Nonviolence

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – November 11 – at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” – marks 105 years since the World War 1 Armistice, which ended the nightmare of the deadliest war in history until then. The brutality of that first industrial war robbed 20 million soldiers […]

Israel/ Palestine

Why so Many Jews Denounce Israel’s War on Gaza

Yakov M. Rabkin

By Yakov M. Rabkin ( Pressenza ) – A profound division exists between Zionist advocates of Israel on the one hand, and both secular and religious Jews, on the other, who reject Zionism and thus the very idea of a separate state for the Jews. Most Jews must be somewhere in between. For years, they […]

Israel/ Palestine

We Need an Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza

Phyllis Bennis

By Phyllis Bennis | ( Otherwords) – The violence in the Middle East is bringing horrifying new levels of human suffering to both Israelis and Palestinians. We need an immediate ceasefire right now. Both sides have committed heinous violations of international law. But if we’re serious about preventing such horrors in the future, we have […]

Israel/ Palestine

How Jewish Nonviolence can help guide the Path forward on Israel-Palestine

Waging Nonviolence

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb ( Waging Nonviolence ) – In an article entitled “What does Jewish law say about the war between Israel and Hamas,” Jay Michaelson explores biblical, talmudic and medieval sources to answer that question, noting the long arc of rabbinic tradition bends toward nonviolence. In Jewish life, the normative perception of Torah is […]

Featured

War is not Inevitable, and Social Scientists are Finding Peace Movements more Effective

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, MA (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – I am heartened each time I come across a study affirming that waging war is not an innate part of human nature, that we humans are just as likely to be peaceful as we are to be violent. To quote the revered anthropologist Margaret Mead, “warfare is only […]

Featured

Muslims are understandably Protesting Qur’an Burning in Sweden, but the Qur’an itself urges them to do so Peacefully

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Swedish police permitted the burning of the Muslim scripture, the Qur’an (Koran) in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, on the grounds that previous attempts to stop such acts have been overruled by the courts on freedom of speech grounds. Hate acts targeting minorities are not actually free […]

Featured

Not just Cards and Flowers: The 1st ‘Mother’s Day for Peace’ was Held in New York in 1872

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenville, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment – Feature) – The 19th century origins of Mother’s Day differ vastly in spirit and purpose from celebrations of it in the 20th and 21st centuries. Mother’s Day was first inspired by two women with diverse but compatible social and political purposes. Prior to the Civil War, Ann Reeves […]

Nonviolence

The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – In a brilliant Op-Ed published in the New York Times, the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi explained how China, with help from Iraq, was able to mediate and resolve the deeply-rooted conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, whereas the United States was in no position to do so after siding with […]

Nonviolence

How Russians, Indigenous People and Belarusians are uniting to resist the War in Ukraine

Waging Nonviolence

By Eleftheria Kousta | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – Anastasia Witts, a U.K.-based arts producer, wasn’t yet out of bed on the morning of Feb. 24 when her phone buzzed with news notifications of Ukraine being invaded. Despite the shock, the first thing she did was post on Facebook: “This war is not in […]