[Editor's note: This insightful piece by Rabbi Lerner is in response to interview questions by another OpEdNews writer for a companion article, If Increased Sanction Resolution, 362, Could Give Bush License for a Naval Blockade Why Support It? ]
I am not an insider in this struggle. AIPAC and many other parts of the American Jewish establishment have bought into the paradigm of "domination over the other" as the only way to achieve safety and security in this world.
Rather than recognizing that in the 21st century the only way to achieve security is through caring for others and a spirit of generosity and open-heartedness, they continue to live in the specter of the Holocaust and imagine that anyone who doesn’t see every threat as a mortal threat to our very existence must be naïve. That worldview has been part of human consciousness for thousands of years, wasn’t invented by Jews, and has shaped the consciousness of most ruling elites through history.
But there is a counter-consciousness, articulated in the Bible alongside moments of domination-consciousness attributed to God, and this counter-consciousness emphasizes the possibility of a world based on love, justice, peace and caring for others.
We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives call it ‘the Strategy of Generosity’ and we’ve developed a specific manifestation of that when we call for a Global Marshall Plan as the best way for the U.S. and Israel to achieve homeland security. Please look at the details of our plan at www.spiritualprogressives.org.
From our standpoint, the blockade of Iranian oil is a provocative step meant to push Iran into taking counter-steps that would then allow Israel or the US to provide their own people with alleged justification for a larger assault.
The major forces pushing this are NOT the State of Israel and the American Jewish establishment, but the Vice President Cheney and the oil companies whose interests he serves. It is they who worry most about Iran emerging as the dominant force in the Middle East, particularly after the US moves out of Iraq in the years following an Obama election to the presidency.
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