There is so much that I found offensive about President Joe Biden’s recent trip to the Middle East, but I wanted to wait a week so I could cool off. “First, do no harm,” the medical adage says, and yet – and my expectations were ‘zero’ – he was able in a few short days to do very much harm. Very … much … harm!!! Anyone who knows Biden’s history knows that he has been an absolutist in his
POWER: “the capacity and extent to which one can influence the behavior and beliefs of another.“ In discussing the current political and religious climate, I have often mentioned that the Left, particularly the Religious Left, is especially uncomfortable with discussions of and strategies that employ the use of power. Power, its use and facility, makes the Left uncomfortable. Power is often confused with force, so for those whose principles include consensus, dialogue, reconciliation, and the like, the wielding of
Dear friends in Fort Wayne and around the country, We are approximately halfway through our solidarity tour to Palestine and Israel. And we have had a very full last few days. Thursday, June 16, was spent touring holy sites. In the morning, we toured the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock; with the permission of the Islamic waqf, we were able to tour inside both sites with our guide, Mahdi, who explained the architecture as well as the religious
When you read this, I will be in Jerusalem traveling with 18 people in Palestine and Israel after a three-year COVID hiatus. We have now surpassed 250 people from within 60 miles of Fort Wayne who have traveled with me in my 15 “solidarity tours” since 2002. If I am to be honest, it’s been these tours that have helped us to build a vibrant Indiana Center for Middle East Peace because, as we say, “once you see, you
BACKGROUND Many of you know that in 1998-1999, I was a Fulbright Scholar working at the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal, King Hussein’s brother, in Amman, Jordan. In the ensuing years I was invited back three different times to give lectures to an audience of diplomats, scholars, expatriates, and others. In June, 2006, Rev. Dr. Don Wagner, Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer, and I formed a panel
ICMEP Statement on Nakba Day 2022 ICMEP Condemns the Murder of Shireen Abu Akleh and Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinian People Today, May 15, marks the 74th anniversary of the Nakba (“Catastrophe”), the forced displacement by Israeli forces of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, the destruction of a Palestinian homeland in 1948. It is a day of national mourning in Palestine as well as in the Palestinian diaspora, and one of international solidarity. Yet the Nakba is no