Tag: Journal Articles

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR-USA) joins peace-loving people around the world in celebrating the ratification of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear weapons. Passage of the Treaty happened on an already auspicious date—the 75th anniversary of the United Nations—October 24th, 2020 when Honduras became the 50th UN member state to ratify the convention.

With this treaty, each ratifying country is telling the world to follow them in investing in peace and human security. On January 22, 2021 it will become international law. UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, commented that its passage represented ‘culmination of a worldwide movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.’

The treaty requires that signatories should never under any circumstances ‘develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.’ The accord also prohibits the transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices and the threat to use such weapons.

Nine nuclear-armed powers, including the United States, continue to stand unified against the treaty, and they should be ashamed. The message of this treaty is that the world must do more than just ‘reduce nuclear risks.’ The world must eliminate nuclear risks by eliminating nuclear weapons.

Emma Jordan-Simpson, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s U.S. branch, expressed a note of optimism at the new international law. ‘In the face of potential backlash, the ratification of this treaty by 50 nations is evidence that millions of people across the world believe another world is possible. A billion more people represented by the additional countries that have signed this treaty, but not yet ratified it, represents a formidable momentum toward the rejection of the lie that safety and security can only be achieved through the build-up of world-destroying nuclear weapons.’

‘The world is being ravaged by a lethal pandemic, the effects of which could have been mitigated to some degree by the resources that have foolishly been lavished on the 26 major corporations that lobby to produce more nuclear weapons. Instead of guaranteeing the profitability of the 382 banks, insurance companies, pension funds and asset managers invested in the nuclear weapons industry, we could be using those resources to guarantee medical equipment, income, and food. The fact that such a large group of nations is moving forward to outlaw nuclear weapons is a welcome sign of sanity and hope. I believe peacemaking begins at home. Many have called this treaty naïve and meaningless, yet it serves as inspiration to those with the vision and commitment to work to secure a wise, just, and meaningful future for our children and the planet. That reality of that future rises brightly as we reject the idea of national security through weapons and bombs, and as we reject the idea of community safety through policing and prisons.’

Benjamin Netanyahu has won again. He will have no difficulty putting together a solid right-wing coalition. But the naked numbers may be deceptive. What really counts is the fact that the Israeli electorate is still dominated by hypernationalist, in some cases proto-fascist, figures. It is in no way inclined to make peace.

It has given a clear mandate for policies that preclude any possibility of moving toward a settlement with the Palestinians and that will further deepen Israel’s colonial venture in the Palestinian territories, probably irreversibly.

[Content continues with analysis of Netanyahu’s pre-election statements, consequences for Israeli-Palestinian relations, and future implications for Israeli democracy and international relations…]

One thing is certain. The demand to fully enfranchise the Palestinians now suffering under Israeli rule will eventually prove irresistible. What happens after that, no one can say.

Last March, academics and former policy-makers during George W. Bush’s presidency gathered for a conference at Hofstra University, to provide a retrospective and preliminary assessment of the Bush II years. Many of its top officials, including George W. himself, refused to attend, deeming it a “hostile environment.”

This is in stark contrast to previous Hofstra presidential conferences, and it says something profound about the unpopularity of the Bush administration and its alienation from the academic community.

The most memorable exchange occurred in a plenary forum involving Porter J. Goss, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who resigned in 2004 to become director of the CIA, and Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now. During the Q & A session, Goss criticized last December’s Senate committee report on the CIA’s use of torture as a cherry-picked document that consisted of a series of half-truths.

Goodman responded by quoting from Senator John McCain, who said that torture “damaged American national security interests and the American reputation as a force for good in the world.” Goss said he respected Senator McCain and what he had sacrificed for “our country,” but that McCain may not have read the report and did not have all the facts.

Goodman also asked pointed questions of John Negroponte, a former deputy secretary of state and ambassador to Iraq, who conceded that “torture is wrong,” and said he had urged caution before going into Iraq. When an audience member asked why, as ambassador, he had failed to reign in death squads allegedly supported by a colonel in the US Army, Negroponte responded by denying that the officer had backed death squads, and suggested that “war is hell.”

Carolyn Eisenberg, a professor in Hofstra’s history department, responded by stating that Bush’s decisions did not consider popular attitudes at the grass roots. The Bush doctrine implied the strong trampling over the weak, and she bemoaned the billions of dollars spent on war which could have been used to improve conditions domestically.

The conference provided a good beginning for a historical assessment of Bush’s presidency. It is imperative though to move beyond assessment, as Amy Goodman urged, and to hold Bush administration officials accountable for preemptive war, rendition, torture and the suspension of constitutional liberties, which, she argued, have unfortunately continued under Obama.

For some time now, it has been clear that nuclear weapons threaten the existence not only of humanity but of all life on earth. Thus, Barack Obama’s pledge to work for a nuclear weapons-free world made during his 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently in public statements, has resonated nicely with supporters of nuclear disarmament and with the general public.

But recent developments have called that commitment into question. The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review does not indicate any dramatic departures in the use of nuclear weapons, while its nuclear weapons budget request for the next fiscal year represents a 14 percent increase over this year’s counterpart.

