Peace

By Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published several peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East and is a translator of both Arabic and Persian. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment.

His assessment follows of the ten most important steps for the US to take in policy toward the broader Middle East.

10. Helping broker a deal in Lebanon between the March 14 Movement and the Shiites so that a new president can be elected and a national unity government can be formed.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

[This essay is Chapter XVII of the book GODWRESTLING -- ROUND 2 (Jewish Lights). For copies of the whole book at a discounted price, write Office@shalomctr.org ]

‘ What is the relationship between the Jewish family and the two broader families within which it is nestled: the human race and our web of living earth? How should the Jewish people address questions that do not uniquely affect Jews, but arise within the broader planetary life?

One such issue arose late in the 1970s. It was, you might say, the most universal question imaginable: the possible death of the entire human race. Yet for many Jews it seemed to echo their own most terrible, unique experience.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

We sometimes think of diplomacy and negotiation as merely political efforts to match up different political or economic interests. But at their root is a deeper spiritual hope: stretching ourselves to broaden the circle of community.

Through negotiating, through diplomacy, at best we become able not just to compromise, to "split the difference," but to stand in someone else's shoes and figure out how to meet that person's needs while not abandoning our own need. (As Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and probably others have said, the whole point of a circle dance is that everyone gets to stand in everyone else's place.)

 Dear Friends,

Below you will find A JEWISH CALL TO HEAL GOD'S WORLD BY WEAVING WORLD COMMUNITY.

This call has been signed by 82 rabbis and four cantors, from all the branches of the Jewish religious tree. Now we welcome all members of the Jewish community to sign as well.

To do so, please click on the blue Donate button on this page, and on the "in behalf of" line, write in "worldweave." Please give what you can (it's tax-exempt). All gifts are a great help; AND please aim to give as close to $180 as you can - to make it more possible to spread this message.

Please note that the signers commit themselves to go beyond embracing and announcing this Call -- to consult and then to act, as each of us assesses her or his own time and energy, to move the vision forward into actuality.

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MOURNERS' KADDISH IN TIME OF WAR

[Jews use the Kaddish to mourn the dead, though it has in it only one word -- "nechamata, consolations" – which hints at mourning. (And this word itself is used in a puzzling way, once we look at it with care. As we will see below, it may be especially appropriate in time of war.)

[The interpretive English translation below may also be appropriate for prayers of mourning and hope in wartime by other spiritual and religious communities.

[In this version, changes in the traditional last line of the Hebrew text specifically include not only peace for the people Israel (as in the traditional version) but also for the children of Abraham and Hagar through Ishmael (Arabs and Muslims) and for all who dwell on this planet.

Uri Avnery
July 18, 2006

A WOMAN, an immigrant from Russia, throws herself on the ground in total despair in front of her home that has been hit by a missile, crying in broken Hebrew: "My son! My son!" believing him dead. In fact he was only wounded and sent to the hospital.

Lebanese children, covered with wounds, in Beirut hospitals. The funeral of the victims of a missile in Haifa. The ruins of a whole devastated quarter in Beirut. Inhabitants of the north of Israel fleeing south from the Katyushas. Inhabitants of the south of Lebanon fleeing north from the Israeli Air Force.

Death, destruction. Unimaginable human suffering.

Lebanon is facing a vast humanitarian crisis, with the displaced estimated at 500,000.

By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 19, 2006

BEIRUT — Nonstop battles between Israel and Hezbollah have wreaked a massive humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, driving as many as 500,000 people from their homes, according to United Nations estimates.

The frazzled refugees who have flooded Beirut are struggling to find food, water and medicine. They sleep chockablock in city parks, abandoned basements and sweltering schools in the capital.

Traumatized and disoriented, many of them stagger in from the country's south or Beirut's southern suburbs. They are safer here in the capital, but they are also living without clean drinking water, showers or a change of clothes.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 9/27/2005

Dear friends,
Prisoner # 151 reporting out of the 370+ arrested in the White House protest Monday by the US Park Police.

According to the US Park Police who arrested us, this was the LARGEST number EVER arrested by the Park Police. More than 3 times what they had expected.

In the accompanying photo, you see the protest march approaching the White House. just behind the Buddhist prtests who are drumming and ringing a bell, among the front line of clergy are Rev. Dr. Cornel West of Princeton; Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock of Faith Voices for the Common Good; Imam Talib Rashid of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem; Rev Walter Wink, world-renowned Christian theologian; Marie Dennis of Maryknoll and Pax Christi; Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The Shalom Center; and Rev. Osagyefu Sekou , coordinator of Cergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALCI).

4/13/2005

from peacenotpoverty.org

The Declaration below was completed on April 2. It was read for the first time in Riverside Church, New York, on April 4 by Kelley Ogden, of Houston, Texas, the final consensus leader of the Peace Not P