Common Grounds

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• Taking Off at Full Throttle FUELED with EQUALITY …

  
  July 09, 2019 11:36

  By: Abraham A. van Kempen

  The Hague, The Netherlands

   

  Is there any other way to take off but at full throttle? To eventually soar through the clouds, you’ll need all the torque you can get, maximum thrust to overcome resistance. That’s what it’s going to take to secure real and sustainable peace. In the past, those in command of the peace talks dare not take off at full throttle. The results: one deadlock after the other. Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Madrid, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna have succeeded in producing stalemates often ending in standoffs with one foot in the stirrup, the other in the sand; and, recently, Bahrain.

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• Zionism Has Truly Lost the Debate

  
  July 15, 2019 15:07

  Source: Islam21

  https://www.islam21c.com/opinion/zionism-has-truly-lost-the-debate/

   

  By Ustadh Abu Haneefah Sohail

  Published 6 June 2019

   

  Judaism is a great and ancient religion which has endured enslavement by the Pharoahs, Pogroms by the Tsars, and the Holocaust by the Nazis. The Jewish people have come through these cataclysmic events and flourished as influential minorities in different countries, cultures and continents. Zionism on the other hand, is a modern, colonial-settler political ideology which seeks to create and expand an apartheid state, where one ethnic group is privileged over another, while the others are permanently disenfranchised, dispossessed and subjected to endless military occupation. The two are completely separate, and often in complete opposition to each other. It is the strategy of the Zionist movement to weaponise respect of Judaism and collective resolve against anti-Semitism, as a cover for the crimes of Israel.

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• How Evangelical Christians risk setting the Middle East on fire

  
  July 15, 2019 15:46

  Source: Middle East Eye

  https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-evangelical-christians-risk-setting-middle-east-fire

   

  By Jonathan Cook

  Published 8 July 2019

   

  TB Joshua is the latest in a wave of pro-Zionist preachers taking an active interest in Israel – and Palestinians will pay the price

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• Opinion // Too Many Jews and Israelis See White Evangelicals as One-dimensional Messianic Caricatures

  
  July 22, 2019 13:52

  Source: Haaretz

  https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/on-jews-and-israel-white-evangelicals-aren-t-one-dimensional-messianic-caricatures-1.7538783

   

  By Mark Galli and Yehiel Poupko
  Published July 21, 2019

   

  Yes, Israel and Jews figure prominently in the religious imagination of America's 60 million white adult evangelicals. But it's not all about the Second Coming

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• When Zionism imagined Jewish nationalism without supremacy

  
  July 22, 2019 14:08

  Source: +972 Magazine

  https://972mag.com/will-imagining-zionism-without-supremacy/142415/

   

  By Meron Rapoport

  Published July 21, 2019

   

  In his recent book, Dr. Dmitry Shumsky shows that, contrary to popular belief, the forefathers of Zionism did not envision a state based on Jewish supremacy. And yet Zionism, he says, inevitably involves the oppression of Palestinians.

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• It Started Out So Good …

  
  July 24, 2019 12:03

  By Abraham A. van Kempen

  The Hague, The Netherlands

   

  Israeli journalist, Meron Rapoport, states in his article, ‘When Zionism imagined Jewish nationalism without supremacy:’

   

  “In his recent book [‘Beyond the Nation-State’], Dr. Dmitry Shumsky [a historian of the Zionist movement at the Hebrew University] shows that, contrary to popular belief, the forefathers of Zionism did not envision a state based on Jewish supremacy. And yet Zionism, he says, inevitably involves the oppression of Palestinians.”

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• The Abuse of Religion to Foster Extremism Is a Universal Phenomenon

  
  July 31, 2019 15:06

  Source: Common Dreams

  https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/29/abuse-religion-foster-extremism-universal-phenomenon

   

  By James Zogby

  Published July 29, 2019

   

  When it masks a political agenda or when it justifies violence either by groups or state actors, it becomes a danger

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• Evangelicals aren’t turned off by Trump’s first term — they’re delighted by it

  
  August 14, 2019 10:57

  Source: Washington Post

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/evangelicals-arent-turned-off-by-trumps-first-term--theyre-delighted-by-it/2019/08/11/3911bc88-a990-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html?noredirect=on

   

  By Julie Zauzmer
  Published August 13, 2019

   

  BRANDON, Fla. — Three years ago, Rickey Halbert was torn about whether to vote for Donald Trump.

   

  On the one hand, he’d read about Trump’s extramarital affairs and the women who alleged he had sexually assaulted them. Halbert, a Defense Department employee, didn’t think the candidate matched his moral compass.

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• Setting The Record Straight On Christian Zionism

  
  September 16, 2019 12:58

  Source: Forward

  https://forward.com/culture/430428/setting-the-record-straight-on-christian-zionism/

   

  By Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon

  Publsished August 29, 2019

   

  The book review for “Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, And U.S.-Israeli Relations” entitled “Why Everything You Think You Know About Christian Zionism is Wrong” grossly misstated numerous aspects of Christian Zionism and the movement in America. The narrative that Raphael Magarik puts forth seeks to debunk the idea that: “Christian Zionism conceals under a cloak of philo-Semitism, a nefarious agenda. Christian Zionists support Israel, supposedly, to hasten the end-times, when “Jews must convert or die.”

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• Katanacho and the Protestant struggle against ‘Israelism’

  
  October 10, 2019 17:06

  By: Abraham A. van Kempen

   

  This article is a translated and slightly revised version of a contribution by Dr. Steven Paas to a symposium of the Dutch branch of Kairos-Sabeel on 20 September 2019, at the occasion of the presentation of the Dutch translation of the Palestinian theologian Yohanna Katanacho’s book The Land of Christ.

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