Ethics

Dwight Eisenhower understood that "people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our government. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days, governments had better get out of their way and let them have it!"

One of those people on the forefront is the Anglican Reverend Naim Ateek, who has been seeking peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land by seeking justice; an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine and equal human rights for all people.

The Palestinian Ateek, became a refugee in 1948. He founded the Jerusalem based and internationally supported SABEEL organization in response to his experiences in 1948, the 1967 War and the first intifada [translates to: rise up and cast off] that erupted on December 9, 1987.

The theology of Sabeel is a theology that arose from the oppression of Palestinians under the state of Israel and also a theology of liberation from the watered down theology that keeps many Christians too comfortable.

Sabeel's liberation theology is rooted in righting the injustices inflicted upon the indigenous people of the Holy Land.

Sabeel offers an ecumenical and interfaith theology that seeks to unite the World Wide Body of Christ to the suffering of their sisters, brothers and cousins in the family of Father Abraham in Israel Palestine.

With "the fierce urgency of now" Jimmy Carter writes of reasons why recent "public opinion polls in the Arab world revealed that the United States was seen as a greater threat than Iran, and a successful peace effort in Palestine could be the most important factor in improving its citizens' opinion of America."[Carter, Page 101]

Due to their lack of political and military power, the Palestinians have been dependent on the international community to survive; and they have commitments from the UN, the International Quartet and the Arab League who have all dreamt a dream of a sovereign peaceful Palestinian state beside a secure Israel.

The Carter Center Team in Ramallah reported that the failure of negotiations post Annapolis "may well mark an end to the two-state solution for Israel Palestine…The conclusion seems to be that even second class Israeli citizenship is preferable to unending occupation, or in other terms, the future may lie in one state."[Carter, Page 160-161]

Palestinian negotiator, Ahmed Qurei predicted, "If Israel continues to reject our propositions regarding the borders [of a future Palestinian state], we might demand Israeli citizenship."

A Fatah leader quipped, "Where will a Palestinian state rise up? The Israeli nation is inside us already."

Greetings -- I am Desmond Ravenstone, a Unitarian Universalist with an interest in the intersection of sexual ethics with spirituality and politics.

You can find my blog at http://ravenstonesreflections.blogspot.com

Feel free to read, post comments and/or cross-post my musings to other sites. You can also email me at desmondravenstone@yahoo.com.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Please Join The Boston Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, The Mass. Chapter of The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and FOSNA/Friends of Sabeel [THE WAY] who are ecumencial Christians for Justice and Peace

At a large, area-wide mobilization

Tearing Down Walls – Building Bridges: Protesting Apartheid in Israel/Palestine
October 27th, 2007 – 3:00 p. m.
Copley Square, Boston

Hear activists from Israel, Palestine, South Africa and the U. S. address the issues of inequality, violence and peace
in Israel/Palestine

Take a stand for justice and human rights for everyone in Israel/Palestine!!!!!!!

“We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people and say:
peace is possible, peace based on justice is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace,
because it is God's dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers.” –

Published first on 09/28/07 @
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/09/28/p1982...

The Political Question and Moral Accountability
eileen fleming

"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." ~ Unamuno, wall graffiti in Paris, May 1968

Last week in the Al Bureij refugee camp, in central Gaza, a USA made Caterpillar bulldozer was the weapon that brutally murdered 19 year old Mahmoud Khafafi. Bulldozers and tanks entered Mahmoud's farmland village at dawn and uprooted olive trees, razed the land and demolished thirteen homes. Young Palestinians threw stones at the tanks, which began shooting in return. The victim ran behind an olive tree and when the bulldozer began to uproot the tree, Mahmoud was shot in the neck, yet attempted to flee until the blade cut his head off and his brains spilled out. [http://www.mezan.org human rights organization in Gaza gathered the details]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
URGENT ACTION

PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 15/062/2007
UA 247/07 Fear for Safety 21 September 2007
ISRAEL/
OCCUPIED 1.5 Million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
PALESTINIAN
TERRITORIES (OPT)

WAWA Blog September 2, 2007

Prophets on Apartheid: Part 1

According to a UN report, Haaretz columnist Danny Rubinstein admitted that "Israel today was an apartheid State with four different Palestinian groups: those in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians, each of which had a different status...even if the wall followed strictly the line of the pre-1967 border, it would still not be justified. The two peoples needed cooperation rather than walls because they must be neighbors." [1]

WAWA Blog September 1, 2007

My favorite secular Jewish prophet, American Israeli and founder of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a 2006 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize wrote...

Right of Reply: There's no correct way to be pro-Israel

JEFF HALPER , THE JERUSALEM POST
Aug. 28, 2007

A funny thing happened to me on my way from Tel Aviv to New York a couple months ago. I was sitting in my aisle seat reading a book, when all of a sudden I became aware of the tall figure of a man looming over me.

As a member of the TIKKUN [Hebrew for heal, mend and transform the world] community of supporters, I was encouraged to learn its founder and visionary Rabbi Lerner has visited this site.

In his honor I offer you my experience at TIKKUN'S first conference for spiritual progressives very slightly fictionalized: everything happened just as reported, but I told it through the fictional character of Jack Hunter, for I am an Irish American dissenter and story teller.

THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN…

“The Revolution starts now, when you rise above your