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| The Charter for Compassion is a call to restore the Golden Rule to the center of religious, moral and civic life. The path to a just economy and a peaceful world requires listening, understanding and treating all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. |
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/1113/Why-Israel-wants-more-Arab-women-earning-a-paycheck
Dear Editor,
Israel really should be seriously concerned about rising welfare burdens... and Israel should also be very VERY concerned about the fact that " Among Arab men, employment rates are much closer to those of Jews, but the vast majority are laborers rather than white collar workers"
Helping the native non-Jewish Arab population of Israel get better jobs is indeed a good thing, but it is not enough: Israel needs to stop funding Jewish "religious scholars" and schemes as well as all the many Jewish housing projects in the illegally occupied territories.
A fully secular two state end to the Israel-Palestine conflict with all the many emotional and financial costs created by that conflict would go long way towards reversing multiple negative trends such as rampant bigotry, religious extremism and war mongering through out the region, in addition to curbing various complex welfare burdens for Israel, for Palestine, for all their neighbors, as well as for the international community.
Israel needs to withdraw its apartheid wall (literally & figuratively) and start seriously investing in a negotiated peace based on full respect for international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab
NOTES
IMF: Arab Spring economies hit by uncertainty Ahmed said that governments in the Arab world and the rest of the world need to find a way to "arrest this situation with its downside risks and try to find ways to boost jobs and growth in the short term and lay the foundation for a private sector-led recovery."
Palestinian villages subject to Israeli mock raids not told they are exercises: Israeli military rejects complaints by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din over 'training' arrests of Arabs and raids on homes
Israel 'plans 20,000 new settler homes in West Bank'
Washington Post 2013: Israeli hard-liners eye West Bank
Israeli Settler Violence Map
Israeli police seized computers and detained 25 Palestinians because of Facebook posts in East Jerusalem on Thursday
- All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
'It is where religious freedom is most dishonored or repressed that the forces of violent religious extremism are likely to thrive.' Katrina Lantos Swett, vice chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom: JFK's call for religious freedom can transform places like Pakistan.
Palestinian Refugees (1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.
"Where,
after all, do universal human rights begin? In
small places, close to home - so close and so
small that they cannot be seen on any maps of
the world. Yet they are the world of the
individual person; the neighborhood he lives
in; the school or college he attends; the
factory, farm, or office where he works. Such
are the places where every man, woman, and
child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity,
equal dignity without discrimination. Unless
these rights have meaning there, they have
little meaning anywhere. Without concerted
citizen action to uphold them close to home,
we shall look in vain for progress in the
larger world." Eleanor Roosevelt
Thomas Paine: "Of
all of the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny of
religion is the worst."
"In every country and in every age, the priest [rabbi/imam/...etc...] has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own"
Thomas Jefferson
"In every country and in every age, the priest [rabbi/imam/...etc...] has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own"
Thomas Jefferson
The Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/) Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
Promote freedom of religion and conscience
throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a
source of stability for all countries
Why Muslims should love secularism: Though secularism is widely misunderstood as anti-religious and iconoclastic, all it means is the neutrality of the state on religious affairs ... "Muslims must recognize secularism as the only real path to religious freedom, rather than confusing it with an attack against religion." Hussein Ibish
The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you
Live
by the Golden Rule
Dear President Obama... Let Freedom Ring
194
Globalizing Martin Luther King, Jr.
This Week in Palestine: In Palestine we have no physical control over our borders, and therefore have no say in how anyone could be treated at any given moment in time. But what we do have control of is the Palestine we write about, describe, and photograph in the folds of this issue’s pages.
Dear President Obama... Let Freedom Ring
194
Globalizing Martin Luther King, Jr.
This Week in Palestine: In Palestine we have no physical control over our borders, and therefore have no say in how anyone could be treated at any given moment in time. But what we do have control of is the Palestine we write about, describe, and photograph in the folds of this issue’s pages.
U.S. 'working tirelessly' to restore UNESCO funding... UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova: "This is not only about financing. This is about values. This is the 'smart power' that is in such need today, to lay the foundations for lasting peace and sustainable development,"
U.S., Israel lose voting rights at UNESCO over Palestine row
UNWRA ... a crucial lifeline for Palestinian refugees
Dr Zogby: Focus on Palestinians’ Rights
"Can you imagine the world today without letters or without music?"
At ATFP Gala, White House Reaffirms Commitment to Palestinian State, Opposition to Settlements and Settler Violence
"The
only way to honor our tragic histories is to create a future
for our children free of man-made tragedy. This means making
peace fully, completely and without reservation, between
Israel and Palestine." ATFP's Ziad Asali: To honor
a tragic history, we must work for peace
"So let us put the narrative of injustice away and find the joy, if it’s the last thing we ever do. " Tala Abu Rahmeh, Palestinian poet and writer
A quest to preserve Palestinian heritage in the digital stacks: Sami Batrawi's struggle to open an online Palestinian Library of Congress is part of a broader effort to recover lost Palestinian intellectual heritage.
Pomegranates in season along the path!
The Arab Peace Initiative
1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.
II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.
Ancient stone villages in the occupied West Bank have become trapped in rural poverty, while investors and donors shy away from a zone of seemingly endless conflict... Israel's restrictions affect much of Palestinian economic life. It controls every access point, which enables it to oversee all imports and exports, creating bureaucratic hurdles that Palestinians say stifle or kill entrepreneurship.
The Israelis also impose strict limits on water
supply, which affects industry and agriculture. Israel has not
allowed Palestinians access to 3G mobile technology, citing
security concerns, rendering many smartphone apps largely
useless....READ
MORE
Jordan's King Abdullah II explains that extremism has "grown fat" off of the longstanding conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
We
Need to Talk... Ziad Asali has proven that
Palestinian-Americans can work within the system as
first-class American citizens and Washington has paid
attention: The status quo is clear: occupation.
Asali's mission is to change that status quo.
"Compassion is not religious business, it is human business. It is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival."~Dalai Lama
"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate."~ Albert Schweitzer,1952 Nobel Peace Prize
"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."~ Stephan Grellet, a prominent French-born American Quaker missionary
The Charter for Compassion is a call to restore the Golden Rule to the center of religious, moral and civic life. The path to a just economy and a peaceful world requires listening, understanding and treating all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.
Freedom for Palestine - OneWorld
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