Nonviolence Finally Gets Some Action on American TV

The most important interview on any global affairs issue the Daily Show has ever had happened last night with the appearance of Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Beltzer, both advocates for a nonviolent solution in the Israel Palestine conflict. There are so many great sound bytes in the unedited version that appears on the Daily Show [...]

Demilitarize This!

Obama’s speech in Cairo threw down the gauntlet for Israeli leaders to respond.  The New York Times observed that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech was as much done for the Israeli evening news as it was for the Obama administration.  I found it boring, infuriating, and tend to agree with Aliyana Traison of Haaretz that it [...]

Obama Talks the Right Talk

Cairo is an ancient city that has become a modern urban hub of the Arab world. It is the primary place to produce Arabic pop music, the favored study abroad location for Americans looking to study the Arab world, and the birth place of Pan Arabism and the Muslim Brotherhood. Ponder all those contradictions for [...]

Peace is Supposed to Make You Squirm

In a recent high profile interfaith dialogue between the Pope and other notable Muslim and Catholic leaders, the Pope announced that political and religious leaders everywhere must honor the rights of each individual to their faith. He further stated that Muslims and Christians are members of one family.
While the Vatican has protested attacks on Christians [...]

The End of Illegal Israeli Settlements?

Good news (maybe) on the Arab-Israeli conflict! The Israeli government has announced that it will cut off all public funding and support for illegal Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank.
Who Are the Settlers?
The settlers are right-wing Jewish Israelis who have built communities in the territories seized after the 1967 war, the Occupied Territories.
The UN [...]

Combating Disfigurations, Part Two

And now for phase Two, the Jewish alternative.
“The Arabs, including and especially the Palestinian Arabs, have been the aggressors throughout the nearly 100 years of the Arab-Israel conflict.”
This quote from Rachel Neuwirth’s article confirms what I had already suspected about her. She represents a faction of Zionist thought that does not want peace, does [...]

Combatting Disfigurations, Part One

Part One
Back in Miami, when I was but a young Odalisque (18 years old, really), I used to visit this book discussion group at the swanky Books and Books in Coral Gables. It was frequented by some very amazing businessmen and professionals who really wanted to talk about a lot if important global issues.
I’m still [...]

Zionism Can Be Mean

It is the week before Spring Break over here at AU, which means it was the week when a bunch of assignments were due. It has also sort of been Jew week in the land of Christa’s class readings and discussions.
In my Islamic Societies and The Modern World and Religion and Peacebuilding classes, we’ve [...]