Healing Israel/Palestine

The Mideast is America's New Wild West

By |

Why the enduring “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel? Cultural historians, who look at symbols and stories more than politics and policies, say a big part of it goes back to the late 1950s, when Leon Uris’ novel Exodus reached the top of the bestseller list and was then turned into a blockbuster film, with an all-star cast headed by Paul Newman. Scholar Rachel Weissbrod called it a “Zionist melodrama.” M.M. Silver devoted a whole book to the phenomenon: Our Exodus, with the subtitle, The Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story. A preeminent historian of American Judaism, Jonathan Sarna, came closest to the truth in his blurb for Silver’s book: Exodus “consciously linked brawny Zionist pioneers with the heroes of traditional American westerns.”

Healing Israel/Palestine

Tom Friedman On Opposition To Iran Deal: It's The Lobby, Stupid

By |

It’s been clear to me for about ten years that the primary problem the United States faces in crafting Middle East policy is not so much the Arabs or the Israelis. It is the Israel lobby (led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC but consisting also of all the major Jewish organizations that include Israel in their portfolio. Writing about the lobby’s influence (from the perspective of someone who had spent 20 years dealing with AIPAC as an aide to a senator and several House members), I initially felt like a voice in the wilderness. Yes, there were always people pointing to the power of the lobby but many of those had no use for Israel to start out with. For them, attacking the lobby is a subset of attacking Israel in general.

Culture

The Spiritual Truth of JFK (As Movie and Reality)

By |

To put the Kennedy assassination in a historical perspective that is both spiritual and political, we here reprint Peter Gabel’s brilliant article on the subject, “The Spiritual Truth of JFK (As Movie and Reality),” originally published in Tikkun in March/April 1992 in response to the original release of Stone’s film.

Empathy

My Response to Tom Rogan's "How President Obama Can Achieve a Nuclear Deal with Iran"

By |

The Guardian’s recent article, “How President Obama can achieve a nuclear deal with Iran,” speaks about why a nuclear deal with Iran is urgently needed, and what Iran must give up. This Guardian piece is a little weak on what the United States and the Western powers must offer as part of the deal. When read by itself, it repeats the “tough-minded” and largely blind to emotional nuance approach that has made the West’s dealings with Iran so fruitless:

General News

Q & A with Tom Pickering

By |

Tom Pickering, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Israel, Russia and four other nations discusses the current challenges facing the United States in the Mideast, including efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Christianity

Micah Meets Mark Braverman

By |

An interview brought to you by Micah’s Paradigm Shift of Mark Braverman. Braverman, who has deep family roots in Israel, has developed what he describes as a ‘calling’ to speak to the Church in a spirit of Christian teaching that sees Jesus as a radical Jew rebelling against the Jewish establishment and the Roman occupation of first century Palestine.

General News

American Jews Are Becoming Increasingly Critical of Israel & Its Settlement Enterprise

By |

A Pew Survey has found that American Jews are becoming increasingly critical of Israel and its leaders’ efforts to make peace with Palestinians. This shift is occurring among American Jews under 30 who are beginning to see the settlements as self-destructive and disagree with the amount of United States support for Israel, considering the country’s policies. Could this group be the influence the US needs to exert more pressure on Israel policy?

Culture

Simon Schama and the Error of Jewish Silence

By |

In Britain, the BBC has recently finished airing a landmark documentary ‘The Story of the Jews’, written and presented by the British historian Simon Schama. The ratings were good and the praise was high from both the mainstream media critics and from most British Jews. It was a highly passionate and emotional telling of ‘our story’. This time, unlike Schama’s previous television histories, it was personal. I had certainly enjoyed much of Schama’s presentation until he said this:
“…in some sense if you don’t live in Israel – I don’t live in Israel – you’re morally obliged to be nearly silent, nearly silent.”