Yesterday, Over 700 Jewish Americans sent a critical petition to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the immediate release of $75 million in emergency humanitarian funding for Palestinian refugees. The funds, previously approved by Congress to provide essential food assistance to vulnerable Palestinian families via the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), are set to expire at midnight this Saturday.

In a plea to Secretary Blinken, the petition highlights the urgency of the situation. Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has imposed a hold on these crucial funds, preventing their release for months despite repeated appeals from concerned advocates. Without swift action by the State Department to override the hold, over 1.2 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza face an impending humanitarian catastrophe, with many vulnerable children left without access to food.

The text of the petition, delivered to Secretary Blinken, implores him to take immediate action and expedite the release of the allocated funds for emergency food assistance to Palestinian refugees. It underscores the moral duty to provide emergency food assistance and emphasizes the United States' pivotal role in advancing peace and stability in the region by addressing the fundamental humanitarian needs of Palestinians.

Americans for Peace Now’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind said "We’re sending this petition on the eve of Sukkot. We cannot in good conscience celebrate the fall harvest while crucial funding for food assistance to Palestinians is allowed to expire. The situation in Gaza is at a dire juncture, and lives hang in the balance. It is our moral obligation to do everything we can to ensure these funds are released in time."

The Biden administration announced today that it is admitting Israel into the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) as of this coming November.

While Americans for Peace Now supports Israel’s inclusion in the program, we believe that doing so before Israel has fully complied with all the program’s requirements is a mistake.

We realize that Israel has gone a long way toward crossing the threshold that would deem it as complying with the program’s requirements, and support those steps it has taken. But it has not crossed the threshold.

Although the US administration and the government of Israel have yet to release the full details of their understandings regarding the VWP, it is clear that important obstacles, which have been standing in the way of establishing US-Israeli reciprocity, have not yet been lifted. These problems will now be discussed by a joint committee, which will attempt to reconcile the rights of US citizens with Israeli security concerns related to its rule over the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. 

APN’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind said: “Israel has legitimate security concerns. These concerns largely stem from an illegitimate military occupation. By welcoming Israel into the Visa Waiver Program with special exceptions, the Biden administration is bending over backward to accommodate Israel’s occupation. Simply put, there is no reciprocity with occupation. And it is clear that Israel is not in compliance. Blue is blue. The Biden administration should have followed existing visa waiver law, and ensured that Israel met the program requirements before admission.”

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

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.

Yet again, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United Nations General Assembly with an uncompromising hardline message that doubles down on the Occupation and projects Israel to the world as an annexationist state.

Netanyahu will be returning to Israel following a bizarre US visit, which did not include a trip to Washington, and featured a high-profile meeting with billionaire Elon Musk at a California car factory. His brief meeting with the President of the United States, which President Biden depicted as “candid” – a diplomatic euphemism for a rough conversation – was held on the sidelines of UNGA, and did not provide any positive headlines.

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.

On the 30th anniversary of the Oslo Agreement, following are some personal observations and thoughts by Ori Nir, who at the time covered Oslo’s implementation for Israel’s Haaretz. 

By Ori Nir

As Israeli and PLO officials were secretly negotiating in Oslo over the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, talks between representatives of Israel, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinians were taking place openly in Washington. 

The Washington Talks, as they were known at the time, were an exercise in futility. The Palestinian delegation could not include representatives of the PLO (It was illegal for Israelis to even meet with PLO officials). The first few rounds of talks between the Israeli and joint Jodanian-Palestinian delegation addressed the shape of the table. Literally. At one of the sessions on the Israeli-Syrian track, while the Syrian foreign minister laid out his government’s national narrative, a member of the Israeli delegation attempted to disrupt him by loudly tapping his teacup with a spoon. True story.