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.

APN in Southern California is a co-sponsor of the following breakfast program to be held on Wednesday, February 4:

Nice or Necessary? Jewish-Arab People-to-People Programs

Breakfast Program with Joel Braunold, U.S. Director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP)

Wednesday, February 4, 2015, 8:00 a.m.

Lenny's Deli (back room)
2379 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles (at Pico)

Bagel Breakfast: $15 (pay at door)

RSVP to apnwest@peacenow.org or 323-934-3480

Sponsors: Americans for Peace Now, American Friends of Neve Shalom Wahat al Salaam, J Street, Partners for Progressive Israel

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The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is a network of organizations that seek to build a secure just and sustainable peace, and conduct civil society work in conflict transformation, development, coexistence and cooperative activities on the ground in the Middle East among Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs, and Jews.

There are more than 80 member organizations in ALLMEP, including the Arab-Jewish Village Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam and the bilingual and multicultural Hand in Hand schools, the Jerusalem one recently attacked in a hate crime.

Joel Braunold is the U.S. Director of ALLMEP, after having previously served in leadership roles in London and New York at the ALLMEP member organization PeaceWorks Foundation/OneVoice Movement. He has received the Avi Schaefer Peace Innovation Prize, and his insightful analysis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been published by national and international media outlets, including Ha'aretz.com, the New York Daily News, the Guardian, the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast.