Culture

NSP's Global Marshall Plan: Moving Forward!

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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.

GMP

Letter from a Member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives

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I’ve just renewed my Network of Spiritual Progressives membership, and I’d like to tell you a little about myself. Five years ago a friend and I started an NSP chapter in Mystic, CT. At first, we were a group of women, but gradually men joined us, and we now have an average attendance of 12, and sometimes as many as fifteen people at our meetings. We meet once a month, and each meeting is facilitated by either a member of our group or an invited outside member of our community. Some of the topics we have discussed include Meditation East and West; Israel and Palestine; Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Non-violence, Domestic Violence; Are the Spiritual Paths of Men and Women Different? and The Changing Concept of a Supreme Being.

GMP

Lingering Questions on Obama’s Handling of the Iran Standoff

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Before the next round of negotiations to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff are held in Moscow, those of us who are praying for a peaceful outcome- including the 3000-plus signers of the March 6 New York Times ad developed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives opposing any first strike or path to war with Iran- would do well to keep our eyes peeled not only on what may or may not be achieved by the West to avoid war, but how. Most rational people want to avoid a shooting war with Iran at all costs. Yet with President Obama at the helm, the prevention of such a shooting war has been documented by New York Times reporter David Sanger as pulling the American people into a dangerous cyber war that has never been publicly debated. Furthermore, if one believes the accusations leveled against President Obama by former U.N Ambassador John Bolton, preventing a shooting war with Iran also requires kicking Israel in the teeth every now and then to blunt its plans for a preemptive strike. In April, Bolton made an astonishing accusation against President Obama: that his administration has orchestrated a series of media leaks intended to undermine Israel’s military plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations.

GMP

My Response to News That Iran Advised Assad to "Blame Israel"

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On March 7, when we published our New York Times ad against a U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran, we suggested that one step to implement a “strategy of generosity” as an alternative to the current “strategy of domination” would be for Israel to offer Palestinians a reasonable deal (as defined in my book Embracing Israel/Palestine), which would include helping Palestinians create an economically and politically viable state. One commentator, the hawkish foreign policy writer for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, said that our raising the issue of Israel/Palestine was “stupid” because to him it was obvious that there was no possible connection. But our point is that demonizing of Israel, made easy by its occupation of the West Bank and aggressive militarism, makes it possible for the tyrants in Iran and their allies in Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas to deflect attention from the evils of their own regimes by pointing to the hurtful things being done by Israel. An attack on Iran, we believe, will be used to undermine the “green revolution” that has been partially suppressed by the fundamentalists in Iran already, but which would be forced to join under the leadership of the mullahs to “defend the nation” against these attacks from Israel or the U.S.
Conversely, if Israel were to settle with the Palestinians in an obviously generous, open-hearted, and repentant way, and the U.S. were to launch a Global Marshall Plan, the Iranian dictatorship, the Syrian dictators, Hezbollah, and Hamas would have a very difficult time maintaining the loyalty of their own people. It is not because we support these regimes that we oppose a military response, but because we know that the best and probably only way that a “regime change” can take place is if the people of those countries rebel from inside.

Culture

The Devastating Impact of Israeli Insensitivity

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David Grossman is one of the greatest Israeli novelists and his sensitivity to the nuances of daily life in Israel is exquisite. For those who don’t understand how far Israeli racism toward Arabs has led that country away from traditional values, just read his latest article (translated by Sol Salbe of the Middle East News Service) and contrast it with the Torah perspective articlated in Deuteronomy Chapter 21 sentences 1-9.

GMP

Help Tikkun Place a New York Times Ad Against Striking Iran

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Would you please help us put an ad in the New York Times, Washington Post (or maybe also Ha’aretz and Yediot in Israel, and other media, depending on how much money we can raise) to put public pressure on President Obama to NOT agree to overtly or covertly approve an Israeli preemptive strike on sites where Iran is developing its nuclear capacities? Click HERE to see the ad and hopefully make a donation. As of now, Iran does not have those capacities, and though Israeli leaders are arguing that they must strike now before it becomes impossible to block the development of nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence sources said on Friday, Feb. 24th, that Iran had not made any decision to go forward with developing nuclear weapons. You can view a sample version of the ad below(though when it is layed out beautifully on a full page in the NY Times and Washington Post, it will not look as wordy as it looks now, and there will be room for the names of some who have signed and donated to it).