iran. So much self-deception is thrown at Americans that we are not to blame when even the best among us begins to repeat analyses that forget or obscure the actual role that the US plays in the world today.

General News

Witnessing History

By |

I confess. If you ask me how old I am, I am not going to tell you the truth. Facebook has a number on my page, but call me Hatshepsut because I am queen of de-ni-al. I do not tell people how old my children are because they will know what a shameless liar I am when I talk about my age. The concept of real age was invented for me.

Politics & Society

Solidarity between blacks and Jews in America being damaged by Israel

By |

I’m an American Jew who is a conscious ally of the black community and happens to also be a supporter of President Obama’s Iran deal. Neither of these things make me unique. Indeed, most US Jews, politically liberal and socially progressive, are allies in the fight against bigotry – 64 percent of Jews think blacks still face and lot of discrimination – support Obama’s diplomacy with Iran.

Politics & Society

Israel's new UN ambassador rejects two states, wants to annex the West Bank "with the minimum number of Palestinians."

By |

Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has just appointed a man to represent Israel on the international stage who rejects Palestinian statehood and wants to annex most of the West Bank. The move simply confirms that Netanyahu’s true geo-political goal is for Israel to gain sovereignty over the West Bank and create a ‘Greater Israel.’

General News

Help Wanted to Pressure US Embassy Official

By |

A plea for legal advice for a friend of mine, Eritrean-American journalist Michael Abraham, who is without means of subsistence in Nairobi because a US Embassy official will not give him the proof of his US citizenship that he needs to work as foreign correspondent or obtain emergency assistance after losing everything in the bloody South Sudan war.

General News

A Letter of Apology

By |

Dear Friends of Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives,
I apologize for the drawing that accompanies my editorial “War With Iran: The Disastrous Aim of Israel and the Republicans” in which I critique Netanyahu and his allies in Israel and in the American Jewish community, who are opposing the nuclear deal with Iran. The drawing depicts U.S. and Iranian diplomats negotiating at a table. Under the platform on which the negotiators sit, a figure representing Congress is sawing away and will likely soon succeed in defeating the attempt to find a peaceful way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. All fine and appropriate. But then in the hands of that figure representing Congress is a sack of money with a Jewish star on it.