The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has set off reverberations around the world. For many, the alarm bells could not be ringing any louder. A campaign that featured anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment, and was supported by a legion of online anti-Semites, is now transitioning to an administration that makes many Americans justifiably fearful.

Steve Bannon, the former editor of the right-wing Breitbart News who has trafficked in conspiracy theories, race-baiting, and anti-Semitism, has been appointed as President-elect Trump’s chief strategist and counselor. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, an avowed Islamophobe, has been appointed as national security advisor. Senator Jeff Sessions, an anti-immigrant crusader who has made numerous racially insensitive and derogatory remarks, will become Trump’s attorney general. And Trump is considering the appointment of secretaries of defense and state who would seek to destroy the Iran deal, jeopardizing U.S. and Israeli security in the process.

Help APN fight back against right-wing extremists in the U.S. and Israel – and keep hope for peace alive

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.

This week, Alpher discusses how the Levant is reacting as President-elect Trump announces key appointments; the reaction in Israel to Trump’s indication of the far-right direction he plans to follow; the striking exception to the pro-settler sentiments and atmosphere encouraged by the Trump victory; whether the Trump victory atmosphere will affect the upcoming Elor Azaria verdict; a seeming fixation with the Mediterranean and what can be learned from it.

(published 10/21/16 at Haaretz - here)

Last Friday, the UN Security Council held a meeting organized under the title “Illegal Israeli Settlements: A Threat to Peace and the Two-State Solution.” Americans for Peace Now proudly took part in that event, offering testimony grounded in love for Israel and expressing an unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and its survival as a democracy and a state rooted in the Jewish values expressed in its Declaration of Independence. Of course, that testimony also dealt with the settlements, explaining why they are detrimental to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace and therefore to Israel’s national security interests.

Many people, both inside and outside Israel, were happy to see a pro-Israel, pro-two-state organization delivering a nuanced, fact-based presentation at this event. Others were less enthused, most notably Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, who accused APN of participating in “diplomatic terror” against Israel. Likewise, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to call APN’s arguments “deluded.” And now, in this newspaper, the former head of the Union of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, criticized APN’s testimony as a “mistake” – not for the facts it conveyed or its tone, but for the timing and location of its delivery.

In the beginning, “pro-Israel” meant something clear and uncomplicated: supporting Israel’s miraculous establishment as the homeland of the Jewish people, on the heels of the horrors of the Holocaust, and defending Israel’s very right to exist and thrive, in the face of violent rejection of that young country by its neighbors.

After the 1967 War, the definition of “pro-Israel” began evolving. It gradually came to mean – for much of the American Jewish establishment – defending Israel from all criticism and pressure, even if this meant in effect supporting policies designed to cement Israeli control over the lands Israel conquered in 1967, and even if it meant turning a blind eye, especially in recent years, to an escalation in illiberal policies targeting Israeli civil society itself. And it came to mean demanding that American political leaders and elected officials adopt this same approach to “pro-Israel,” or risk finding themselves labeled “anti-Israel” or “anti-Semitic.”

A direct line exists between this “pro-Israel” illiberal orthodoxy and the positioning of too many in the Jewish establishment today.

Today, APN joined proudly with other Jewish American organizations in sending a letter to President-Elect Donald Trump. The letter lays out many of our concerns and hopes for the coming Administration and sends an unambiguous message about our work for the future: 

“…you will find willing partners in the Jewish community to join with your administration if it follows a path that upholds and defends the principles of fairness, justice and freedom on which this country was built. But, we will not stand idly by if you choose to take actions that violate human rights, or that reverse the progress we have made at home and abroad. You will find us as powerful opponents of any effort to undermine these gains.”

The full text of the letter is copied below. A downloadable pdf version of the letter is available here.

APN today released the following statement in connection with the appointment of Steve Bannon to the Trump White House, and in connection to the wave of anti-Semitic acts and other hateful rhetoric and aggression targeting vulnerable groups in America:

Americans for Peace Now (APN) – America’s veteran Jewish, Zionist, pro-peace organization – unequivocally condemns the appointment of Steve Bannon as senior advisor and chief strategist in the White House. Bannon is unfit to serve in the White House or in any part of the government of this great nation. This judgment is not about political or policy disagreements. It is about basic American and Jewish values. It is about the poisonous racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other vile hate-mongering that grew alongside and in support of the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump. It is about the failure of President-elect Trump and his surrogates to meaningfully reject and condemn this trend and its adherents; indeed, it is about the President-elect appearing to actively court and encourage them. The naming of Bannon as a top advisor in the Trump White House – an act celebrated by the “alt-right” as a clear victory for their odious agenda – is the personification of this phenomenon.

APN likewise condemns, vehemently and unequivocally, the decision by some Jewish groups and prominent individuals to ignore, tolerate, whitewash, and even justify anti-Semitism and hate-mongering – both now, with the Bannon appointment, and over the course of the Trump campaign. Their decision to do so reflects a dangerous perversion of the very concept of what it means to be “pro-Israel.” Their failure to speak out today is the culmination of years of efforts to transform support for Israel into an extremist ideology of its own – an ideology that prioritizes fealty to hardline, pro-settlement, anti-peace Israeli positions over all else, including over defending core Jewish values, like tolerance and respect for human rights and human dignity, and even over standing up to the scourge of anti-Semitism that has plagued our people for generations.

Americans for Peace Now today released the following statement regarding Congressman Keith Ellison's (D-MN) record of working for Israeli-Palestinian peace:

"APN has worked closely with Congressman Ellison for nearly a decade. He is a close friend and a trusted ally in the effort to achieve security and peace for Israel and the Palestinians in the context of a two-state solution. Where other members of Congress may talk the talk about supporting Middle East peace, Congressman Ellison walks the walk. Time and again he has led constructive efforts in Congress for the benefit of both Israelis and Palestinians. In doing so, he has acted as a true friend of Israel and of American Jews who recognize that 'pro-Israel' credentials are measured not in the degree of support for hardline, pro-settlement Israeli policies, but rather in concrete efforts to achieve peace and a two-state solution."

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.

This week, Alpher discusses if it's possible that the Middle East contributed to Trump’s election victory; contradictions in Trump’s Middle East policy positions; whether Trump’s demand that countries like Japan and South Korea and NATO members pay their own way in defense matters could also affect Israel; are Trump’s first public policy statements since being elected that he welcomes the challenge of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict empty bluster or a serious commitment; whether Trump’s Republican, evangelical and militia-minded constituency committed to Israel’s security from a religious-ideological standpoint; if Middle East leaders, following the lead of Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi, were correct in their assumptions that Trump’s electoral victory will reduce US pressures on their regimes regarding human rights issues; and how much of this is pure speculation .

News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:

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.

This week, Alpher discusses the Netanyahu government’s most immediate preoccupation regarding the outcome of the US presidential election; how it depends on who wins, Trump or Clinton; the possibility of Obama intending to launch a last-minute policy initiative; and the number of heavy controversies on the Netanyahu government’s near-term agenda: the High Court, the media, and religious pluralism .