Jerusalem Post: "Netanyahu 'confident' U.S. will allow Israeli annexation of parts of West Bank" April 27, 2020

The West Bank is home to almost 2.7 million Palestinians and more than 400,000 Israelis, according to figures collated by Peace Now, an Israeli organization that advocates for a two-state solution. Read >>

Arab News: "Palestinians, Israelis should seek peace together" April 29, 2020

by Ray Hanania

One of the loudest voices challenging Israel’s annexation plans hasn’t been Palestinian, but rather Israeli: The liberal advocacy and activist group Peace Now. “The public did not choose for Israel to go down this extreme path; most of the public does not want annexation. The security echelon warns of the implications of annexation. Annexation costs will be much higher than the debilitating costs of the COVID-19 crisis,” Peace Now said in a statement released this week. Read >>

Ha'aretz: "Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony Gets Unprecedented Boost From U.S. Jewish Groups" April 26, 2020

This year, the ceremony is being co-sponsored by a long list of Jewish and pro-peace groups in both Israel and the United States including the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish organization in the United States. Other sponsors and partners include J Street, the New Israel Fund, Peace Now, IfNotNow, Churches for Middle East Peace, as well as individual churches, synagogues and interfaith dialogue groups. Read >>

Ha'aretz: "U.S. Jewish Groups Warn of West Bank Annexation in Wake of Netanyahu-Gantz Deal" April 21, 2020

Americans for Peace Now also warned that "The meaning of this agreement is that the Netanyahu-Gantz government, allegedly established to join forces to fight the coronavirus, will be the first in Israel's history to adopt the extremist policy principle of West Bank annexation." Read >>

Time: "Israelis Just Showed the World What a Socially Distant Protest Looks Like" April 20, 2020

"What connects all the groups and causes is the shout out for Israeli democracy that is being harmed these days by Netanyahu and his allies," Shaqued Morag, executive director of the anti-occupation group Peace Now tells TIME.

Morag says she sees Netanyahu’s plan to annex swathes of Palestinian territories—a move President Trump greenlit in January—as the principal threat to Israeli democracy. Read >>

Jewish Journal: "On Israel’s 72nd Birthday, We Must Fight For The Two State Solution" April 17, 2020

By Mark Bilsky, APN Deputy CEO

Israel, we imagined, was no longer a question; it was now and forever an answer. We were evidently mistaken. The question lingers. Read >>

Published online and in the printed version of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal and also in the Washington Jewish Week, with permission.

The Jerusalem Post: "Bennett advances 1,800 new settler homes, says won’t give land to Arabs" (February 27, 2020)

Peace Now said of the plans, “The caretaker government, without a public and moral mandate, sets facts on the ground for a small and extreme minority, against the will of the majority. In the battle over the settler right-wing vote, Bennett and Netanyahu are dragging Israel to invest in thousands of harmful and unnecessary settlement units. This is how a cynical and irresponsible leadership that is willing to abandon the Israeli interest for its political survival behaves."

San Francisco Chronicle (AP): "Watchdog: Israel moves ahead with hundreds of settler homes" (February 27, 2020)

Israel is moving forward on plans to build more than 1,700 homes for settlers in the West Bank, the settlement watchdog Peace Now said Thursday.

The Times of Israel: "UN slams ‘worrying’ Israeli plans to build in West Bank, East Jerusalem" (February 26, 2020)

The Peace Now settlement watchdog reported that Defense Ministry officials met with planners last week to prepare an outline for a new road for Palestinians that would go around E1 and Ma’aleh Adumim and allow Israel to annex the area.

“The only roads Israel paved for Palestinians in its 52 years of control over the Territories were designed to allow Israel to build settlements or barriers that block existing Palestinian routes,” Peace Now said, blasting the road plan.

Jerusalem Post: "Peace Now: Tender issued for 1,077 homes in Givat Hamatos" (February 25, 2020)

Peace now warned that the settlement would “sever” the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian Jerusalem-Bethlehem metropolitan area.

New York Times (AP): "Netanyahu Plans Settlement in Contentious West Bank Area" (February 25, 2020)

Israeli activist group Peace Now said in a statement that settlement construction in E1 “means that Israel is officially choosing to perpetuate the conflict instead of resolving it.”

The Jerusalem Post: "Netanyahu: Mapping process has begun, sovereignty to follow" (February 25, 2020)

Netanyahu has pushed forward the project to help cement Israel’s hold on a united Jerusalem. Peace Now has warned that it would “sever” the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian Jerusalem-Bethlehem metropolitan area.

“Construction in Givat Hamatos is a serious blow to the two-state solution,” Peace Now said. “This is the last point enabling territorial continuity between Bethlehem and east Jerusalem.”

The Times of Israel (Live Now): "Peace Now: New East Jerusalem building plans a ‘serious blow’ to two-state solution" (February 20, 2020)

The Peace Now settlement watchdog group calls Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement of the construction of new housing units in East Jerusalem a “serious blow” to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This is the last point that can allow territorial contiguity between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem — the most significant Palestinian metropolitan area — and if the neighborhood is built, it will not be possible to connect the two cities,” the group says in a statement.

