Menachem Mautner is a Professor of Comparative Civil Law and Jurisprudence at the Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law. In this episode he explains why he wrote two recently-published books that are unrelated to his academic expertise: a dystopian novel that predicts the devastation that Mautner believes will lead to Middle East peace, and a book analyzing the crisis of Israeli liberalism.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Wednesday January 1, 2020
Number of the day #1:
30%.
--Amount of Israeli children living under the poverty line, according to new national
report.**
Number of the day #2:
100 million.
--The amount of shekels (= $29 million) that the settler organization, Amana, received from
taxpayer funds between 2013 to 2015, to promote Jewish settlement on occupied lands, often acting illegally to
achieve this goal.*
Quote of the day:
“The justices’ decision is a dramatic and significant step that sets bounds, at least for now, on the
rampant criminality in the settlements and the illegal outposts. We hope that in this spirit, the court will rule
that no public money should be transferred to Amana ... A situation in which Israel backs the transfer of public
money for illegal activity is intolerable, and we urge the government to put a stop to it.”
--Peace Now reacts to the High Court decision forcing settlements to ask for government
permission to transfer funds to the Amana settler organization.*
|
The Times of Israel: "High Court hampers settlement group’s ability to receive public funds" (December 31, 2020)The ruling came after a February petition from the settlement watchdog Peace Now against Amana, a group that promotes settlements, in which the former argued Amana has been illegally receiving millions of shekels from regional and local councils beyond the Green Line. Read >> |
|
Washington Jewish Week: "More about those ‘bad' Israeli soldiers" by Yossi Alpher (December 24, 2019)...American Jewish organizations like Americans for Peace Now that host Breaking the Silence always unfailingly condemn Palestinian violence against Israelis. Just check their websites... Read >> |
|
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: "Vying for seats at World Zionist Congress, liberal newcomers like Peter Beinart hope to block Israeli settlements funding"(December 24, 2019)Morton Klein, the president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, is acutely aware of the changes that an expanded Hatikvah list could bring. He noted that at least one group on the expanded Hatikvah list, Americans for Peace Now, supports boycotting settlement goods. Read >> |
APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday December 31st, 2019
Quote of the day:
"And perhaps the most terrifying fear of all: the fear that, in fact, all the rules have changed and nobody
writes new ones in their place. Because Donald Trump, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Bashar al-Assad, and Binyamin Netanyahu
may have nothing in common, except for one rule: there are no more rules. Everything goes."
--In a pre-New Year's Op-Ed, Yedioth commentator Raanan Shaked writes a review of the
last decade.*
Breaking News:
Iraqi mourners, supporters of US-attacked militia, storm US Embassy after US airstrikes kill
25
The mourners held funerals for the 25 Iraqi fighters of the Iran-backed militia killed in US airstrikes in a
Baghdad neighborhood, after which they marched on to the heavily fortified Green Zone on Tuesday and kept walking
till they reached the sprawling U.S. Embassy there. Iraqi
security forces fired teargas to disperse protesters. US ambasador and staff evacuated. (Ynet,
Haaretz)
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.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday December 30, 2019
Quote of the day #1:
“The truth is, Jews in Israel are trying to convince themselves and the whole world that ensuring their own
rights necessitates the elimination of the Palestinians’ national rights. According to the deluded conception
prevailing among right-wingers, the establishment of a Palestinian state means the negation of the fulfillment of
Zionism. Since in their eyes, assailing Zionism is tantamount to anti-Semitism, Palestinian nationhood in an
independent state is perceived as anti-Semitic.”
—Prof. Zeev Sternhell in Op-Ed in today’s Haaretz.
Quote of the day #2:
“I have come to the realization that Trump is one of the most important presidents in US history. In a
world where boundaries are blurred, where it is unclear who is good and who is bad, it is good to know that that
the world's superpower is led by a person with moral clarity…”
—Israel Hayom Editor-in-Chief, Boaz Bismuth, writes in an Op-Ed in today’s paper.
Well, $120,000 ain’t bananas to us here at APN. In fact, at the time, we needed just about
that much more to meet our 2019 budget target. We are now down to $50,000, and that still ain't
bananas!
APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday December 29, 2019
Quote of the day #1:
“Even if its intentions are otherwise, by closing the center the university is joining the murky wave of
directing fewer and fewer resources to peace research, democracy and humanist values.”
—Prof. Izhak Schnell of the Department of Geography and Human Environment at Tel-Aviv University reacts to the university’s decision to shut down the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research.*
Quote of the day #2:
"Netanyahu, with no authority or responsibility, keeps promoting more construction in the West Bank
settlements all the while sacrificing the possibility of an agreement with the Palestinian people."
--Peace Now reacted to the latest government plan to approve 2000 more settler homes.**
Professor Nurit Shnabel is a psychologist at Tel Aviv University, who researches the way in which empathy can diminish the sense of exclusive victimhood that each side feels in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Some of her findings could be leveraged by leaders and other members of both societies to help find a way toward peace and reconciliation.
