We Say:

The argument that Israel shouldn't have to give up land for peace misses the point. Israel must trade land for peace not to placate its enemies or "reward" them for something but to serve its own interests: in order to survive as a Jewish state and a democracy, with real security and recognized borders.

Today, 11 million people live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Jews comprise about half that number, and Israeli experts predict that by the year 2020, Arabs will outnumber Jews by 20%. In this reality, if Israel continues to rule over the West Bank, it can continue to be a Jewish state only by continuing to disenfranchise the Palestinians. But this is not a realistic option, both because it conflicts with Jewish values and because the international community will not tolerate forever a situation in which such a large population - eventually the majority of the population of the area - is disenfranchised. While we all find comparisons to Apartheid-era South Africa distasteful, there is no doubt that such comparisons will increase if things continue as they are.

There is another significant difference between the Middle East of 1967 and today's Middle East. Following the Six-Day War, the Arab League - a coalition of all Arab states - passed a resolution stating that there would be "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." These "three no's of Khartoum" made clear that the Arab world was united in dogmatic rhetoric and enmity toward Israel.

In the decades since then, the Arab world has become much more pragmatic in its approach to Israel. This has been evidenced in Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, Israeli relations with other Arab states (which have improved at times when there has been a credible Israeli-Palestinian peace process), and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API), under which Arab League members unanimously offered Israel peace and normalized relations, subject to a two-state solution that, among other things, subjected the Palestinian "right of return" to Israeli consent. The Arab League has since re-affirmed its proposal repeatedly. It would be foolhardy to ignore these changes.

We Say:

The anti-democratic trends in Israel today are inextricably linked to the broader challenge facing Israel - achieving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This link can be seen clearly in the targets of much of the anti-democratic legislation being introduced in the Knesset: Israeli non-government organizations, like Peace Now, that are working to stop the occupation and achieve a two-state solution. It is not a coincidence that such organizations are targeted, while organizations that actively support the settlers and promote a "Greater Israel" agenda are not.

Likewise, today we are witnessing growing contempt for rule of law in Israel - a trend that is directly and openly linked to settlers and their supporters, many of whom treat Israeli law as something to be invoked when it supports their cause, and something to be ignored and challenged when it impedes their efforts. This trend goes hand-in-hand with growing lawlessness by settlers and their supporters, evident in settler attacks not only on Palestinians, but in attacks and threats against Israeli peace activists, the Israeli army, and the Israeli police. The parallels between these trends and the trends that preceded the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin - at the hands of an extremist opposed to Rabin's peace efforts - are unmistakable and must not be ignored.

Israelis and American Jews alike are coming to see that the fight is on for Israel's soul. This is a fight to determine whether Israel will survive as a pluralistic, tolerant, democratic nation - a nation that doesn't occupy another people, where women are not marginalized, where minorities enjoy genuinely equal rights and protections as promised to them by law, and where progressive voices aren't persecuted by their own elected officials. It is a fight for Israel as a state with rule of law, not rule by law; a democracy, not a tyranny of the majority. We are struggling for an Israel in which "hasbara" denotes the unabashedly positive impulse to tell the world about the myriad accomplishments of this remarkable nation, not a defensive tactic to distract the world from actions that cannot be defended or explained.

The occupation has been in place for nearly five decades. It has deepened with each passing year, as successive governments have aided and abetted the settlement enterprise. Today, it is an Israeli reality that has penetrated deeply into Israel's government and Israel's society, and threatens to hollow Israel's own democracy from within.

We Say:

Israel's unique demographic mixture poses very real challenges to Israel's democracy. As then-Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren wrote in April 2012: "the litmus test for any democracy is its ability to protect the rights of its minorities."

It should not be forgotten that from 1948-1966, Israel's Arab citizens - who represent around 20% of the population - lived under martial law. This changed in 1966, but this 20% of the population still suffers from systematic and well-documented discrimination in virtually every sphere of public life. Making things worse, in recent years the Knesset has passed a number of anti-democratic laws targeting Israel's Arab citizens. These include a law punishing any commemoration of Arab citizens' historical narrative (which views the establishment of Israel as a story of loss, not one of redemption); a law barring Arab citizens of Israel from marrying freely (unless they want to emigrate); and a law allowing communities to blackball new residents based on their failing to "meet the fundamental views of the community."

