APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday July 1, 2020

Quote of the day:

"Annexation is a policy of belligerence unbecoming of a country that professes to pursue peace. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of unprovoked aggression, one of the staple Israeli accusations against its neighbors. Rather than proving the wisdom and prudence Israel has always boasted of, annexation is provocative, reckless and dangerous...(it) negates efforts to portray Israel as a responsible member of the free world and international community. It casts Israel as a rogue state that defies not only public opinion but international law as well."
--Haaretz commentator Chemi Shalev writes that annexation ruins 53 years of Israeli propaganda, according to which the evils of occupation are the fault of the Palestinians, who refuse to make peace.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Despite the sharp rise in coronavirus cases, senior army officials approved that religious settlers hold a mass prayer service with thousands of participants at Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank in order for G-d to help make Israeli annexation of West Bank land happen.**

Read the JTA article below (originally posted HERE), and watch the New Israel Fund video "The Truth About Annexation" narrated by Mandy Patinkin, member of the Americans for Peace Now Board of Directors,

 (Note: The article includes a link to the Jerusalem Post coverage of his receiving the APN Yitzhak Rabin Peace Award in 2014.)

According to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the bulk of his suggested West Bank annexation is making the Jordan Valley (approximately 30% of the West Bank) an integral part of the state of Israel. Netanyahu’s rationale for annexing the Jordan Valley is that it would bolster Israel’s security. In this paper, APN intern Avraham Spraragen explains why annexing the Jordan Valley would hinder Israeli security rather than boost it.

 

INTRODUCTION

On September 10, 2019, a week before the second of three unprecedented Israeli Knesset elections within a year, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a televised press conference his “intention, after the establishment of a new government, to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley.”^[1]

In his address to the nation, Netanyahu presented a map that demarcated the proposed swaths of land, constituting 1,236,278 hectares or 22.3 percent of the West Bank, to be annexed.^[2] This unilateral annexation plan, a blatant violation of international law and the possible death knell of a two-state solution, would entail an Israeli absorption of 30 settlements, including 12,778 settlers, as well as of 18 illegal outposts.

Following the third election in March, a unity deal was reached between political rivals Netanyahu and former IDF Chief of Staff turned Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz for the establishment of a new government. Per Clause 29 of the unity deal, the fragile Netanyahu-Gantz government is set to “bring the agreement reached with the United States on the application of sovereignty [in the West Bank] … for the approval of the cabinet and/or the Knesset starting July 1, 2020.”^[3] Days away from this July 1st “deadline” to begin advancing unilateral Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank, one of the chief annexation scenarios considered by the Israeli government awaiting a “green light” from U.S. President Donald J. Trump, is a proposal to annex the Jordan Valley.^[4]

For most of the month of May, Israel had fewer than 50 new coronavirus cases daily and by the end of the month numbers were reduced to single digits. Then localized outbreaks, particularly linked to schools, began to bring back the threat of the virus. Israel is now undeniably into its second wave, with the number of daily new cases reaching over 300 for the first time since April 23^rd. Over the course of the pandemic, three measures have emerged as key in controlling the spread of COVID-19: testing, contact tracing and lockdowns. Israel was among the top countries in the world on these three fronts, which largely explains the management of the first wave. How will these measures stand up to another increase in cases?

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday June 29, 2020

Quote of the day:

"It will not happen overnight, and it will be done gradually over years, but the path is clear and one-way: a fundamental change in the character of the state and a change in the nature of the Israeli economy. Partial annexation will create a new dynamic. Israel will not only lose its Jewish character, but also its economic and social character."
--Former CEO of Finance Ministry, David Brodt, writes about the implications of Israeli annexation of the West Bank in Yedioth. See translation in Commentary/Analysis below.*

1. Bills, Resolutions, & Letters
2. Hearings
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.

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In a Zoom webinar on Friday, June 26, Dr. Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, provided an analysis based on recent polling regarding the state of affairs among the Palestinian public and its leadership as Israel moves to annex large swathes of the West.

LISTEN

 

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Pummeled by the Israeli occupation, Palestinian Authority diplomatic ineptness in the West Bank and Hamas governance incompetence in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian public is now facing the specter of West Bank annexation. Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO, utterly committed to two-state diplomacy with Israel, is hard-pressed to respond to this paradigm-changing move by the Israeli government.

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Khalil Shikaki is a Professor of Political Science and director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (Ramallah, Palestine). Since 2005 he has been a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He finished his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1985, and taught at several Palestinian and American universities.

APN COVID REPORTS

#12 - Israel's second wave: can and will it be contained (June 26, 2020)

#11 - Palestinian Children Prisoners in Israel (May 26, 2020)

#10 - Israeli opinion during COVID-19 (May 13, 2020)

#9 - Upholding human rights in the courts (May 8, 2020)

#8 - What Israel can learn from countries with a similar incidence of the virus (May 6, 2020)

#7 - Israel and neighbors in the age of COVID-19 (May 1, 2020)

#6 - The pandemic’s economic effect on the West Bank (April 30, 2020)

#5 - Israel and Palestine: A snapshot in numbers (April 28, 2020)

#4 - How much is the new unity government actually about COVID-19? (April 27, 2020)

#3 - The situation in East Jerusalem (April 20, 2020)

#2 - The effect of defunding the World Health Organization on Israel and Palestine (April 16, 2020)

#1 - How accurate is Coronavirus reporting in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza? (April 14, 2020)

NEWS NOSH - "CORONA NEWS/QUICKEES"

APN's daily news review from Israel includes updates on coronavirus-related matters, currently including a special section for it