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.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) welcomes the petition filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) with the US Supreme Court to overturn an Arkansas law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel as a condition to doing business with the state.

APN thanks the ACLU and urges the Supreme Court to take up the case.

APN supports the right of American citizens, organizations and companies to use boycotts as a legitimate First Amendment-protected right.

The case in point pertains to the Arkansas Times newspaper and its editor, Alan Leveritt, who refused to sign a commitment to not boycott Israel as a condition for an advertising contract with the state-run University of Arkansas. Leveritt initially lost in a federal district court, but when he appealed to the 8th Circuit court of appeals, a three-judge panel overturned the federal district court's ruling, ruling in his favor. The state of Arkansas petitioned to have the case reviewed again by the full 8th district court (as opposed to the 3-judge panel), and the court agreed to. The full court's ruling upheld the initial ruling of the federal district court, ruling against Leveritt to uphold the 2017 Arkansas law, which the state of Arkansas dubbed “boycotting the boycotters.”

Today, Israel's Coordinating Office for Government Affairs in the Territories’ (COGAT) new West Bank regulations will come into effect. Among the regulations are draconian restrictions intended to micro-engineer the public and private lives of Palestinians (including American citizens) that would subject them to a restrictive screening process and arbitrarily limit entry to the West Bank. Unfortunately, Palestinian-Americans are already not afforded the same basic rights as other American passport holders when traveling to Israel and the Occupied Territories –these new procedures officially codify Israel’s informal pervasive discriminatory practices.

At the same time, Israel is requesting to join the United States Visa Waiver Program. If they were deemed eligible, this program would ease and expedite the entry process for Israeli travelers visiting the United States. Until now, Israel has been denied admission to the program due to its failure to give reciprocal treatment to US travelers. The formal implementation of COGAT’s discriminatory practices brings Israel further from eligibility for the Visa Waiver Program.

We support Israel’s admission into the Visa Waiver Program. But if, and only if, they meet all of the requirements. And it is clear that currently, they do not.

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.

 Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived.

The surging violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, two weeks before Israel’s general elections, is not only a tragedy, but also a cause for serious political concern.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) calls on all stakeholders, including the Biden administration, to do their utmost to lower the flames and stop the violence to prevent further bloodshed and destruction.

The current flareup is characterized by provocative settler violence. In various hotspots in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, settlers have been brutalizing Palestinians, damaging their property, burning cars and blocking vital transportation routes. Settler provocations have become a staple of Jewish holidays. Young settlers are off school and their parents on holiday break. The result is an increase in organized violent action.

For many Israelis of my generation, even more than spiritual reflection, Yom Kippur evokes political reflections on war and peace. 

Every year since 1973, Yom Kippur takes me back to that dark period in Israeli history, when a disastrous war drove Israelis to question their leaders, the power of their military, their sense of invincibility and the very ability of their national home to survive. Israel won the war, but the loss was immense. Some 2,200 soldiers died and 7,250 were injured. It caused one of the deepest political crises in Israel’s history. It forced a painful collective introspection and drive to overcome the hubris and sense of complacency in the wake of Israel’s spectacular victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. That complacency and hubris was known in colloquial Hebrew as the “conceptsia” (conception).