As U.S. Remains Divided on Islam, These Jews and Muslims Are Coming Together

February 1, 2017   |   Carey Wedler

(ANTIMEDIA) As the United States and the world draw lines in the sand over Trump’s new immigration policies, Muslims, Jews, and people from all walks of life are banding together for peace — both for themselves and the planet.

The EcoMe Center, currently located at the junction of Jericho and Almog, was founded in December of 2010 by a group of Israeli friends who attended the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, a program that includes Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and other international students.

Though the founders are Israeli, they wanted to establish an “ecovillage” run by both Israelis and Palestinians. The ongoing divide between Palestinians and Israelis is one of the longest-running conflicts in the world and continues to inspire vitriol and protest from both sides, with many around the world criticizing Israel for illegally confiscating and occupying the land of Palestinians. Indeed, the relationship is lopsided, with Israeli Defense Forces controlling Palestinians and often committing staggering human rights violations.

Amid this seemingly insurmountable conflict, the group of friends established EcoMe in the hopes of healing these historical and current divisions. According to Arnon Shomer, a spokesman for EcoMe:

“Some of these people never met a person from ‘the other side’ not through military engagement (Israelis as soldiers and Palestinians meet them as soldiers).This creates a very deep impact on everyone who comes to these workshops. For me, the first people that I could call Palestinian friends, I met through the center, and this is one of the only places where we can meet each other on the human level, and not as political entities.”

Seeking to alter this paradigm while also helping the earth, the founders began by “contacting local people and leaders and creating events of music [and] gathering.” They “started to build permaculture structures in the place from local materials.”

EcoMe has successfully created an environmentally-conscious, sustainable community. Shomer says EcoMe has compost toilets and a water reuse system (there is no sewage system at the facility). They construct buildings from “local materials, such as palms and garbage – tires, plastics of greenhouses and anything we can find.”

The center practices recycling and has a seasonal garden where attendees grow vegetables, which are used in EcoMe’s vegetarian communal kitchen. They also have a free range chicken house, projects to help sustain beehives, and permaculture workshops that teach “biodynamic beekeeping, recycled art, and permaculture gardening.”

These efforts are all maintained by visitors to the center, who are primarily Israeli and Palestinian but come from around the world. Though most international visitors come from Europe and North America, Shomer says they have had guests from countries like Japan, Brazil, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, and Colombia. As he explains, “the ones holding the space for the workshops are living in it as a community and do a lot of community work and sharing.”

And that’s what makes EcoMe especially unique. In addition to working with the land and environment, the center places a strong emphasis on healing relations between Palestinians and Israelis who visit the center.

Rather than accepting those tensions, EcoMe seeks to help them interact with each other in a peaceful way to foster friendship, understanding, and tolerance. One of the key methods they employ in this effort is the practice of nonviolent communication (NVC). NVC was developed by Marshall Rosenberg, an American psychologist, and is rooted in finding common ground and empathy.

According to NVC’s website:

“Through the practice of NVC, we can learn to clarify what we are observing, what emotions we are feeling, what values we want to live by, and what we want to ask of ourselves and others. We will no longer need to use the language of blame, judgment or domination. We can experience the deep pleasure of contributing to each others’ well-being.”

The communication method is rooted in listening and compassion, allowing those with grievances to express their frustrations without overtly blaming or lashing out at the other person but still requesting acknowledgment and action to resolve the conflict at hand. NVC has been used for everything from marriage counseling to resolving political conflicts. In fact, in his book on the method, Rosenberg recalled his experience mediating between an Israeli and Palestinian, who were eventually able to find common ground despite their seemingly diametrically opposed views. Rosenberg also worked with individuals who are now members of EcoMe.

As one Palestinian woman, Amal Hedwah, has said of Rosenberg and her experience with him:

“It was an asset for me. He made a shock in my mind and in my soul and in my body – and now I am a new person.”

EcoMe holds an annual NVC workshop that lasts between ten and twelve days and invites Palestinians, Israelis, and other international visitors a chance to communicate with each other. “This creates a wide community of people who are now friends, and sometime partners, and committed to continue [working] for peace,” Shomer says.

According to one attendee at the center:

“I know many of us are working on the peace process as a political process, but for me, it’s looking beyond the political process. How can we engage in peace work as people who live in this land, coming from different identities, different cultures, different religions, but understanding that within all of these identities there are people who want peace, and within these ideas there are people who don’t want peace…for me, it is about the right people…being here who want to work for peace – and how we can work together.”

One of the best examples of this was the group’s recent efforts to help Palestinians clean up the remains of a tent they were living in that had been ravaged by the Israeli military for the third time in a year.