Likewise, it is true for example, that Israel does not have an official national religion. Nonetheless, today it is a sad and undeniable reality that rabbis on the payroll of the state of Israel are using their authority to promote anti-democratic, religiously intolerant agendas. This includes things like the issuance of an edict forbidding Jews to rent or sell property to Arabs and promoting the ever-increasing exclusion of women from the public sphere - all with the apparent acquiescence of the government. Likewise, because there is no civil sphere in Israel free of religious influence, the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate controls all access to marriage, burials, and conversions in Israel, and often denies access to those it consider insufficiently Jewish (including many Conservative or Reform Jews and converts to Judaism).

Moreover, since June 1967 Israel has ruled - directly or, post-Oslo, sometimes indirectly - over millions of Palestinians who do not enjoy any of the rights guaranteed to Israeli citizens under Israel's democracy. That means nearly five decades of Israeli military rule in which the lives of millions of people are controlled by authorities who are not accountable to those being ruled, except in Israel's own courts, which have generally ruled in Israel's favor. In the words of Israel's top human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard: "For years, the success rate of Palestinians approaching the Supreme Court has been absolutely appalling. There hasn't been a single instrument the army wanted to use against the Palestinians that the Court failed to approve..."

We believe Israel can be both a Jewish state - a state with a clear and proud Jewish character, where Hebrew is the official language and Jewish holidays are the national holidays - and also a democracy, in which the rights of all people living under Israeli rule are equal before the law, and equally respected by the authorities. We believe this is possible, but until now, it has not been the case.

We Say:

By many measures Israel is indeed thriving. However, nobody who truly cares about Israel can dismiss the very troubling trends inside Israel today and what these trends mean for Israel's future.

These trends included a sustained, broad, and well-documented campaign of attacks from the Knesset on progressive Israeli non-governmental organizations (including Peace Now). It also includes other Knesset initiatives unabashedly designed to quash dissent and the kind of free speech and protest that are the cornerstones of a healthy democracy.

This assault also includes repeated efforts to pass legislation designed to stop funding for non-governments organizations working on peace, civil rights, and human rights; the passage of an openly un-democratic law passed by the Knesset in 2011 targeting boycotts of settlements; and legislation seeking to undermine the authority of Israel's High Court of Justice. Taken together, these efforts seek to replace democratic "rule of law," which protects all citizens, including those in the political, social, ethnic, religious, or demographic minority, with "rule by law," which ensures the tyranny of the majority.

This assault is not coming only from cranks and Knesset outliers. It includes efforts supported and even initiated by the Israeli government, some of which have become law. This assault is evident to those who care about Israel from across the political spectrum, including people like the Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman, who in November 2011 published an op-ed entitled, "The Assault on Israel's Vibrant Democracy."

We Say:

U.S. law has long barred direct assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA), unless the President determines that such assistance is necessary for U.S. national security. In this case, the law then requires extensive reporting to Congress on how the funds are used and accounted for. Otherwise, U.S. assistance is provided directly to the Palestinian people through non-governmental organizations. Here, too, Congress has over the years piled on an ever-increasing number of far-reaching conditions and oversight requirements on all such assistance. Today, assistance to the Palestinians is arguably the most conditioned, restricted, audited, and monitored U.S. aid program in the world.

Subject to these conditions, U.S. assistance plays an important role in building a Palestinian society ready and able to live, as a state, side-by-side with Israel in peace and with security - a clear U.S. national interest. Today, the U.S. provides funding for, among other things, humanitarian projects, civil society programs, and training to bolster Palestinian moderate leadership and enable the PA to continue to build its security capacity. U.S. aid also has an important multiplier effect, with other countries viewing U.S. aid as a positive signal that they, too, should provide assistance.  In addition, U.S. humanitarian assistance sends an important signal to the Palestinian people that the United States cares about the welfare of innocent civilians whose lives have been caught up in a larger political conflict.

