Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Alleged Hate Crime in Israel Part of Larger Trend
posted on August 23, 2012Writing for The Daily Beast, Dan Ephron argues that “Israeli teens are more militantly anti-Arab than their parents and increasingly more prone to rejecting democratic values.” A hate crime incident this week highlights the anti-Arab sentiment, Ephron writes. “[Young Israelis] are intolerant and not willing to accept the fact that Arabs are equal citizens,” says Roby Nathanson, an Israeli economist.
Why Romney Won’t Strike Iran
posted on August 23, 2012At Tablet, Lee Smith argues that a “Republican president is no more likely than a Democrat to stage a pre-emptive attack on Iran.” According to Smith, American presidents historically have looked “the other way when Iran is up to no good.” Smith writes, “Surely by now Israeli leaders know that, given the various trend-lines of American policy toward Iran, no U.S. president is going to take military action against Iran.”
Column: Contraception Fight Not Just ‘A Catholic Thing’
posted on August 23, 2012Wheaton College, a school that has “long been regarded as a flagship college of Protestant evangelicals,” joined Catholic organizations in their lawsuit against the HHS mandate, John Inazu writes for USA Today. Wheaton is signaling “to evangelicals that the contraception mandate is not just ‘a Catholic thing,’ but a threat to their freedom as well.” “The legal challenges implicate an interest that all of us … should value and safeguard: the right of private groups to dissent from the prevailing state orthodoxy,” Inazu argues.
Conservative Law Firm Fights Atheists’ Suit Over Cross at 9/11 Museum
posted on August 23, 2012A conservative law firm founded by Pat Robertson joined a lawsuit to defend a proposed 17-foot cross in the 9/11 museum, Steve Strunsky reports for Religion News Service. “The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed a friend-of-the-court brief” in a suit brought by American Atheists who are suing to prevent the cross’ installation. Jay Sekulow, the ACLJ’s chief counsel, says, “The legal arguments of the atheist organization are both offensive and absurd.”
NYPD: Muslim Spying Led to No Leads, Terror Cases
posted on August 23, 2012On Monday, court testimony showed that six years of spying on Muslims in the New York area “never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation,” Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo report for The Associated Press. “Police hoped the Demographics Unit would serve as an early warning system for terrorism,” Goldmand and Apuzzo write. “No other group since the Japanese Americans in World War II has been subjected to this kind of widespread public policy,” says attorney Jethro Eisenstein.
Polygamists See Themselves In Romney, Obama Family Trees
posted on August 23, 2012BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins writes on the increasing openness of American polygamists, and on the ancestral polygamy of both President Obama and Mitt Romney. Coppins notes, “[T]he family trees of both [Romney and Obama] are rooted in polygamy, a practice that, for each candidate, has defined generations of family history.” Anne Wilde, a practicing polygamist and leading advocate for the legalization of “plural marriage,” says, “[Romney] thinks he needs to distance himself from polygamy, so he does. I just wonder what he really thinks.”
Pakistani Christians, Fearing Backlash, Flee Community after Girl Is Accused of Blasphemy
posted on August 23, 2012Christians are fleeing their homes outside Pakistan’s capital “after a mob last week called for [a 12-year-old girl] to be burned to death as a blasphemer,” Richard Leiby reports for The Washington Post. Some accuse the girl of burning pages of the Quran, “but police said they arrested her in part to assuage the mob and also because they knew she would be safer in jail,” Leiby writes. “Blasphemy by anyone cannot be condoned, but no one will be allowed to misuse the blasphemy law for settling personal scores,” says Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Earthly Concerns
posted on August 22, 2012The Catholic Church might be “as big as any company in America,” but The Economist asserts that it certainly isn’t run like a healthy enterprise. Despite all the good work the Catholic Church does for the poor, the sick, and the elderly, The Economist argues, “the finances of the Catholic church in America are an unholy mess. The sins involved in its book-keeping are not as vivid or grotesque as those on display in the various sexual-abuse cases that have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far; but the financial mismanagement and questionable business practices would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution.”
Jerusalem ‘Lynching’ Raises Specter of Anti-Palestinian Terrorism
posted on August 22, 2012At Think Progress, Zack Beauchamp writes that it is time to take notice of the rising levels of Anti-Palestinian violence perpetrated by radicalized elements of the “Israeli youth.” Recent “incidents fit into a disturbing pattern of growing violence committed by radical Israelis, particularly in the West Bank,” writes Beauchamp. “Last December, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned about ‘homegrown terror’ attacks committed by extremist settlers against Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians.”
A Mormon-Catholic Ticket?
posted on August 22, 2012At The Huffington Post, R. Scott Appley and Patrick Q. Mason argue that the churches of Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, both advocate for a robust government safety net for the poor and needy. “Nineteenth-century Catholic and Mormon leaders initially pointed to the church rather than the government as the primary vehicle of social welfare,” Appley and Mason write. “But the complexity of modern economies, including the injustices perpetrated under unregulated capitalism and the devastation of multiple worldwide economic depressions, led both churches to recognize the essential role of the state in creating and maintaining a broad safety net for the poor.”