Month: July 2006

Okay, so I have stated my opposition to the war in Lebanon, but I also want to take another track. I watched with revulsion and anger as parents pulled their children from the rubble of the building hit in Qana. Later when watching the protests as a result of the bombing, it came to me that if the situation was reversed, and a Hizbollah rocket slammed into an Isreali building killing 60 people including women and children, there probably would have been rejoicing around the Arab world. Hizbollah is firing indiscriminately at cities across the border and it is only…

Well it does appear that there are some brave Americans who are going above and beyond the rehtoric and proposing actions that actually make a difference in our world.  Wick Sloane – a columnist at InsideHigherEd is proposing a Katrina like show of support by US univiersities for Lebanese students and faculty. Here is a blurb: Imagine. No interruption of study and research for all students and faculty in the Middle East shut out in this latest war. Lebanon. Israel. Gaza. Iraq. Everyone. Why not? Education is cheaper than war. John Waterbury, president of American University of Beirut, who was…

Cornell West has a brave op-ed piece on the moral disaster that is the Middle East: As we witness another sad chapter in the Middle East — the loss of precious human beings, the presence of deep hatred and revenge, and the absence of Socratic questioning and empathy for all — the spirit of Spinoza haunts us. Where are the courageous thinkers who ask the hard questions that shatter our simplistic and sentimental frameworks of pure Israeli heroes and impure Arab villains (or vice versa) in the conflict? Is it possible for Jews to reject the ugly Israeli subjugation of…

It’s all about us having our own civilizations and figuring out ways to mess it up. There is no unitary whole. We will always have someone to fight. Technorati Tags: ClashOfCivilizations