This year's Israel study tour was an amazing experience.
Below is a sampling of images from this year's tour: It's not too early to sign up for next year.
If you would like to be placed on the mailing list for the 2015 Israel study tour please contact Ori Nir at
202-408-9898 or at israeltour@peacenow.org
As published today by AP, Settlers claim that the number of Israelis living in the West Bank is 382,031 (excluding those who live in East Jerusalem). This number shows a rapid growth in setters' population, of 2% in six months, double the growth rate in Israel itself.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Wednesday September 17, 2014
Quote of the day:
"But a big rocket more significant than any fired by Hamas is being welded at this time in Ramallah, at
Abbas's office."
--Maariv's military affairs analyst, Alon Ben-David, says that Hamas may return to rockets when it discovers that Israel has no intention of giving it a seaport, but Israel's bigger threat will come from The Hague.**
--Maariv's military affairs analyst, Alon Ben-David, says that Hamas may return to rockets when it discovers that Israel has no intention of giving it a seaport, but Israel's bigger threat will come from The Hague.**
16/9/14
Earlier this year the Jerusalem Municipality approved two construction permits requested by the right wing Elad association in Jerusalem's Hashalom Forest located on the seam zone between East and West Jerusalem. One permit was for legalizing structures built by Elad as part of an ideological tourist center they established on lands given to them by the JNF (KKL), and the other was for the construction of a new camping site meant to accommodate large groups.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday September 16, 2014
Quote of the day:
"The occupation corrupts, the 8200 refuseniks say, and they are telling the truth. In the best-case scenario,
the information they gather prevents a terror attack; in many other cases, it contributes to the occupation's
maliciousness, arbitrariness and foolishness, or provides a decent cover to the government's false policy."
--Senior Yedioth commentator, Nahum Barnea, says the conscientious objectors from Unit 8200 are right,
but their declaration won't change the policy.**
Inspired by stories his father told him as a child, Leonard Fein felt called to mend a torn world, in words and deeds.
Cofounding the magazine Moment with Elie Wiesel in the 1970s, he became one of the nation’s most visible writers and thinkers about Jewish ideas and issues. In 1985 he launched Mazon, a nonprofit that has raised tens of millions to help feed the hungry. A dozen years later he helped create the National Jewish Coalition for Literacy to train tutors, and he also was a founder of Americans for Peace Now.
This week, Alpher discusses whether Egypt's reported proposal to help solve the Palestinian issue by allowing the Gaza Strip to expand into Egyptian territory in northeast Sinai in realistic; is it a breakthrough that for the very first time a senior Hamas official stated that there is no religious prohibition on negotiating directly with Israel; is it a watershed event that Friday 43 reservists from the IDF's elite listening unit 8200 published a declaration refusing to serve, in protest at the abuse of intelligence data to perpetuate the occupation; why the Sunni Arab world is seemingly so reluctant to sign up for President Obama's military campaign against ISIL.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday September 15, 2014
Quote of the day:
"The Unit 8200 refuseniks are trying, for the first time, to establish a clear distinction between
spying on Israel's enemies – hostile states and terror organizations – and on ordinary Palestinian
citizens."
--Haaretz+'s Anshel Pfeffer analyzes why the letter by members of the Military Intel Unit 8200 is so powerful compared to previous letters by soldiers refusing to serve.**
--Haaretz+'s Anshel Pfeffer analyzes why the letter by members of the Military Intel Unit 8200 is so powerful compared to previous letters by soldiers refusing to serve.**
APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday September 14, 2014
Quote of the day:
"These days, shouting 'death to Arabs' in the middle of Jaffa Street is okay; nothing should be done
about it."
--Aviv Tatarsky, a volunteer with the 'City Guard,' a grassroots group that protects Arabs in the capital from attacks by Jewish racists.**
--Aviv Tatarsky, a volunteer with the 'City Guard,' a grassroots group that protects Arabs in the capital from attacks by Jewish racists.**
August 2014
Dear Friend,
I write this letter as a blessed cease fire is just going into effect, — not the first cease fire, and I don’t know if this one will hold. But it may be, so we all hope, that the Gaza war is over. If not now, then very soon negotiations for a lasting cease fire or even for something that might look like peace will begin. I have no sense of how these negotiations will go, but all of us at Americans for Peace Now believe that this is an opportunity for Israel to act boldly to strengthen the Palestine Authority (PA) and its new unity government and, with its help, to prevent or strongly curtail the rearmament of Hamas and to open the way for reconstruction and economic development in Gaza. But Gaza is not alone. There can’t be a legitimate PA in Gaza unless Israel is ready to work with the PA in Ramallah for the two-state solution that we have been defending for so long. When you read this, you will know whether Israel and Palestine have moved closer, or farther away, from this necessary goal.
Meanwhile, we have to think about what is happening inside Israel itself. Before the war began, we followed with horror the news of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli boys and then of the murder of a Palestinian boy. Gilad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrah, and Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir: in our hearts, these are all “our boys,” who died deaths that no child should.