In this mailing: by Denis MacEoin • January 27, 2016 at 5:00 am "Christian children are massacred, and everything is done in plain sight. Islamists proclaim on a daily basis that they will not stop until Christianity is wiped off the face of the earth. So are the world Christian bodies denouncing the Islamic forces for the ethnic cleansing, genocide and historic demographic-religious revolution their brethren are suffering? No. Christians these days are busy targeting the Israeli Jews." — Giulio Meotti, Italian journalist. The Kairos document seems to be so egregiously discriminatory that in 2010, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) declared it "supersessionist" and "anti-Semitic." We must ask why a presentation of the work of Kairos in an Anglican church made no reference whatever to the many associations with extremism and denial of a more rational Christian approach to the problems faced by Palestinian Christians.
 Rifat Odeh Kassis, co-author and general coordinator of the Kairos Palestine initiative, is pictured above giving an interview to Al-Manar TV, the official TV channel of Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorist organization. (Photo source: Kairos Palestine) Last September, during the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel -- an initiative of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF) of the World Council of Churches, St. Thomas' Church in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, hosted an event titled "Wall Will Fall". For anyone unfamiliar with the history, legal issues, and distortions of the Israeli-Arab and Jewish-Muslim conflicts, the deeply one-sided presentations and literature of the event may seem reasonable in the lack of such a context, and this report will, therefore, attempt to rebalance the narrative. Continue Reading Article  by Burak Bekdil • January 27, 2016 at 4:00 am A criminal indictment was filed against Sedat Ergin, editor-in-chief of the country's most influential newspaper, Hurriyet. Prosecutors demanded up to five years in prison for Ergin, for allegedly insulting President Erdogan. The indictment claims that Hurriyet insulted the president by paraphrasing what the president had said. "[T]his is a 'democracy' with a growingly diminishing freedom of speech. It is 'democracy' where the 'voice of the nation,' which practically is the voice of the political majority and its glorified leader, intimidates and silences dissenting voices." — Mustafa Akyol, columnist, Hurriyet. According to a report by the Turkish Journalists Association, 500 journalists were fired in Turkey in 2015, while 70 others were subjected to physical violence. Thirty journalists remain in prison, mostly on terrorism charges. Needless to say, the unfortunate journalists invariably are known to be critical of Erdogan. Europe, cherishing its "transactional" relations with Turkey, prefers to look the other way and whistle. All the EU could say about the prosecution of academics was that it is "extremely worrying." Brussels cannot see that Turkish affairs passed the threshold of "extremely worrying" a long time ago.
 A criminal indictment was filed against Sedat Ergin (left), editor-in-chief of the country's most influential newspaper, Hurriyet. Prosecutors demanded up to five years in prison for Ergin, for allegedly insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right). Defending his quest for an executive presidential system Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited Hitler's Germany as an effective form of government. Yes, he said, you can have the presidential system in a unitary state as in Hitler's Germany. His office later claimed that the president's "Hitler's Germany" metaphor had been "distorted" by the media. Erdogan's words on Hitler's Germany may or may not have been distorted, but the way he rules Turkey reminds one powerfully of how Hitler ruled the Third Reich. Continue Reading Article The Value of Tolerance
Today is "Wear a Kippah Day" - Il Foglio Wants Your Selfieby Shoshana Bryen • January 27, 2016 at 3:00 am The question is not whether a Jew wears a kippah [Jewish skullcap]. It is whether others -- Jews and non-Jews -- insist that Jews have a RIGHT to wear a kippah -- and Christians a cross -- and whether non-Jews join Jews in wearing a kippah as a test of tolerance. "A Jew who hides in fear of being recognized as a Jew is the perfect symbol of a world that forces the West to hide for fear of provoking a reaction among those who want to stab the West." -- Il Foglio, Italian newspaper. Please wear a kippah on Wednesday, January 27, 2016. Do it for freedom of religion -- for all of us. And send Il Foglio -- kippah@ilfoglio.it -- your selfie!
The defining value of Western politics is tolerance -- not that anyone is always tolerant, and not that other people are not also tolerant, but in order to have the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under law and multiple political parties. The demand that we be tolerant of that which we do not observe and do not believe and even/especially with which we do not agree is paramount. "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," and "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" require tolerance. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The First Amendment's protection of a free press and freedom from prior government censorship is the definition of tolerance.
Think Nazis in Skokie or "Piss Christ." Continue Reading Article |
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