Demand that Israeli authorities hold extremist settlers accountable. Join us in stopping this Price Tag campaign. Use the hashtag #StopPriceTag
May 8, 2014
APN campaign to stop Price Tag attacks
“King David is for the Jews, Jesus is garbage." This is today’s graffiti found on a Jerusalem church the day
after the Vatican called on Israel to protect Christian sites.
This is happening nearly every day. No longer just in the West Bank but in Israel proper.
These Price Tag attacks, perpetrated primarily by extremist Israeli settlers and their supporters, have escalated
focusing on Arab towns and villages inside Israel. Private property and places of worship are targeted with
grotesque destruction and graffiti. Whether it is a Church or a Mosque—it doesn’t matter. Jewish sites have been
vandalized in retaliation.
Some may dismiss these attacks because they “just” focus on buildings and cars but as Yossi Alpher writes in this
week’s Hard Questions Tough Answers although no Palestinian has been physically attacked or killed in the price tag
actions, it is almost certainly only a matter of time until that happens. It is pathetic that it has
gotten to this point. It is disgusting that these perpetrators haven’t been caught and dealt with. And it is
pathetic that it is only a matter of time...
Click on this image to share to Facebook.
Alpher goes on to say: This will not end well. We need to bring world-wide attention to these criminal acts.
Join us and demand that Israeli authorities hold extremist settlers accountable. Join us in stopping this Price Tag
campaign. Please use the hashtag #StopPriceTag.
Please share on Facebook too. Because if the security officials don’t bother, we must...
Because if we don’t, this will not end well.
L'Shalom,
Rabbi Alana Suskin
Director of Strategic Communications
Americans for Peace Now
P.S. Price tags are not a new phenomenon; We have tracked this escalation in recent years online – have you?
by Matthew Duss
How can talks succeed when, throughout the negotiations, Israel is building on the very land that would comprise a Palestinian state?
There are a lot of reasons for the peace effort's failure, but people in Israel shouldn't ignore the bitter truth—the primary sabotage came from the settlements.” This is what anonymous U.S. officials told journalist Nahum Barnea, a prominent columnist in Israel’s most-read newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, in a candid interview about the collapse of Secretary of State John Kerry’s nine-month-long effort to broker talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
It’s not just people in Israel who shouldn’t ignore this bitter truth; it’s people in America, and particularly in Washington, where there’s an entire industry dedicated to casting the Palestinians as eternal rejectionists and downplaying the impact of the settlements and occupation that sustain them. Basically, these officials are telling us more explicitly what both Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama have told us more diplomatically: Netanyahu’s unwillingness and/or inability to reign in the settlements poisoned the negotiations, and is killing any chance of a final, two-state agreement.
Palestinian reconciliation - fixing the cleavage between Hamas and Fatah, and between the West Bank and Gaza - is vital to achieving peace. A Palestinian government that represents all Palestinians, and with security and governance capacity in both the West Bank and Gaza, is vital to any future peace agreement. A peace agreement negotiated in the context of Palestinian unity will have much greater legitimacy and be much harder for Hamas or any party to renege on, at least without appearing hypocritical in the eyes of its people. A peace agreement that involves all parties, leaves neither people feeling humiliated, and leaves both peoples significantly better off, will likewise be stronger, with peoples on both sides having an interest in rejecting anyone who tries to undermine the new status quo. (Excerpt from APN’s “They Say, We Say” entry on this topic.)
APN's They Say, We Say: What about Hamas and Gaza?
6/3/14: Lara Friedman: Setting the Record Straight: U.S. Law & the new PA government
6/2/14: APN Press Release: APN Welcomes Formation of Palestinian Government; Calls to Judge it by its Positions and Actions
4/25/14: APN: The Potential Benefits of a Pause in Israeli-Palestinian Talks
4/23/14: APN Welcomes PLO-Hamas Reconciliation Agreement
5/27/11: Grandstanding won't stop history (Lara Friedman in Haaretz)
4/29/11: Peace Now’s Yariv Oppenheimer on Reconciliation deal (video)
4/27/11: APN: Palestinian Reconciliation Deal is an Opportunity for Obama
4/27/11: APN on the Gaza-Hamas Challenge
3/11/09: APN: Time for a Rational Approach in the Israeli-Palestinian Arena
Here are a collection of resources to help you discuss Israel with your community.
Feel free to email any of us at APN, J Street or T’ruah for help or support: creating programs and divrei torah, inviting speakers -or whatever assistance you need.
APN
News, Resources, and Analysis:
Sign up for News Nosh, a free, daily round-up of Israeli
news.
Yossi Alpher: Hard Questions, Tough Answers, a weekly analysis of
national security developments in Israel and the Middle East.
They Say, We Say: A question-and-answer-format
response to the arguments of the religious and political right-wing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The APN Research Center. A go-to resource on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, our
APN Research Center gives anyone seeking reliable information the facts from a balanced, credible, and
comprehensive source.
The Peace Process Resource Page: Everything you need to know,
updated regularly, about what is happening now in the peace negotiations.
Additional resource pages on the issues:
Jerusalem on the U.S. Passport
Israeli-Palestinian Mutual
Recognition
The Palestinians & the UN
The Price Tag Escalation Timeline. A timeline of major "Price Tag" attacks (as reported by
Israeli sources). It documents a clear escalation in attacks, and the increasing spread of attacks inside the
Green Line.
Facts on the Ground: The APN Map Project.
Speaker's Bureau: APN offers expert speakers for
any venue. Click here for more information on how
to book a speaker.