Continued assistance to the Palestinians is important to Israel and the cause of peace. It is vital that Congress leaves intact the President's authority to waive restrictions on aid to the PA, as he deems necessary and with proper reporting to Congress. Perennial efforts to add gratuitous new conditions, restrictions, and oversight requirements to Palestinian assistance are misguided, and Americans and their elected officials must recognize the difference between legitimate accountability concerns and over-burdensome requirements that undermine the aid program altogether.

We Say:

This statement is wrong. APN strongly support U.S. assistance to Israel. We believe this assistance is a key element of U.S. support for Israel. It helps Israel maintain its qualitative military edge in the region and remain strong and secure. It is also a tangible expression of the enduring U.S.-Israel relationship. We believe that continued robust U.S. assistance for Israel sends an important signal of U.S. support for and solidarity with Israel. The longstanding ban on the use of U.S. assistance to support settlement activities - reflecting U.S. recognition that settlements are a threat to Israel's security and viability as a Jewish state and a democracy - also sends an important signal of U.S. disapproval of Israel's settlement policies.

We know, too, that U.S. assistance is vital, in real and symbolic terms, in preparing the ground for any future Israeli-Arab peace agreements. Let's not forget that U.S. assistance for Israel (and Egypt) was a key element of the Camp David peace treaty.

Any future peace agreements will require Israel to take serious, calculated risks. It is in no small part the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship, as embodied in U.S. financial support for Israel, which has provided Israelis the confidence to take such risks thus far, and will reassure them in similar decision-making in the future.

For these reasons, APN actively supports continued robust U.S. assistance to Israel, with the continued requirement that no U.S. assistance be used to support settlement-related activities. We draw the line at the Green Line. APN also believes Congress should demand greater accountability regarding Israel's expenditures on settlements, including reporting from the State Department on the amount of funds Israel is expanding annually across the Green Line to support and expand Israeli residential development.

We Say:

Clearly, the Israeli-Palestinian and the Arab-Israeli conflicts are not the source of all problems in the region or in the world. However, the linkages between the conflict and U.S. national security are undeniable. Sustained, credible U.S. efforts to achieve Israeli-Arab peace are a necessary element of U.S. support for Israel and must be a cornerstone of any serious U.S. approach to confronting the challenges emanating from this volatile region. The simple fact is this: the U.S. can - and perhaps at times should - want peace more than the parties, given all that the U.S. has at stake.

Today it is undeniable that achieving Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace is key to U.S. national security and must be a central U.S. strategic priority. There is an undeniable connection between these festering conflicts and developments in other countries in the region and beyond. These include the growing strength of extremist, militant groups ready and willing to use terror against their own governments, the U.S., and Israel. In much of the Arab and Muslim worlds, perceptions of the U.S. are shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for both good and bad. When the U.S. is seen as credibly leading for peace, support for the U.S. increases; when the U.S. is seen as not being an honest broker, while the situation languishes or deteriorates, anger at the U.S. rises. This has clear implications for U.S. engagement in the region and beyond.

Likewise, U.S. failure to credibly lead Middle East peace efforts has global implications, with U.S. allies and adversaries alike watching and judging U.S. credibility and relevance in the foreign policy arena based on America's performance in the Middle East. It is not an exaggeration to say that the credibility of American foreign policy as a whole is at stake in the Middle East. "The world is watching and drawing conclusions from our foreign policy failure in the Israeli-Arab arena. These conclusions - whether drawn in Tehran or Pyongyang, when negotiating over their nuclear programs, or in Moscow, when negotiating over arms control, or even Paris and London when considering NATO interests - have very real and damaging consequences for U.S. national security.

We Say:

The U.S. can want peace more than the parties, and indeed seems to want it more than the parties at the present time and perhaps in the future. This is because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not merely a local issue that impacts Israelis and Palestinians exclusively. It has ramifications for the region and for vital U.S. national interests, including the U.S. interest in Israel's security and its viability as a Jewish state and a democracy. The persistent failure of peace efforts is a reflection of the complexity of the issues at stake, of the refusal of the parties to cooperate, and in no small measure it is also a reflection of the absence of sufficient political resolve on the part of successive U.S. administrations.

