A blog dedicated to the two topics usually best avoided: Religion and Politics.With a special focus on Israel/Palestine, Judaism, and Middle Eastern politics.
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How would we incentivize Israel towards peace?
Israel is not dedicated to peace. I think that much is obvious. I have a couple of ideas but I want to know what you guys think, how would we reach a situation where Israel, the state, itself would want to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians?
Israel gets so much aid from the United States that, if Obama were to actually put his foot down and tie some strings to the money Israel received, Israel would have to buckle down and agree to compromise. As an American citizen, I’m all for putting some pressure on U.S. politicians to take a different tune with Israel.
Israeli political circus re-starts: Kadimah has left the government
Let’s talk about Israel for a bit. No, not Israel-Palestine, just Israel.
Israel has a coalition government. Unlike here in the USA, which is a two-party system, a coalition government means that any group can have a party to represent their interests, and once they meet a minimum threshold, this gives the party a minimum number of seats in the legistlative branch of the government, the Knesset. Sounds great, right? More representation for all!
A solid analysis on the state of the Knesset.
“Israel’s Kadima party has quit the country’s coalition government amid a dispute over drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, local media reported. “The decision was eventually reached with an unequivocal majority,” Kadima MP Yoel Hasson told Israel Radio on Tuesday. “We have finally left this government,” he said. Earlier on Tuesday, Shaul Mofaz, Kadima party leader, convened an emergency meeting of his party and recommended it quit Israel’s government. Kadima joined Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party in government only two months ago, with the declared aim of ending blanket conscription exemptions for seminary students. Kadima’s move would not immediately threaten his government as the prime minister still has majority support in parliament…”
Dr. Shalva Weil, an anthropologist and expert on Ethiopian Jewry in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, warns of a sharp rise in the number of African tribes who are “rediscovering” their Jewish heritage and og possibility that millions of African citizens could come knocking on Israel’s door, demanding to be recognized as Jews.
Realizing the latest racism and discrimination towards African immigrants, Netanyahnu fails to understand that they are also Jewish, making an aliyah to their homeland. Oh oops, I think you have to maintain a certain skin color in order to be a citizen.
Actually, the African undocumented immigrants facing deportation are not the Jewish, but mostly Christian and Muslim from South Sudan and Eritrea and surrounding countries. Not that that makes it okay to deport them. But these are two separate issues.
“Certainly in my own life I’m conservative. But in the community I’m a liberal. Because what I believe it what I believe.”
— Darlene May, religion professor and a convert to Islam, speaking at the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem in Winston-Salem, NC, just after Friday services.
Here’s What’s Happening Now in Israel!
June 02, 2012
Today in Israel, thousands took to the street in at least three of Israel’s largest cities, another sign that the energy and organization of last year’s broad protest movement in Israel is reigniting. More than 5,000 took to the streets in Tel Aviv, Saturday’s largest protest.
Protesters were seen holding signs with messages like “Capitalism isn’t kosher,” and “The people demand social justice!”
The 2011 Israeli Social Justice Protest Movement
From July to October of 2011, hundreds of thousands took place in regular protests in Israel often referred to as the “2011 Israeli social justice protests.”
In August and September of 2011, exploded with much larger protests and public support with their tent encampments. The protests paralleled the Occupy Movement and are sometimes included in the movement, referred to as “Occupy Israel,” and “Occupy Tel Aviv.” Whatever the title, the movement expresses the same kind of dissatisfaction with capitalism, the status quo and institutionalized social injustice.
2012
Like the Occupy Movement, things have been quieter for the Israeli Social Justice Movement in 2012 than they were in the second half of 2011. However, over the last month the movement has conducted several coordinated protests, each gaining momentum and progressively getting larger. Today marks the largest coordinated protests from the movement since October of last year.
-R.Cunningham
They’re back!
Dear #Assad, we want the blood back from your hands. Sincerely - #Syria
European countries are discriminating against Muslims for demonstrating their faith, especially in the fields of education and employment, according to rights group Amnesty International.
In a report focusing on Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland, Amnesty urged European governments to do more to challenge negative stereotypes and prejudices against Islam.
The report was particularly critical of countries that have brought in outright bans on face-covering veils or on the wearing of religious symbols in schools.
“Rather than countering these prejudices, political parties and public officials are all too often pandering to them in their quest for votes,” said Marco Perolini, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination.
“Muslim women are being denied jobs and girls prevented from attending regular classes just because they wear traditional forms of dress, such as the headscarf.
“Men can be dismissed for wearing beards associated with Islam.”
The Amnesty report comes two days after the anti-immigrant National Front achieved a record score for the party in the first round of France’s presidential election, with 18 percent of voters backing leader Marine Le Pen.
The report, titled “Choice and prejudice: discrimination against Muslims in Europe”, says legislation prohibiting discrimination in employment has not been properly implemented in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
Employers had been allowed to ban religious or cultural symbols on the grounds that they would annoy clients or colleagues, or that it conflicts with a company’s corporate image or supposed neutrality, it said.
Amnesty said this was in direct conflict with European Union law.
- Israeli Official: 40% on fly-in blacklist weren’t activists
Security service had no evidence that 470 of the 1,200 people whom Israel labeled as ‘pro-Palestinian activists’ intended to do anything illegal, source says; French diplomat and his wife among those whose tickets to Israel were…
