APN's daily news review from Israel - Sunday August 16, 2020
Quote of the day:
"Everyone understands that the promise of annexation has expired. The dream vanished. No sovereignty and no
nada. The parties, the champagne, the pompous statements from that evening at the White House, it’s all for
nothing."
--Ben Caspit writes in Maariv that the UAE-Israel normalization agreement means the end of the right-wing dream of
West Bank annexation.*
APN's Ori Nir was interviewed and featured in this VOA feature on the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE, announced on Thursday, August 13.
In a rare decision, Israel's Supreme Court accepted the petition of a Palestinian family against an IDF order to punitively demolish its West Bank home.
Jessica Montell, the executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Hamoked, which helped file the petition, talks about the case and about the doctrine and practice of house demolitions in the West Bank.
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.
Washington, DC -- Americans for Peace Now (APN) welcomes the news of the
agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations between the two
countries. While the two countries have unofficially been normalizing relations in recent
years, an official normalization could be an important development on the path to future comprehensive peace
between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
APN hopes that the governments of Israel, the United States, the UAE, the Palestinians, and other Arab states will leverage this development toward a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leading to two, sovereign, viable, independent states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the crux of the Arab-Israeli dispute, and only by resolving it will Israel be able to achieve long term peace, security, and wellbeing.
APN also welcomes news that as part of the deal reached between Israel and the UAE, the disastrous initiative to annex parts of the West Bank, pushed jointly by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the Trump administration, would be suspended.
APN’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind said: “While this news is welcome, much better news would be an end to the Israeli government’s de-facto annexation of the West Bank through ongoing settlement expansion, and steps to reverse Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.”
Americans for Peace Now (APN) welcomes the news of the agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations between the two countries. While the two countries have unofficially been normalizing relations in recent years, an official normalization could be an important development on the path to future comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday August 12, 2020
Quote of the day:
“He didn’t want to leave...He went crazy over how beautiful the sea is.”
--A friend of Haaretz+ journalist Amira Hass told her about the reaction of her 25-year-old son, who crossed a
breach in the separation fence in plain sight of Israeli soldiers and went to the sea for the first time with his
family, as did thousands of other Palestinians families from the West Bank over the last two weeks. The same breach
in the fence where soldiers have shot and seriously wounded Palestinian laborers who entered Israel through them.*
You Must Be Kidding:
"The lifeguard today is not Jewish."
--Sign put up at entrance to city-owned Jerusalem pool, informing visitors the lifeguard is Arab.**
The Sumarin family has been living in the same house in East Jerusalem for generations. Yet unless the
Israeli Supreme Court rules in their favor, they will soon be evicted, their home and their land taken from
them. Please urge your representatives in Congress to speak out against this injustice and sign the letter aimed
at stopping this eviction of a Palestinian family from their home.
This case goes far beyond the struggle of one family to save its home. It is a part of a broader
fight against the efforts of Israeli settlers to displace East Jerusalem Palestinians and to create facts on
the ground that would block the path for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement on Jerusalem.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) is circulating a Dear Colleague letter addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging his government “to intervene on behalf of the Sumarin family and halt their eviction from their long-standing home."
Please urge your Representative to sign on to Congresswoman Speier’s letter.
APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday August 11, 2020
You Must Be Kidding:
"This is a high-ranking officer, who has contributed greatly to the security of the state in
life-threatening operational activities.”
--The police explaining why it only fined the commander of Israeli Police SWAT team for keeping in his office an
assault dog that bit, threatened and attacked several people who came in.**
Michael Sfard is one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers and the legal
counsel of Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) and of the organization Yesh Din.
Yesh Din recently commissioned Sfard to prepare a legal opinion on whether the current situation in the West Bank, the occupation -- regardless of Israel’s intention to de-jure annex parts of the West Bank -- can be defined as Apartheid. Michael issued a report titled “The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion."
In this episode, a version of an August 10th 2020 webinar, Sfard talks about his report and what it means.
LISTEN