Berkley Center

Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: Palestine, Canada, Tunisia, France, the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, and the Yazidis. 

BERKLEY CENTER IN THE NEWS
How Palestine Plans to Overcome Israel and the US
by Drew Christiansen and Ra’fat Aldajani
National Catholic Reporter op-ed
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/how-palestine-plans-overcome-israel-and-us
But negotiations have failed to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine. After nine months, the most recent round of negotiations, led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, never got beyond "Go." In the meantime, Palestinians remain, as they have been for nearly 70 years, stateless and under Israeli occupation. The world is growing impatient.

Toronto's New Jewel: Beauty and Pluralism at the Ismaili Centre
by Katherine Marshall
Huffington Post op-ed http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katherine-marshall/torontos-new-jewel-beauty_b_6049710.html
Ancient and modern, traditional and forward-looking, stark and ornate, spiritual and practical: Contrasting adjectives aptly describe the brand-new Ismaili Centre in Toronto. Adjacent to the Centre, its white Brazilian granite façade reflected in pools of water, is a state-of-the-art museum. Both structures highlight the diversity and depth of Islamic history and culture and offer a place that serves both the global, diverse Ismaili Muslim community and the Toronto community at large.

AROUND THE WORLD
Islamist Party in Tunisia Concedes to Secularists
by Carlotta Gall
New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/africa/nidaa-tounes-ennahda-tunisian-parliamentary-election....
The secular Nidaa Tounes party won the largest number of seats in Tunisia’s parliamentary elections on Monday, defeating its main rival, the Islamist party Ennahda, which just three years ago swept to power as the North African nation celebrated the fall of its longtime dictator in the Arab Spring revolution.

Sectarian Wedge Pushes From Syria Into Lebanon
by Ann Barnard
New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/world/middleeast/a-sectarian-wedge-pushes-from-syria-into-lebanon....
Recent outbreaks of fighting and growing sectarian tensions in northern Lebanon have heightened fears that the civil war in neighboring Syria is spilling over with new momentum, threatening the country’s fragile stability.

Minority Life in Israel
by Rula Jebreal
New York Times op-ed http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/28/opinion/rula-jebreal-minority-life-in-israel.html?ref=opinion
My mother, Zakia, was so proud that my sister and I spoke better Hebrew than Arabic. Osman, my father, believed that by achieving the highest levels of education, we would one day be treated as equal in our country, Israel. He sincerely believed that Palestinians capable of articulating their narrative would win the hearts and minds of Israeli Jews.

In France, Kebabs Get Wrapped Up in Identity Politics and “Islamisation”
by Alexandria Sage
Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2014/10/28/in-france-kebabs-get-wrapped-up-in-identity-politics-...
Four kebab houses opened last month in Blois, bringing the total to over a dozen in the pretty Loire valley town where tourists come to see the castle. The far-right National Front party railed: “The historical center of Blois, the jewel of French history, is turning into an Oriental city.”

Dalai Lama Visits Alabama Baptist Church at Center of Civil Rights Movement
by Sherrel Wheeler Stewart
Reuters
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2014/10/26/dalai-lama-visits-alabama-baptist-church-at-center-of...
The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, visited one of America’s sacred sanctuaries on Saturday, touring the church where four African-American girls were killed in a 1963 bombing that galvanized the civil rights movement.

Pope Francis: ‘Evolution Is Not Inconsistent With the Notion of Creation’
by Josephine McKenna
Religion News Service http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/27/pope-francis-evolution_n_6057378.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Pope Francis on Monday (Oct. 27) waded into the controversial debate over the origins of human life, saying the big bang theory did not contradict the role of a divine creator, but even required it.

The Forgotten Yazidis
by Sheren Khalel and Matthew Vickery
Foreign Policy http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/10/27/the_forgotten_yazidis_iraq_isis_islamic_state
Hard months lie ahead, as the inevitable cold of winter will envelop the mountains. Without more robust shelter and other aid, the Yazidi refugees fear the hard, upcoming winter.