Please join us on our annual Israel Study Tour
Rabbinic Resources:
Peace Parsha: A collection of divrei torah on Israel and peace, and a collection of haggada inserts from last year and all prior years.
T'ruah
A Prayer for Israel, by Rabbi Lawrence
A. Hoffman
Justice for Jerusalem Resource Packet
Submit Your Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem
Al HaNisim: A Prayer on Miracles for Yom Yerushalayim: By Rabbi Gilah Langner for Yom
Yerushalayim 2012/5772.
Justice for Jerusalem Human Rights Shabbat
Packet 2013/5774, By Joshua Bloom, Ilanit Goldberg, Megan Goldman, and Rocky Salomon.
Three Prayers for the State of
Israel
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem
A supplemental discussion guide to Just Vision's documentary film "My Neighbourhood," written by
Rabbinical Student Ilanit Goldberg, Joshua Bloom, and Rabbi Jill Jacobs, November 2012.
Full Text Study Packet
Jerusalem: A City of Beauty, Suffering, Might, Wisdom, Hypocrisy, and Torah
A supplemental discussion guide to Just Vision's documentary film "Home Front: Portraits from Sheikh
Jarrah," written by Rabbinical Student Ilanit Goldberg, Joshua Bloom, and Rabbi Jill Jacobs, November
2012.
Full Text Study Packet
Justice for Jerusalem Text Study Packet
Written by Rabbinical Student Megan Goldman, Joshua Bloom, and Rabbi Jill Jacobs, May 2012.
Full Text Study Packet
J Street
Get involved. Be invited to private rabbinic meetings with top Israel experts and scholars, and receive news and information specifically designed for you by becoming a member of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet.
Teach peace. Download J Street resources for rabbis and clergy.
Stay informed. Sign up for J Street's Two-State Alerts and our daily NewsRoundup.
Host an event. Programs, lectures, films, J Street has educational resources to meet the needs of your community.
"Our government's policy of refusing to formally recognize Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem is difficult for many of our fellow members of the American Jewish community to accept. But recording someone's birthplace as "Jerusalem" rather than "Israel" in no way threatens our religious, spiritual, and historical attachment and claims in the city. In our hearts, 'Yerushalayim shel Ma'lah - celestial Jerusalem - is and will forever be Israel's capital. However, 'Yerushalayim shel Matah - mundane Jerusalem of daily life on the ground - poses extremely delicate and volatile foreign policy and national security challenges. These challenges cannot be addressed through heavy-handed Congressional declarations or legislation, and they cannot be resolved by the courts. They can only be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and a peace agreement that delivers a two-state solution to the conflict."
6/8/15: APN Press Release -- Press Release: APN Welcomes Supreme
Court Ruling on Jerusalem
7/25/13: APN Press Release --
APN Welcomes Court Decision on Jerusalem
11/7/11: APN Oped -- Why We Have
Taken a Stand with the US Supreme Court (Original Hebrew version here)
10/4/11: APN Press Release --
APN Files Amicus Brief Supporting Obama Administration on Jerusalem
10/4/11: APN Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court of the United States of America -- full text)
On Sunday, April 6, 2014, APN's Lara Friedman (Director of Policy and Government Relations) participated in the J Street U Town Hall at Johns Hopkins University alongside Hussein Ibish (Senior Fellow, American Task Force on Palestine) and columnist J.J. Goldberg (The Jewish Daily Forward). For more on the event, see Baltimore City Paper: "Progressive Jewish group J Street comes to Hopkins."
See photos and tweets from the event below:
Americans for Peace Now (2011 - 2015)
Updated documentation of "price tag" attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as well as the increasing spread
of attacks inside the Green Line. Includes dates and descriptions of each attack. Read More >
They Say, We Say: "Is there any way to reconcile the Israeli and Palestinian positions on the recognition issue?"
We know that pro-Israel does not mean blindly supporting policies
that are irrational, reckless, and counter-productive. Pro-Israel means supporting policies that are consistent
with Israel's interests and promote its survival as a Jewish, democratic state.
You've heard the arguments of the religious and political right-wing, and so have we. They've had their say. Now, we'll have ours.
Go HERE for all installments of APN's "They Say, We Say"
Is Peace Possible?
They Say:
Is there any way to reconcile the Israeli and Palestinian positions on the recognition issue, or is this a case of irreconcilable differences and, potentially, an insurmountable obstacle to peace?
We Say:
The demand for “recognition-plus” and its rejection go to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They embody the shared desire of Israelis and Palestinians for self-determination in their own countries, and for acknowledgment of their core narratives. Recognizing what this argument is really about opens the door for Israelis and Palestinians to start grappling with the challenge of finding a recognition formula that addresses the needs, and respects the sensitivities, of both sides. Such a formula will require not just recognition of the fact of Israel’s existence, but some element of recognition of Israel as a home for the Jewish people in their historic homeland, alongside explicit recognition of the rights of non-Jewish citizens of Israel. On the flip side, such a formula will require not just grudging acceptance of a Palestinian state as the outcome of negotiations, but some element of recognition of the suffering and sacrifices that Israel’s creation and nearly 50 years of occupation have wrought on the Palestinian people.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders, negotiating in good faith to achieve a two-state solution, can certainly agree on a recognition formula – as was done by negotiators in the 2003 Geneva Initiative, which affirmed that the agreement marked, “the recognition of the right of the Jewish people to statehood and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to statehood, without prejudice to the equal rights of the Parties' respective citizens.” Conversely, if Israel and Palestinian leaders don’t start dealing with this question seriously – respectful of the nuances and sensitivities involved for both sides – then the recognition question will haunt us all, and ensure that an agreement is likely never reached. .