Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/peacemaking/page/33/)
About war and efforts to bring about peace. About changing a foreign policy of domination to one of generosity.
We like to present many different perspectives and highly respect David Glick’s outrage at the present policies of the State of Israel which can reasonably be described as oppressive and ethically outrageous. We’ve presented Glick here in Tikkun even though we disagree with many specific parts of his analysis.
Human life is more important than rocks, but our antiquated U.S. Constitution is smothering our ability to respond to the wider world with that belief in mind and heart.
Today, Muslim Arab residents comprise 20% of the total Israeli population. According to Kav Mashve’s informational videos, though the Israeli government has instituted an affirmative action policy of employing Arabs in government jobs, has provided financial incentives to prospective employers, and funds and staffs employment guidance centers in Arab towns throughout Israel, the employment rates, however, of Arab Israeli college and university graduates within their respective fields persists one-fifth lower than their Jewish counterparts.
Yesterday was Israel’s 66th birthday. Rabbi Michael Lerner reflected on the meaning of this day from a Spiritual Progressive Perspective, and his article appeared on the home page of Huffington Post.
One piece of my family puzzle met a tragic end, another partial segment survived. In both instances, the bystanders determined the balance of power: in Krosno, many, though not all, conspired with the oppressors, while in Antwerp, many dug deeply within themselves transitioning from bystanders into courageous, compassionate, and empathetic upstanders in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
Israeli Minister of Education Shai Piron’s plan to introduce Holocaust education to Israeli public schools starting as early as the first grade has been controversial. Alongside the concern voiced by many parents about traumatizing young children with gruesome details of systematic ethnic cleansing, many begin to question how the continued rehashing of communal wounds shape the development of national identity and what political interests the perpetuation of historical trauma might serve.
Israel has been told by the United States that, unless it stops discriminating against Palestinian-Americans (and Americans of Middle-Eastern descent) trying to enter the country, Israel will continue to be denied entry into its visa waiver program.
The Holy Land is a land of trauma. Old hatreds and fears cling to the Israelis and Palestinians like skins. Here is my Israeli patient, a scar in his side from a Palestinian bullet; my Palestinian friend, shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier; the Bedouin family whose home, made of scrap aluminum, was demolished by Israeli bulldozers; the Palestinian teenager sent to prison for throwing rocks at soldiers; and the Israeli soldier whose job was to interrogate arrested teenagers. Until the sharp pain that runs through the heart of Israel/Palestine is acknowledged, nothing can change.
What’s the ideology undergirding opposition to the construction of mosques in the United States? How are anti-Muslim groups funded? How have Jewish groups reacted when confronted with issues like the proposed construction of the Park51 Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City? Elly Bulkin and Donna Nevel answer these questions and more in their new book Islamophobia and Israel, a sobering analysis of the Jewish establishment’s dalliance with anti-Muslim bigotry.
Add a 227-year-old Constitution with a 60-year-old collective military defense treaty, like the NATO Charter, and America could be at war in the blink of an eye. Will we reform our Constitution before getting dragged into another pointless war?