APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday October 6, 2020

 Headline of the day:“The Minister of the Immediate Environment”
-- The headline in 'The Marker,' referring to Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel, who violated corona guidelines that prohibit travel farther than 1 kilometer from home and prohibiting visiting people outside the home. She traveled 150 kilometers to visit her in-laws in Tiberias.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
“While Israel reels from its second lockdown and economic distress, Netanyahu is promoting construction in isolated settlements that Israel will have to evacuate."
--Peace Now responds to Israel's plan to advance next week at least 4,430 settlement units in the Palestinian Territories.*

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday October 5, 2020

 Quote of the day:“These weren’t American soldiers, for example, who plundered the Vietnamese, or Germans thousands of kilometers from home. These were civilians who looted from their neighbors across the street. I don’t mean that they necessarily knew Ahmed or Noor whose property they stole, but that the neighbors were part of a shared social civil fabric."
—In a new book, historian Adam Raz reveals the phenomenon of Jews plundering the property of their Arab neighbors en masse in 1948. Raz said the subject was meaningful because it exerted, and continues to exert, considerable influence on the relations between the two people who share this land.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
"If Biden wins we will see a policy shift that, in my personal opinion, will be wrong and will be bad for the region, including for Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait."
--Speaking to an Emirati newspaper, top US 'diplomat' to Israel, Ambassador David Friedman, publicly expressed his view of who should win the 2020 US Presidential election.**

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

1. Bills, Resolutions & Letters
2. Hearings & Markups
3. On the Record

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

The Settlers' Billionaire Backer, an investigative documentary by BBC News Arabic, revolves around the discovery that Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, granted Israeli citizenship in 2018, controls companies that have donated $100 million to Elad, an Israeli settler organization that operates in occupied East Jerusalem. 

Thursday, October 8, 2020

APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday October 1, 2020

 Quote of the day:"The Yom Kippur Selichot (repentance prayers) has expired, but it is not too late to apologize to the Palestinians. As human beings and as a people."
—Maariv commentator Ran Edelist writes that it's unlikely that all 3,532 Palestinians killed by Israeli military and security forces between 2009 and 2020, including 694 minors and 324 women, were ticking time bombs.*

Update: this action, now closed, ran in October 2020. 

On October 1, both the Senate and the House of Representatives introduced resolutions (S. Res. 745 / H. Res. 1173) honoring the life, legacy, and example of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the 25th anniversary of his assassination.

Urge your Senators and Representatives to cosponsor the resolutions.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday September 30, 2020

 Quote of the day:"There is the indicted Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu and there is the Prime Minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu. It is not the same thing. If you mix things up and use your governmental power as prime minister to influence you criminally, then it begins to be a serious problem.”
—In a leaked tape recording, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblitt is heard saying that Netanyahu could be incapacitated as prime minister due to a conflict of interests.*

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday September 29, 2020

Quote of the day:

"Yes, she’s got a huge following, and it would have been nice to enlist her to the cause of peace, but if she’s not interested, or not brave enough to stand up to the BDS crowd, there are many other emerging political leaders who’d be happy to take the slot she was offered."
--Haaretz's Washington correspondent, Amir Tibon, writes about US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's pull-out from Americans for Peace Now's October 20th virtual event commemorating 25 years since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered because of his support for a two-state solution.*

from Hadar Susskind, APN President and CEO:

In recent days, there has been a great deal of discussion about our decision to honor the late Yitzhak Rabin and his legacy of peace.

There’s a lot to discuss about Rabin’s legacy. But let me be clear, we at APN continue to hold the prospect of peace as the ultimate goal for Israelis and Palestinians, and we honor the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin and his courageous steps towards peace.

We know that you do too. Your support of APN has been a beacon for the movement for nearly 40 years. That is why we need you to help us commemorate Rabin’s life and continue our work as his legacy.

Rabin was a model for the transformation from enmity and conflict to peace and reconciliation that our Israeli sister organization, Shalom Achshav, is fighting to achieve in Israel, and that we at APN support here in the United States.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s personal and political transformation inspired hope for peace as no other Israeli leader has. It was Rabin’s power to inspire, as a general-turned-statesman, that led his assassin, Jewish zealot Yigal Amir, to murder him at the end of a peace rally 25 years ago. Amir’s three bullets reversed the process of reconciliation and compromise that Rabin had championed and led us down the path toward 25 years of additional conflict.

For Israel’s peace movement and its supporters in the United States, it is natural to honor a man who shifted from hawk to dove, from fighting Palestinians and denying their national identify and collective rights, to formally recognizing them and their national aspirations. Rabin’s personal transformation inspired millions of Israelis and Palestinians, and supporters of peace between the two peoples worldwide, to believe that a peace agreement based on a historical compromise was attainable.

By commemorating this courageous leader and his political transformation, even as we acknowledge the complexity of his legacy, we are reaffirming our belief that a return to his path of reconciliation is the only viable way forward. A peace based on mutual respect and the acknowledgement of national aspirations is not just a dream – it is the only realistic alternative to endless conflict. It is necessary, and, yes, it is within reach. It depends on leadership, the leadership modeled by Yitzhak Rabin..

You have been a part of this quest for many years. With your help, we will keep Rabin’s spirit alive. We will continue to expand our urgent work to educate Israelis and Americans, including elected officials, on the imperative of achieving lasting peace through negotiations and compromise.

Please help us light the path towards peace with a gift to APN today.

And we hope that you will join us for our October 20th commemoration of the life and legacy of Yitzhak Rabin. Register HERE and participate in the largest memorial service outside of Israel, marking 25 years since his death.