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Tag: peacemaking

  • Obama’s Challenge to the Muslim World

    Obama’s Challenge to the Muslim World

    By Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

    (excerpts below come from here)

    The historic significance of President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo cannot be overstated.

    Never before has an American president spoken to the global Muslim community. His speech marked a major shift in American foreign policy. Obama directly enlisted a religion to build global peace and to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, end nuclear proliferation and stop terrorism.

    In just a few sentences he demolished the phony theory of the “Clash of Civilizations,” which insists that Islam and the West must always be in conflict. Instead, he declared the United States is not at war with Islam and outlined a plan for how the conflict can be resolved.

    Perhaps most important, he put religion at the core of the peacemaking process. For too long, Americans had come to fear Islam as an

    …

  • BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: AN ISRAELI CONVERSATION WITH HAMAS

    Rabbi Froman, who we have written about before, is determined to convince the Israeli leadership to speak to Hamas. The pressure to do so is mounting, even now in the capital of Israel’s only real ally, the United States. It is especially mounting due to the slaughter of civilians in Gaza, and the war crimes that are likely to be exposed in detail by the Western media’s entry now into Gaza. But Rabbi Froman always has one idee fixe, namely, that religious people need to lead the way into the conversation with Hamas, an odious idea for government people in general. Rabbi Froman is one of the most courageous and controversial peacemakers in Israel. Notice how he empathically engages his Jewish listeners. What one cannot see here is how he does exactly the same thing as he engages his Arab audiences. This combination is a rare gift and goes …

  • Acre

    The tragic riots in Acre that started on Yom Kippur demand our attention. Middle East coverage of the riots provides all too clear an example of the divide in perspective defined by the very nature of the conflict.…

  • Lose Weight and Lose War: The Infinite Paths to Peace

    This is a wonderful video about yet another way that people without any training in conflict resolution or diplomacy can become a part of the solution rather than part of the problem when it comes to global conflicts. I call them citizen diplomats, and I think they represent the infinite and creative ways that individuals can choose to move beyond the boundaries of group hatreds and fears.

    Starting after the Muslim Ramadan and the Jewish New Year, group of Palestinian and Israeli women will be meeting face to face in Jerusalem. Not for political reasons, not to cast blame on who’s right or wrong in the Middle East conflict – these women will be focusing on their waistline, and sharing a simple and common desire to lose weight.

    “A Slim Peace” is a group founded in 2006 by Yael Luttwak, a 36-year-old American-Israeli filmmaker who grew up in Washington D.C.

    …

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