Clearly, there is no single magic formula for moving forward. While there is already a longstanding and broadly-based consensus on most of the elements of a permanent status agreement, it is clear that, on their own, Israelis and Palestinians cannot get to an agreement. The difficult compromises that will be demanded from both sides necessitate U.S. leadership to bring the sides together and help them to come to agreement.

To achieve this, the United States must lead with conviction. Whether one is talking about a new effort to launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or about more dramatic steps, the success or failure of any U.S. policy will lie first and foremost in the ability of the U.S. to get the parties to take the effort seriously. Such U.S. leadership is vital. There is no option of putting peace "on hold" until circumstances are more promising; in the absence of tangible progress toward peace and a political horizon for an end to the conflict, developments every day on the ground and in the political sphere render circumstances ever-more antithetical to peace. Likewise, there is no serious option to simply "manage" a conflict that has the potential to inflame the region and beyond.

Likewise, the two-state solution - the only viable solution to this conflict and a solution that is vital both to Israel's survival and to U.S. national security interests - won't survive indefinitely. The absence of a credible peace process leaves the door open to violence, emboldening both those who advocate unilateral action and those who support the use of force over negotiations. As importantly, it permits developments on the ground - like settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - that are antithetical to the two-state solution.

We Say:

Economic development in the West Bank would obviously be welcome. It is both a Palestinian interest and an Israeli interest. But economic development under occupation has never been, and will never be, an alternative to Palestinian independence and self-determination. No amount of economic improvement will ever compensate for living under foreign occupation. Palestinians cannot be bought that way, any more than Jews can.

In fact, focusing exclusively on economic growth in the West Bank, without a parallel effort to create a viable political horizon, will likely increase tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and may impede Israel's maneuvering room in future negotiations.

Advocates of "economic peace" would do well to note that economic growth is not a guarantee of stability. The periods that preceded both the first and second intifada were relatively prosperous for the Palestinian economy. In both cases, violence erupted because of socio-political reasons, not economic stress. One of the chief causes of the first intifada, according to experts, was the dissonance Palestinians experienced between their improved quality of life on the one hand and the diminishing prospects for a political breakthrough on the other. In other words, the intifada, at least in part, was an expression of Palestinians fears that the lull in violence, alongside the improved economic conditions, might be interpreted as acquiescence to a politically unacceptable status quo.

All that is not to say that economic development in the West Bank is not a worthy cause. It has many benefits, including political ones, which are in the interest of Israel and the United States. But economic development ought not be seen either as a substitute for a political process or as creating conditions that can, on their own and in the sustained absence of a political process, prevent violence. Likewise, economic growth, on its own, will not deliver a political "breakthrough." Such a breakthrough can only result from a credible diplomatic process that involves negotiations toward the shared political goal of ending the occupation and ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We Say:

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only possible, its pursuit and achievement are national security obligations and a moral imperatives for both U.S. and Israel.

This is an existential issue for Israel: continued Israeli control over the lives of millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza threatens Israel's identity as a Jewish state and a democracy. The occupation is eroding Israel's democracy and its values, transforming Israel into an increasingly violent and intolerant society. Israeli efforts to address the very real security challenges stemming from the absence of a peace agreement - challenges that have no ready answers - are resulting in Israel's increased isolation and growing pariah status in the international arena.

Moreover, the active pursuit of peace and the two-state solution is a vital national security interest for the United States. It significantly enhances U.S. leadership and credibility and strengthens U.S. regional security and stability efforts. It also provides a platform for more effectively addressing other threats.

Because things generally seem to get worse in the Middle East, we often forget that they can also change for the better. More than three decades after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's 1978 visit to Jerusalem, which heralded the beginning of the land-for-peace era, and two decades after the Oslo Accords, which signaled the birth of the two-state paradigm, there are those who argue that the land-for-peace and two-state paradigms are as fantastical as the others. They are wrong.

The two-state solution is still possible, even if it becomes harder to imagine - and to implement - with each passing day. And it is the only option that holds the promise of anything other than a permanent state of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the Arab world. Israelis and Palestinians recognize this. Polls have found that majorities of both populations still support the two-state solution, even as each doubts the seriousness of the other side's commitment to achieving it. Polling has found similar views in the Arab world, alongside a recognition that if the two-state solution disappears, the likely result will be intense conflict.