EcoMe does not seek to avoid or gloss over the historical division between Israelis and Palestinians — or Israel’s own role in it. Shomer describes the “normalization” of occupation:

“It is a ‘negative’ aspect of our work since, for Palestinians, meeting Israelis without dealing in ending the occupation is normalizing the situation of privileged citizens and underprivileged occupied people who have no rights.’

Noting the challenges of running a center that brings Israelis and Palestinians together, he continued:

“To acknowledge this is a very basic need for the Palestinian people, and many Israelis do not see it this way, and so, when meeting with each other on the human level, but neglecting the political issue, [it] creates normalization of the situation.”

The center is currently located on a Jewish settler’s land, a region EcoMe chose because, as Shomer explains, “it is the occupied territories, and we are here because we want to be accessible for Palestinians who can not come to Israel because of the separation.” Nevertheless, he says their location has drawn concerns that the center itself engages in normalization.

“This is why we decided to have a meeting about this issue with our Palestinian friends, and the main conclusion was that we need to find another place for the center that is not on settlement land,” he said, adding they are currently searching for a new location to resolve the issue.

As they work to solve this fundamental problem, however, they offer a variety of classes and methods to help those who attend find peace. In addition to NVC, EcoMe offers art workshops and yoga and meditation classes. Both practices are increasingly shown to promote well-being and reduce stress.

The center also offers language classes, “teaching Arabic, Hebrew, and English, as language is one of the barriers for understanding each other.”

Though the world currently appears to be in upheaval and citizens of the world seem increasingly polarized, EcoMe is effectively working to alter this trend one person at a time — driven and sustained by individuals who are truly becoming the change they wish to see in the world.

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Trump’s Self-Inflicted Policy Failures (VIDEO)

Even the most avid and enthusiastic Trump supporter needs to be critical of their most hopeful America First president. For a dose of reality and objective conviction, who better to rely on than Pat Buchanan? His article, Israel First or America First concludes with the fateful warning for President –Elect Trump. “Having America publicly reassert herself as Israel’s best friend, with “no daylight” between us, could have us ending up as Israel’s only friend – and Israel as our only friend in the Middle East. Bibi’s Israel First policy must one day collide with America First.”

No other foreign policy issue can or will destroy Trump’s administration as clearly as becoming the lap dog for the Likudnik sociopaths. They relish in their apartheid subjugation of the descendants of Ishmael, who are more Semitic than the Khazars that made their exodus from Eastern Europe and Central Asia to occupy the lands of Palestine.

Being born, raised and establishing his real estate empire in what Jessie Jackson called “Hymietown”, it is no surprise that Donald Trump has adopted the kosher culture of Jewish Supremacism. Metro New Yorkers are not known for their scholarship in authentic historical analysis, but are well renowned for their media manipulation in ‘Political Correct” purity and social uniformity of anti-traditional viewpoints.

The Trump family daughter Ivanka preferred the company of Jewish men. She converted to Judaism before she married Jared Corey Kushner. The praxis of Zionism is well established in their private and public life. Since both are slated to be intimate advisors in a Trump administration, it should be expected that the influence of Jewish Son-in-law Kushner Guided Trump’s Triumphant AIPAC Speech, will be substantial.

So when Trump selects his trusted bankruptcy attorney David Friedman to stake out properties to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, the reaction received push back. According to Chemi Shalev, Trump’s Ambassador, Makes Netanyahu Look Like a J Street Lefty.

“This is not an ambassador that a rational U.S. administration would send if it had any plans whatsoever to advance the peace process. This is an ambassador who will please Evangelicals, delight Jewish settlers and bring pleasure to Land of Israel zealots far and wide. In many ways, Friedman will seem like a turbo-charged Ron Dermer, courting the extreme right in his host country while shunning all the rest. It will upset many Israelis, including, possibly, Netanyahu himself. The prime minister is always concerned more about his right-wing flanks than his opposition on the left: The last thing he needs is a U.S. ambassador who supports his most feared rivals.”

Even the New York Times is having a hemorrhage as reported in Donald Trump’s Israel Ambassador Pick Is Hazardous to Peace.

“After his election, Mr. Trump suggested that he wanted to bridge divisions within our country. Mr. Friedman proudly announces that he wants to widen and deepen those divisions. Will Mr. Trump’s stated desire to heal or will Mr. Friedman’s divisive calls define the direction of the incoming administration?”

Complicate these concerns with the historic Secretary of State John Kerry farewell speech that Israel must adopt two-state solution for lasting peace. Well, Trump jumped on the Orthodox bandwagon with both feet. While Trump Slams Obama “Inflammatory Statements”, Tells Israel To “Stay Strong, Jan 20 Is Fast Approaching” the path is laid to adopt such a pro Zionist intervention that even the most hostile Neoconservative might start to warm up to Rabbi Trump.