The group calls the move “another cynical election exercise” by Netanyahu and questions whether his transitional government has the legal authority to move forward with the new construction.

It also says despite Netanyahu’s backing of the recently unveiled Trump peace plan, “he is doing everything possible to preclude the chances for peace and prevent a resolution of the conflict.”

Al-Monitor: "Despite divisions in wake of Trump’s plan, Israelis & Palestinians labor for peace" (February 20, 2020)

Peace Now's Shaqued Morag: "Having ties with Peace Now is not normalization, because we support change to the existing situation, rather than preservation." She also said that when Peace Now representatives paid a visit to Ramallah after the release of the Trump plan, they did not encounter any opposition or threats. "I have never encountered a Palestinian who refused to meet with me about this. I believe that we must continue working together toward our common objective,” Morag added.

New York Times: "Netanyahu Announces New Homes in East Jerusalem, Days Before Election" (February 20, 2020)

Peace Now, another Israeli anti-settlement group, said the plans amounted to “state suicide” by preventing any viable two-state option for the future. "If nobody stops it, then in a year or two they will begin to build" in Givat Hamatos, said Hagit Ofran of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch department.

The Jerusalem Post: "Netanyahu announces 2,200 new housing units in Jerusalem's Har Homa" (February 20, 2020)

“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is asking to land another fatal blow to the chances of a two-state solution for two peoples,” said Peace Now. “The planned neighborhood places a wedge in the heart of the Palestinian urban sprawl that exists between Ramallah and east Jerusalem, and as such prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu is leading Israel to the reality of a binational apartheid state and is putting the Zionist enterprise in jeopardy.”

AFP: "Israel plans to build 9,000 more homes" (February 20, 2020 - published in The Daily Star and other news outlets)

Israel has developed plans to build 9,000 settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, the first such project in the city in more than 20 years, watchdog Peace Now said Tuesday... the Atarot plan "also includes the demolition of dozens of Palestinian residential units that were built in the area without permits throughout the years."

Jewish Press: "Report: Israel Plans to Build 9,000 Housing Units in Northeastern Jerusalem" (February 20, 2020)

Peace Now noted that if the plan is approved and the project is built, it will be the first time Jerusalem receives a new neighborhood since the Netanyahu government established Har Homa in 1997. “Netanyahu is dragging Israel into a reality of a bi-national apartheid state and is putting the Zionist enterprise in jeopardy,” Peace Now charged.

Middle East Eye: "Israel's Palestinian minority has good reason to fear Trump's plan" (February 7, 2020)

According to figures published by Peace Now this week, some 380,000 Palestinians – 260,000 in the Triangle and a further 120,000 in East Jerusalem – would be "swapped out" to a Palestinian state.

The Times of Israel: "Thousands march in Tel Aviv against Trump plan" (February 2, 2020)

Organizers from the Peace Now anti-settlement group said thousands marched in the demonstration at Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square, held under the banner of “Peace plan, not annexation deal.”

The Jerusalem Post: "Left rallies in Tel Aviv against ‘apartheid,’ ‘transfer’ plan" (February 2, 2020)

Peace Now organized the event, which included a march and a rally.

NBC News: "Trump peace plan would likely extend decades-old conflict, analysts warn" (January 29, 2020)

Today, the West Bank is home to 2.6 million Palestinians and more than 400,000 Israelis, according to anti-settlement group Peace Now, and the area has long served as the center of Palestinian hopes for an independent state.

The Times of Israel (Live Updates): "Peace Now: Any plan not based on 1967 borders will end up in dustbin of history" (January 23, 2020)

On the left, the Peace Now organization is also warning it probably won’t be a fan of the Trump peace plan. "Any proposal that does not include the formation of a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders and the evacuation of solitary settlements is a deception that will end up in the dustbin of history," the group says.

The Jerusalem Post: "Arab family to be evicted from east Jerusalem home on formerly Jewish land" (January 21, 2020)

"This is an attempt to displace a Palestinian community and to replace it with an Israeli one, in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem," said Peace Now in response to the decision. "In addition to the hard blow to the prospects for a two-state solution by preventing a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, this is an injustice and an act of cruelty to throw out families who have lived lawfully in their homes for decades."

Ha'aretz: "Anti-occupation, Pro-religious Pluralism Activists Aim Big in World Zionist Congress Vote" (January 20, 2020)

Organizations represented also include Aleph, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Habonim Dror North America, Hashomer Hatzair, the Jewish Labor Committee, the National Council of Jewish Women, the New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel and T’ruah.

France 24 (AFP): "Palestinian family pledge appeal over Jerusalem eviction ruling" (January 20, 2020)

The Israeli anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said a Jerusalem magistrates court ruled Sunday in favour of evicting the Rajabi family from their home in the Silwan neighbourhood following a lawsuit filed by members of the pro-settlement Ateret Cohanim organisation.