The most alarming sign that the administration might be preparing for a nuclear weapons-filled future is its proposal to spend $180 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex.

[Article continues with five main arguments for nuclear abolition, discussing risks of nuclear war, proliferation, terrorism, accidents, and environmental damage. Concludes with a call for public action toward serious nuclear disarmament negotiations.]

May’s high-profile Washington visit of U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai was only partly about smoothing over what has become his extraordinarily prickly relationship with the Obama administration…[rest of content, properly formatted with paragraphs and cleaned up]

[Content has been cleaned and formatted for WordPress, but is too long to include in full here. The article discusses General Petraeus’s leadership in Afghanistan, presents a hypothetical successful scenario, and questions whether success in Afghanistan could ultimately be worse for America than failure. It examines the costs, challenges, and strategic implications of continued US presence in Afghanistan.]

For some time it’s been a mystery to me why the greatest couple in the 20th century — as a couple and as individuals — have virtually gone down the black hole of memory in the United States. I speak of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States for 12 years, and Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady of the land — and often in her time — called “first lady of the world.”

I am now re-reading Eleanor and Franklin, the splendid biography by Joseph Lash, which won the Pulitzer Prize in the early 1970s. An outstanding work of research, style and compassion, unlike most biographies about political figures that are churned out today with a mix of platitudes and lewd gossip.

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Thou shalt not eat meat? Have I gone completely crazy? Am I not aware that the Torah gives people permission to eat meat and goes into detail in discussing which animals are permitted to be eaten and which are not? And that the Talmud has much material on the laws of kashrut related to the preparation and consumption of meat?

Yes, but I still think that it is necessary, actually essential, to argue this case because our modern meat-centered dietary culture is doing great harm to Jews, to Israel and, indeed, to the entire world and is inconsistent with several important Jewish values.

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Hence, while it may initially seem very foreign to many Jews, I think it is consistent with Judaism and essential to argue that ‘Thou shalt not eat meat.’ Taking this assertion seriously and acting upon it is essential to moving our imperiled planet to a sustainable path.

The year 2021 marks the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It also marks the end of the Second World War, and the liberation of the remaining extermination camps where Jews were being held.

Here in the U.S.A. and in Israel we will observe Yom HaShoah on April 7-8 in 2021 (the 26th day of the month of Nisan) to also bring attention to the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The European Union and United Nations recognize International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 each year in recognition of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945.

Yom HaShoah is a day set aside for Jews to remember the Holocaust. For those of us who have grown up knowing full well what the Holocaust meant, the lives it took, it is a day of remembrance. But for the younger Jews, some who don’t even understand the significance of the Holocaust, it should be a day of learning, coming to understanding the meaning of evil and hatred in Germany and the rest of Europe in the 1940s.

Recently my wife and I were invited to a dinner party for friends we had met at schools our son attended with their sons. By now our son has graduated from college and is out in the world working, but some of these parents still have high school-aged children.

I was talking to a small group at my end of the table when the subject of politics and the two wars we are fighting arose. I mentioned that I thought it far from inconceivable there could eventually be a draft again. Conversation stopped. All eyes were upon me to explain.

I said that with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the U.S. flexing its muscles in our weekly exchanges with Iran, with the situation with North Korea, and with Yemen, the U.S. is over-committed with the small fighting force we have now. It seemed to me that there was no other way to insure a large fighting machine except by committing ourselves to a draft again.

The parents sitting around me were not happy with the prospect of a draft being reinstated, especially with their children at risk. The all-voluntary army we have now seemed to be a better situation with these middle-class families, who wanted to spare their children the horrors of war.

I mentioned the ‘fairness’ of a draft which reaches into all neighborhoods and draws on young men and women to fight our wars. One distraught father responded that a draft would be so unpopular it would never fly. A woman who has three sons in their late teens said that usually a Democratic president is the one who puts a draft back in place, and that she was going to make sure that her sons were not going to go to war. She reassured those at the table that she would send her sons to Canada if need be.

I was quick to respond that Canada would not be an option anymore, that the Canadians were not going to accept draft-evading American young men and women if there was another draft. I then mentioned Wrestling with Your Conscience (available from the Jewish Peace Fellowship office); I told them that it is an invaluable manual which outlines the laws and what to expect in case there is another draft. Also this booklet outlines and explains the process of applying for Conscientious Objection status.

I also mentioned that a new version of Roots of Jewish Nonviolence will soon be available from the JPF. But the most interesting part of the evening was the conversation which followed when someone brought up the idea of how antiquated the concept of war is.

This comment stirred others to ask questions such as: What are we doing in Iraq anyway? What can we accomplish in Afghanistan that the Russians couldn’t do in the 20 years that they were stuck in that quagmire?

When Murray Polner and I decided to re-edit the Wrestling with Your Conscience booklet and to release a new edition (with some of the old essays still included) of Root of Jewish Nonviolence, did I really believe there will be another draft? I’m not sure. But rather than protesting a draft we should be protesting the American involvement in these wars.

Please help get the word out that both Wrestling with Your Conscious and Roots of Jewish Nonviolence are available and they can be ordered from the JPF office.