In the News, April 24, 2015

April 24, 2015

Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: catastrophe in Yemen, Israel's Iranian Jews worry about the nuclear deal, and Europe fails migrants on the Mediterranean. 
AROUND THE WORLD
The United States Does Not Know Who It’s Killing
by Micah Zenko
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/23/the-united-states-does-not-know-who-its-killing-drone-strike-deaths-pakistan/
A remorseful acknowledgment of the drone deaths of American civilians is not an acceptable answer for a counterterrorism policy out of control. 

Catastrophe in Yemen
New York Times editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/catastrophe-in-yemen.html?_r=0
Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen’s civil war was always a risky gamble. Now there’s evidence showing just how damaging four weeks of airstrikes have been: more than 1,000 civilians killed, more than 4,000 wounded, and 150,000 displaced. 

Israel’s Iranian Jews Worry about the Nuclear Deal
by Adam Taylor
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israels-iranian-jews-worry-about-the-nuclear-deal/2015/04/23/ac9a47e2-e518-11e4-ae0f-f8c46aa8c3a4_story.html
Few nations have watched the talks over Iran’s nuclear program more closely than Israel, which views the Islamic republic as an existential threat. And within Israel, among those especially unsettled by the idea of a final agreement are Iranian Jews.

#BlackLivesMatter, the International Papal Edition
by Kim Yi Dionne and Naunihal Singh
Washington Post Monkey Cage blog
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/04/23/blacklivesmatter-the-international-papal-edition/
From an academic perspective, there is little controversy in calling the slaughter of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire genocide. However, the Pope’s statement did contain one important inaccuracy: he referred to the Armenian Genocide as “the first genocide of the twentieth century.” This statement, which was a quote from a declaration made in 2001 by Pope John Paul II, unfortunately erases a very important genocide that had happened roughly a decade prior to the Armenian Genocide, that of the Herero and Nama peoples in what is now called Namibia, by German colonial authorities. 

Kurdistan Thrives Despite War with ISIS
by Michael J. Totten
World Affairs
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/kurdistan-thrives-despite-war-isis-0
We know already that ISIS has genocidal intentions toward the region’s Christians, Shia Muslims, Yezidis, and Alawites. But the Kurds are indefatigable. An occasional car bomb now and then is nothing compared to what they went through a couple of decades ago, when almost 200,000 were murdered, some of them with chemical weapons, during Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal Campaign. 

The King of the Arab Street vs. the Pope
by Steven A. Cook
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/22/the-king-of-the-arab-street-vs-the-pope/
As the world commemorates the centennial of the Armenian genocide this week, Turkey’s government once again finds itself fighting an old, losing battle. 

Why Israel Does Not Recognize the Armenian Genocide
by Ishaan Tharoor
Washington Post blog
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/24/why-israel-does-not-recognize-the-armenian-genocide/
Many countries, including Israel and the United States, don't recognize what happened a century ago as “genocide." Instead, official statements refer to the "Events of 1915," massacres, "terrible carnage" and a "humanitarian tragedy." The reason for this skittishness is nationalist politics.   

Europe Passes the Buck While Thousands Die
by Benjamin Haddad
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/23/europes-gray-suits-give-refugees-a-cold-shoulder-shipwreck-migrants-mediterranean/
How EU cost-cutting, continental infighting, and bureaucratic indifference turned the Mediterranean into a graveyard. 

A Multinational Patron
Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/04/saint-george
Today is Saint George’s day, a day which is meaningful to both Christians and Muslims and a popular time for pilgrimages. 

DOMESTIC
Confessions of a Synagogue-Hopper
by Lou Weiss
Wall Street Journal op-ed
http://www.wsj.com/articles/confessions-of-a-synagogue-hopper-1429832279
Going to multiple synagogues has its benefits and allows people to support more than one denomination.
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