Price tag attack on J’lem church provokes religious condemnation.
Here is in excerpt from my latest article co-authored with Aziz Abu Sarah.
…So now we have Christian funds from the United States that have effectively supported the misguided second and third generation settler youth who are actively attacking churches and referring to Jesus as a son of a whore. If this is what Pastor John Hagee and other radical Christians intended, then it suggests a rather bizarre theology of interfaith love and care. It seems in reality that these funds are intended to foment conflict, to promote a confrontational, apocalyptic and messianic end to the State of Israel….
Seeing Both Sides of the Holy Land – Forward.com.
This is a great article in-depth on our success in creating a new for profit way to generate peace and prosperity, especially for our peace partners and honest businesses committed to equality of Israelis and Palestinians.
A group drives up to the Mount of Olives and takes in the vista below: the Old City of Jerusalem; the Dome of the Rock in the near distance; the modern city a bit farther off.
An Israeli tour guide begins to explain the importance of this spot to the Jewish people. “King David,” he might say, “walked here.” He will explain where Jews could go, and where they could not,
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Field Notes Blog | National Geographic Expeditions ‘Holy Land’ Partner Scores Top UN Award – National Geographic Expeditions.
“In Israel with National Geographic,” Aziz continued, “we present a ‘Dual Narrative’ tour, looking at everything through the eyes of a Jewish and a Palestinian guide. In Egypt, we’ll be looking at Christian and Muslim perspectives, secular and religious, as well as the history and archaeology you’d see on a typical tour. In Turkey, there are Greeks, Kurds, and Turks, and
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Just a few days ago was the longest night of the year. Another way of looking at is that this was night in which the tide of darkness began to turn back in favor of light. Bunched around this time are so many ancient holidays of lights and candles, of which Hanukah and Christmas are but two. Ancient rabbinic tradition suggests that the purpose of the small light at night is to teach that it takes only the light of one individual candle to illuminate the darkness of an entire room—or the world.
Peering at small lights at night, meditating on them, also has another interesting impact. It makes the blinding light of the morning sun feel almost…
This article originally appeared on the Al Jazeeera English website on Dec. 12, 2011. You can view it by clicking here .
Washington, DC - There is a long record of the grim effects of sanctions in international struggles against those states deemed as “rogue”. Sanctions are seen as righteous instruments, a non-violent way to pressure problematic regimes to change. But when you really don’t care about a country or its people, then your true attitudes emerge in the way in which you use the sanctions instrument of policy.
Let’s take Iraq. Based on estimates of the massive increase in child mortality rates through the years of the sanctions in the 1990s, anywhere from 300,000 to a million…
(A version of this essay was recently published in The Jerusalem Report.)
Across the world in the last 40 years politically organized religious forces have played an increasingly important role in national politics. From India to Indonesia, from Lebanon to Israel, from the United States to Russia, organized religion has increased its impact on politics.
We are also aware of the frightening rise of very violent religion, expressed through terror groups. For this reason, it is easy to misunderstand the relationship between religion on the one hand and between states and ethnic groups and their very secular interests, on the other hand.
Precisely because so many millions of people care about religion, religion has become an essential
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By Dr. Marc Gopin and Aziz Abu Sarah
In his speech to the Central Council of the PLO in Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced his strategy to end the occupation. The President stressed in his speech that he will not retreat from seeking recognition of the Palestinian state from the United Nations. Abbas had been under enormous pressure to withdraw the request for recognition of a Palestinian State on borders of June 1967. He announced that 122 nations are already in favor of the draft submitted to the UN. Concerning US opposition, he referred to the fact that this has not been communicated in a formal manner.
President Abbas surprised many of his listeners when he spoke about…
“…he was surprised by the housing protests across the country, ‘because the economy is doing well.” Time for a Jewish period of rebellion against the macroeconomics of super-wealth. Marie Antoinetzky meets real Jewish people–and their Arab neighbors. This is healthy for Israel and for peace. I love it when GDP and other measures fall right on their face in broad daylight. Harder to refute their nonsense about who is doing well and who is not, when the society is adding millionaires and billionaires like crazy and average people are going homeless. It is ironic, even astonishing, that just as the “Labor” Party in Israel has died under the able leadership of the ever altruistic Ehud Barak,…
THIS IS A REVOLUTIONARY DOCUMENT THAT SHOULD BE READ. THE COURAGE OF THESE ISRAELI PATRIOTS IS SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE NOTED BY THE HISTORY BOOKS, AND BY THEIR ARAB NEIGHBORS
Israeli senior officials and public figures to European leaders: Support Palestinian independence
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s horror show in Washington and the unequivocal support he received from the US congress may mark the end of the peace process. The only alternatives at this time are the Palestinian push towards independence or the risk of another surge of violence. In contrast to recent statements by Israeli and American officials, a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence is consistent with fundamental Israeli interests. Moreover, it may rejuvenate the moribund peace
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Israelis Debate on the Web: Did Norway Get What It Deserved? – Forward Thinking – Forward.com.
There is increasing evidence of a broad gulf between the Jewish conscience of those outside of Israel and the character of a significant portion of the Israeli electorate in 2011. J.J Goldberg is right that you can’t just blame Netanyahu, but it is a fact that perpetual war, stubborn occupations, degrade the decency of any population. A large portion of the Israeli population has continued to move in the direction of dehumanizing anyone, non-Jewish or Jewish, that opposes their Occupation of the Palestinian people. This is a political style and a paranoid style of politics that has gotten thirty five years…