The prospects that the United States will broker a negotiated Trump style mediation on the most dysfunctional region in the Middle East and upon quintessential eternal enemies in all of human existence are total folly. The veritable art of the deal can and only come when all parties embrace that their own existential survival is contingent upon renouncing violence as a means of extermination for deep enmity towards their never-ending feud.

There is no essential American national interest in dealing with intractable zealots that view coexistence as tribal suicide. Continuous military support for Israeli’s nuclear blackmail is irrational. Trump is risking everything by allowing AIPAC a veto over our own foreign policy.

The warmongers within the Republican Party such as Senators McCain and Graham have thoroughly demonstrated their Neocon insanity and will do more damage to sabotage any Trump effort to put into place a non-interventionist shift in policy. By what fantasy rationale could Trump use to ignore empirical reality to further Zionist imperialism? Forget coherent American self-interest, supporting Israel threatens World War III.

Now turn your attention to the economic character of continuing the strangle hold over money and commerce. The Wall Street model for crony capitalism is a charade of free enterprise. A market economy has been dead for over a century with the imposition of the Federal Reserve.

Watch the video, Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs Is Big Winner In Trump Election Victory.

Trump has capitulated to the powers of the corporatist elites with his appointments that Make America Goldman’s Again (#MAGA): The Swamp Is Now Full. “Removing all doubt about the Parasite Guild theory, Donald Trump rolled out his latest Jewish vampire squid pick as chief economic adviser: Goldman Sachs COO (((Gary Cohn))). Cohn’s specialization is total debt strangulation.”

Even Forbes admits Goldman Sachs Wins Again As Trump Eyes Gary Cohn For Top Economic Post. This appointment is especially ominous.

“With Cohn advising President Trump, Goldman Sachs will have one of its own advocating on economic policy. Much has been made of Trump’s decision to add Wall Street-types to his administration, including some with former ties to Goldman, like Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and Trump’s top White house adviser, Stephen Bannon. But Mnuchin and Bannon have not worked at Goldman Sachs for years.

On the other hand, Cohn has worked at Goldman Sachs since 1990 and has been a partner since 1994.”

The New American weighs in this assessment, Trump Picks Another Goldman Sachs Executive.

“A global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities,” was the wording of a Trump TV commercial late in the presidential campaign, complete with the face of the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, on the screen.

Yet President-elect Donald Trump has named Blankfein’s friend and associate, the chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn (shown), to lead the National Economic Council (NEC), the third Goldman executive tapped for either a staff or Cabinet post.”

The reason why placing the perpetual clan of banksters to control the levers of government monetary and economic policy is so detrimental to the well being of working Americans is well stated in how Goldman Sachs: Making Money by Stealing It.

“It makes money the old-fashioned way, through market manipulation, the scamming of investors, bribing political Washington, having its executives in top administration posts, and getting open-ended low or no interest rate bailouts when needed.”

By continuing the placement of Goldman Sachs in charge of Treasury and the NEC, the Trump revolution lost the first major battle. It also proves that international finance rules every administration. Review the List of Goldman Sachs employees in the White House for additional documentation.

If Trump is going to make America Great Again, he will need to refinance the national debt. With a highly overpriced dollar, now is the time to shift short term Treasury borrowing into long term debt. Issue a fifty year bond and retire T-Bill obligations so that when the dollar sinks (as it surely will) the government can retire (don’t hold your breath) relatively low interest rate obligations with cheap money.

Somehow, Goldman shylocks have seldom manifested national sympathy for American taxpayer citizens. Just maybe some dual loyalist bankster will want to fund the perennial deficit in order to keep the funds flowing to pay for those newly delivered F-35 fighter jets to continue Bibi’s Israel First policy.

Donald Trump could have avoided these missteps if he was confident that the establishment could be defied directly. Sadly, the reality is that Trump already has a bulls- eye target painted on his administration and that cutting Israel loose and firing the money-lenders may just be one bridge too far.

As a strong supporter of the Trump Nation, the hopes and faith in his middle class revolution was always a long shot. Getting elected was certainly a political phenomenon, but being able to effectively defy the entire federal government career class of establishment sycophants would be a miracle.

America First is not very popular within the chambers of government corruption. The reign of terror system of bureaucratic governance fears that Trump actually wants to drain the swamp. He is walking a tightrope already and cannot afford adding complications of his own making by doing the bidding of the viper den bourse for derivative speculation. Sincere and goodwill citizens need to give support and have patience so that the populist movement can take root.