Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/peacemaking/page/25/)
About war and efforts to bring about peace. About changing a foreign policy of domination to one of generosity.
Yesterday’s (August 4th) conference call with Sami Awad, a Palestinian non-violent peace activist, was illuminating, informative and exactly what we need during this time of horrific violence. If you didn’t have a chance to listen in on the call, we’ve uploaded the entire recording to Tikkun Daily.
If we act from a loving and generous place, seeking to overcome behaviors that were previously perceived as disrespectful and humiliating, that the icebergs of anger and hate (some of which our behavior helped to create) can melt away and people’s hearts can once again turn toward love and justice for all.
Amidst this seemingly hopeless situation Sabine Lichtenfels, co-founder of a peace research center called Tamera in Portugal, initiated what she calls a “vision camp” in the West Bank. It had mainly one goal: to create and maintain humaneness, trust, and equal exchange between Israel and Palestine.
Watch the television coverage. For three weeks the killing of children and other innocents in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military has dominated the news. But it makes no difference to the United States government which can stop the slaughter with a few words. (Five of those words are “your $3.5 billion aid package.)
It is time, way past time, to lay down the weapons of war and to be about the business of sustenance and joy for the entire human family, for all the peoples of the earth.
UPCOMING CONFERENCE CALL
Monday, August 4th — 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT
Sami Awad will be speaking to us from Palestine on the Israel/Gaza War. Sami Awad is the Executive Director of Holy Land Trust (HLT), a Palestinian non-profit organization which he founded in 1998 in Bethlehem. HLT works with the Palestinian community at both the grassroots and leadership levels in developing nonviolent approaches that aim to end the Israeli occupation and build a future founded on the principles of nonviolence, equality, justice, and peaceful coexistence. Sami Awad will call in from Bethlehem, Palestine and will be joined by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cat Zavis (executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives). Conference Call Number: 1-267-507-0240
Conference Code: 241099
Please Note: This Call is for or NSP–Network of Spiritual Progressives currently paid-up members, Tikkun subscribers and Beyt Tikkun members.
Gaza, Syria, and Iraq are pained by that same disease of extremism and conflict. Civilians, more specifically children and women, are bearing the brunt of the injustices. In today’s Middle East, we have sacrificed a generation to the flames of rage.
We present to our readers “Israel Provoked This War: It’s Time for Obama to Stop It” with an introduction by Rabbi Michael Lerner and a recommendation of other thoughtful articles.
This week’s Torah stories remind us of those six Biblical ‘cities of refuge’ -places where anyone could go and seek shelter, protection from bloodshed or vengeance. But in reality there are no places of refuge. The Torah is like a dream. And then we awaken from it – and the nightmare is that there is nowhere safe from death’s sudden arrival, however guilty or innocent one might be.
For Wendy Somerson, every morning she wakes up she feels helpless in the face of such a large scale massacre being carried out in Gaza. So yesterday, instead of passively watching the news, her group of Jewish, Palestinian and allied activists made some news of their own.