February 22, 2016 - Olmert, Eizenkot

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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 former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s tenure as head of government; the ramifications of IDF Chief of the General Staff Gadi Eisenkot speaking out against excessive use of force by soldiers and police in dealing with knife attacks by Palestinian youth; and two key issues of domestic and international sensitivity that his comments point to.

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The Iran Nuclear Deal

Settlements ≠ Peace

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Settlements are antithetical to peace…Settlements are, at every level, a liability for Israel. It is because of settlements that the route of Israel's "separation barrier" has been distorted, lengthening and contorting Israel's lines of defense. It is because of settlements that Israeli soldiers are forced to act as police within the West Bank, rather than focusing on their real mission - defending Israel. Settlements are also a huge drain on Israel's economy, with the government continuing to fund construction and to provide settlers a wide range of financial benefits.

It is because of settlements that Israel is forced to rule over a huge - and growing - non-Jewish, disenfranchised population, contrary to basic democratic values. Settlement policies and the actions of settlers erode Israel's image in the world as a democratic state that respects the civil rights of all people under its rule. If allowed to block a two-state solution, settlements will ultimately leave Israeli decision-makers with an impossible choice: be a democracy and give full rights to the Palestinians, at the cost of Israel's Jewish character, or deny rights to the majority of the people under Israeli rule - which the Palestinians will soon be - validating accusations that Israel is increasingly an Apartheid-like state. 

-- From APN's They Say, We Say

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Learn more about settlements – the more you know, the more you can do

  • The debate about settlements has been going on for nearly 50 years. In our seminal publication, “They Say, We Say,” APN takes on the most common pro-settlement canards, one by one, offering factual, substantive responses, updated to include new pro-settlement arguments and narratives put forth by settler advocates in both the U.S. and Israel.
  • The Israeli Peace Now movement & Americans for Peace Now are the leading forces tracking settlement-related developments and exposing them to the public, inside and outside Israel. Click here for APN and Peace Now reports, analyses, and commentary.
  • Supporting Israel is synonymous with opposing settlements and the occupation. This is why APN calls for people who care about Israel to support Israel by boycotting settlements and the occupation. Click here to learn more about our policy and our call to action.
  • APN and its Israeli sister organization, Peace Now, maintain a comprehensive database of settlement-related information. We have put much of that data into an interactive map – Facts on the Ground – that you can use online or download and use via APN’s Map App. Click here for Facts on the Ground/APN’s Map App.
  • “Price Tag” actions – violence and vandalism against Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and increasingly inside Israel – have for years been a tactic of some extremist nationalist Israeli settlement supporters. To learn more, see APN’s Introduction to Price Tag and APN’s Price Tag Timeline.

News Nosh 02.23.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday February 23, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
"I don’t feel I need to deny my ancestry and my roots for me to declare and prove loyalty to Israel. My recognition of, and pride in my roots does not pose a threat to Israel’s security, nor should it be considered an ‘attack’ on it - it’s just a fact."
--Rita Khoury, a Palestinian citizen of Israel (commonly known as an Arab-Israeli), is a graduate of the Technion and an information systems engineer.

You Must Be Kidding: 
The prosecution for Israel’s military court refused to allow the family of imprisoned Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq to visit him at an Israeli hospital as al-Qiq’s hunger strike reached 90 days because it said they were “dangerous to Israeli security." Yet, it reportedly allowed two Hamas prisoners to visit him, ostensibly to convince him to stop his hunger strike. Al-Qiq is protesting being held without charges.
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Hot Topics

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As many question not only the viability but also the desirability of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one of the world’s leading experts on the conflict and on efforts to resolve it discussed the state of the two-state solution.

Dan Kurtzer, is the former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt and currently the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

We suggest reading Ambassador Kurtzer’s recent Brookings essay on the two-state solution.

Listen here.

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News Nosh 02.24.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday February 24, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
“Why? Because the parliament could. It was a ‘military government’ of the left-wing parties.”
--Expressing reservations about the 'Suspension Bill,' which would allow suspending MKs on ideological grounds, MK Benny Begin tells how his father was suspended in the Fifties.**

You Must Be Kidding: 
A gay Iranian poet who fled his homeland after harassment and arrest has requested asylum in Israel.*
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News Nosh 02.25.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Thursday February 25, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
"In my farewell letter to the (Foreign) Ministry I wrote: 'The government leaders have endorsed policies that outrage me… I have a hard time explaining them honestly.' I did not expect that after five years, over the course of which we faced two wars and two elections, Israel’s situation would deteriorate beyond recognition."
--Former Israeli diplomat Ilan Baruch examines where Israel has gone in the last five years and where it needs to go.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Investigator: You’re sure Sharaf was with you during that terror attack?
Tamimi: Yes, I’m sure Sharaf was with us.
Investigator: You’re lying, because he had a broken leg.
Tamimi: He may have had a broken leg. I don’t remember.
Investigator: Maybe he was with you only in planning to attack the military outpost, but not during the execution?
Tamimi: I’m sure he took part in the planning but by God I don’t remember if he was there at the execution, because you say he had a broken leg.
--A report by Haaretz+'s Chaim Levinson reveals how the IDF military prosecution, headed by Lt. Col. Maurice Hirsch, a resident of the settlement Efrat, continues to have detained Palestinians questioned after they have proven to be false witnesses, who have incriminated innocent people. Those people, who are held in prison for months during the proceedings, sometimes agree to plea bargains just to be sure they will get out of jail.**
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With Obama Signing Statement, the Conflation Campaign Must Stop

On February 24th, Congress sent HR 644, known as the “Customs Bill,” to President Obama's desk. As we has been reporting for the past year, this bill includes a provision that, while ostensibly about countering the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel, is in truth about legitimizing settlements and for the first time in history legislating U.S. support for and defense of Israel's settlement enterprise and the occupation that enables it. The provision achieves this by conflating Israel and the occupied territories, in effect requiring the U.S. to treat both as sovereign Israel.

As long predicted by APN, when President Obama signed HR 644 into law shortly after it reached his desk, he issued a signing statement observing (correctly) that the conflation of Israel and settlements contradicts longstanding U.S. foreign policy and violates the Executive's constitutional foreign policy prerogative, and declaring that this conflation would not be implemented.

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News Nosh 02.26.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday February 26, 2016
 
You Must Be Kidding: 
"Netanyahu is the leader of the Israbluff camp. Everything about him is pretend. In the next election campaign we [Yisrael Beytenu] will not pledge our support to you as prime minister. We are the true Right, the real nationalist camp -- not you."
--Hardline right-wing leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, MK Avigdor Lieberman, said Netanyahu isn't right-wing enough.**
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