Baithak World May 09: Rabbi Michael Lerner, Richard Dawkins: Mynamar Cyclone, Robert Fisk, Headlines, RealNews

Please join with me in prayer and/or in acts of kindness and generosity this Thursday, May 8 when Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, and also the next Thursday, May 15, when Palestinians commemorate their Al Nakba (catastrophe)--to pray for peace, justice and well-being for Israel, to pray for peace, justice and well-being for Palestine, and to pray for peace, justice and well-being for all the people of the earth. On Zionism, Healing, and Israel's 60th Anniversary - Rabbi Michael Lerner

I will echo Rabbi Lerner's prayer with this addition:

Please join with me in prayer and/or in acts of kindness and generosity this Thursday, May 8 when Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, and also the next Thursday, May 15, when Palestinians commemorate their Al Nakba (catastrophe)--to pray for peace, justice and well-being for Israel, to pray for peace, justice and well-being for Palestine, and where citizens of Palestine and Israel live in harmony and enjoy full rights as enunciated by the UN Charter of Rights in defined borders and to pray for peace, justice and well-being for all the people of the earth.

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If you want to fight us, you'll have to fight us. This was Sayed Hassan Nasrallah's message to the Lebanese government yesterday and his words were followed within seconds by two massive gun battles in the streets of Beirut. He had spoken in that careful, thought-through, distressing way in which he always threatens the Hizbollah's enemies. He even swapped the names of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, with that of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt – calling Jumblatt the real prime minister and Siniora his deputy – and blamed both for trying to set up a CIA-Mossad base at Beirut airport. What other reason could there be, he asked, for the two men to demand the dismantlement of Hizbollah's communications system and the suspension of the head of airport security? This was "a Lebanese government declaration of war against the resistance". Well, maybe. But Nasrallah still wants the Hizbollah's enemies to be the Israelis – not his Lebanese opponents. Robert Fisk: Gun battles as Hizbollah claims Lebanon is at war

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Anybody who has something sensible or worthwhile to say should be able to say it calmly and soberly, relying on the words themselves to convey his meaning, without resorting to yelling. Hitler had nothing but nonsense to say. He spoke nonsense about race, nonsense about history, nonsense about Jews. If one speaks nonsense in a calm and sober voice nobody listens, so Hitler yelled his nonsense at the top of his voice and, unfortunately, people listened -- stupid, ignorant people. You have sensible things to say about sex and love, and you have no need to yell when you are talking sense. Unfortunately, when you turn to the subject of evolution, you don't know what you are talking about, so you yell and shriek to make up for it. Maybe yelling and shrieking works with an ignorant audience. It apparently worked for Hitler, but that is not a happy precedent. You should know better. Go and read some books about evolution, learn something about biology, and you'll then find that you can talk about it in a calm and civilised voice. You'll find that you won't need to yell and shriek like a madman, and you'll be all the more persuasive for it.My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach by Richard Dawkins

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