I have written to you in past years to alert you to Americans for Peace Now’s annual Israel study tour, which I lead. These tours focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and efforts to resolve it, and examine Israel’s security and diplomatic challenges, as well as the situation on the Palestinian side.

This year’s tour is different. For one thing, it takes place earlier than the usual – April 25 to April 30 – which means that time for registration is short.

The timing of this year’s tour gives us a unique opportunity to observe Israeli society right after general elections, as a new government coalition takes shape, and with it new policies – for better or worse. By the time we start our tour, five weeks after the March 17 general elections, we should expect a government coalition to have been formed and maybe even sworn in. Considering the importance of these elections, and regardless of their results, the period following the elections will be pivotal for Israel’s future as is the ever-revolving Middle Eastern regional kaleidoscope.

This week, Alpher discusses why the PLO toughened its statehood resolution at the Security Council at the last minute instead of waiting a few days for a friendlier roster of Council members; whether, with France voting for the resolution and the UK abstaining, if this is a breakthrough for the cause of Palestinian statehood at the level of international institutions; what is likely to happen now that the Palestinians are going to the International Criminal Court; possible US and Israeli punitive measures against the Palestinians’ UN and ICC moves; what does the Fateh movement, the mainstay of the PLO and PA, and which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on January 1, have to show for its efforts and how do they tie in with the UN and ICC; and -- what about Israeli elections?

An article written by APN's Ori Nir, published in today's edition of the Boston Globe, reminds us that the realistic attitude -one endorsed by all six of the most recent leaders of Israel’s General Security Service (Shin Bet) - is the one that advocates a two-state solution.

Americans for Peace Now works to advance Arab-Israeli peace and to highlight that such peace is not only necessary, but also possible. Support APN's message of peace and a two-state solution.

 This week, Alpher discusses the attacks in Paris, and Netanyahu's comparison of Israeli and French victims of terror; confronting the Islamist threat; and notable developments of recent weeks that can be understood to suggest strategic political trends in upcoming elections.

Update: this action, now closed, ran in January 2015. 

The fight to keep Iran-focused diplomacy alive isn’t over. Last year, with your help, efforts by some Senators – backed by groups like AIPAC – to pass new, diplomacy-killing Iran sanctions in the Senate (S. 1881) were stopped in their tracks. Now, the same group is at it again, with new Iran sanctions legislation expected to be introduced in the Senate next week.

National Security Advisor Susan Rice has predicted that new Iran sanctions would “blow up” negotiations. President Obama has promised to veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk. But this isn’t stopping Senate Iran hawks and their supporters. They appear more determined than ever to move ahead with new sanctions and are working to muster a veto-proof majority.

This week, Alpher discusses the Israeli Air Force helicopter strike in the Golan; the broader strategic implications; the announcement last week in the Hague that the International Criminal Court was launching a preliminary inquiry to determine whether to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by Israel in last summer’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza; and why “Charlie Hebdo” drew so much more international attention than far more extensive Islamist atrocities perpetrated almost simultaneously by Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Qaeda and the Shiite-affiliated Houthis in Yemen

New fronts of warfare

Americans for Peace Now (APN) is horrified and outraged by today's stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, which left 13 innocent civilians injured, some of them severely.

APN strongly condemns this terrorist attack by a young Palestinian from the West Bank, and stands with the people of Israel as they confront violence and terror. 

Americans for Peace Now (APN) is horrified and outraged by today's stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, which left 13 innocent civilians injured, some of them severely.

APN strongly condemns this terrorist attack by a young Palestinian from the West Bank, and stands with the people of Israel.

The stabber, a 22-year-old from the West Bank town of Tulkarm, reportedly told his interrogators that he was radicalized by recent violence and by Islamist messages. He apparently acted alone, not by order of a Palestinian organization. A spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Strip praised his attack.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) calls on Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner (R-Ohio) to re-issue his invitation for the prime minister of Israel to address Congress for a later date, after the deadline for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, and following the elections in Israel, after a new government coalition is formed.

APN’s President and CEO Debra DeLee said: “Both the timing of the invitation and its manner are outrageous. They are inappropriate and irresponsible. Not only were the invitations issued in a way that violates protocol, their timing suggests congressional meddling in a foreign county’s election campaign – two weeks only before Israel’s general elections, in which Benjamin Netanyahu is a candidate. Furthermore, the timing strongly suggests an attempt to use a foreign leader to influence the debate between Congress and the White House over America’s Iran policy. To top it all, this move uses Israel, yet again, as a wedge issue in internal American politics. Speaker Boehner’s invitation – both its timing and manner – is therefore a disservice to US national security interests and to Israel’s.  

This week, Alpher discusses the repercussions of the invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress; the Mossad advisory against escalating sanctions and Israel’s tactics against Iran; the attack last week across the Golan border that was attributed to Israel that resulted in the death of an Iranian Quds Force general; strategic ramifications for the elections given the united electoral list of Arab citizens of Israel and the Labor primaries having produced a list with an unusually large, young contingent of women reform advocates; the strategic balance sheet that King Salman inherits after the death of Saudi King Abdullah last week and a coup staged in Yemen by a Zaidi-Shiite sect;