APN Concerned by Legislation Legitimizing West Bank Occupation and Denying Free Speech

Americans for Peace Now is deeply concerned at the increasing pace with which state governments are adopting legislation that conflates Israel and the occupied West Bank, and denies American citizens their constitutional right to protest the occupation through boycotts. 

While opposing boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) that target Israel, APN supports boycotting Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a legitimate way to protest the settlements and the occupation. APN also believes that fighting BDS should not require – or justify – eroding constitutionally-protected rights to free speech and political protest.

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News Nosh 10.31.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday October 31, 2017
You Must Be Kidding: 
Israel forced the chief photographer of the European Press Agency to undergo a strip search at a press conference. International photographers walked out in protest.


Breaking News:
Soldiers feared a ramming attack and shot and killed a Palestinian man. Woman in car with him also wounded. Incident took place in West Bank near the settlement of Halamish, the site of a recent terror attack. (Haaretz and Times of Israel)
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Sign our petition: Say Two States!

President Trump says he wants to broker the “ultimate deal,” a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But since taking office in January, he and his aides have failed to offer a framework for negotiations, have failed to assert positions that are vital for securing a peace deal, such as sternly opposing settlement construction, and have refused to endorse the only viable formula for a deal: the two-state solution. He won’t even say “two states.”

Sign our petition: Tell President Trump to Say Two States

Only the two-state solution – two states living side by side in peace and security, each exercising sovereignty and political independence in part of the land that both peoples claim as their exclusive national homes – is a reasonable, viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

handshake It is the only viable option for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because neither Israelis nor Palestinians will, nor should be expected to, give up their desire for self-determination in their own state and because neither side can, nor should force the other side to, relinquish its national aspirations.

Successive U.S. administrations, Republican and Democratic, have recognized these basic facts. They therefore made the two-state solution America’s official policy – a key position guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East – for over 15 years.

The two-state solution has become a matter of consensus in the region and internationally. The parties, under their own successive leaderships, have committed to this vision and negotiated to realize it. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu, who heads the most hardline government in Israel's history, has explicitly endorsed it. For the Trump Administration to eschew it is disastrous.

Without a concrete vision for peace, negotiations are fruitless punctuations to perennial violence. Extremists on both sides have been trying to discredit the two-state vision since it was internationally adopted. Now they have a partner in the White House.

President Trump, don’t play into the hands of the anti-peace extremists. We call on you to endorse the two-state solution. Say two states!

News Nosh 10.30.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday October 30, 2017

Quote of the Day #1:
“Reading (Yosef) Castel’s plan raises a troubling question: Would an 'amended' version of the Balfour Declaration, which also recognized Arab national rights, have changed the Arab response to it, and thereby the bloody history of the Middle East?”
--Haaretz+’s Ofer Aderet writes about Sephardic Jews who called for the Balfour Declaration to be changed to express that Arabs also had national rights to the land.*
 
Quote of the Day #2:
“When we say to the Palestinians, ‘We are giving you a state, let’s make peace’ – it’s deceiving them. No one is going to give them a state, not the left either. I am saying: Let’s cut this problem off before it begins and stop with the lies.”
—Likud MK Miki Zohar, who said in the interview that Palestinians don’t have a right to a national identity because “They weren’t born Jews.”**
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News Nosh 10.29.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday October 29, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
“Opposition to the extreme right is grounded in moral and ethical principles, not considerations of comfort and a desire to raise the happiness level of Israel’s Jews. Integrity, not joy, weighs in the balance.”
—Haaretz commentator Rogel Alpher examines Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s accusation that those who oppose his rule are ‘sourpusses.’

Front Page:
Haaretz
Yedioth Ahronoth
  • Catalonia: 5 hours of independence
  • Israel - Judo powerhouse
  • “She made my life miserable!!” - Text messages that woman suing Sara Netanyahu sent to her sister that show what she claims to have suffered while working for Mrs. Netanyahu
  • Pitiable // Sima Kadmon
  • The blackening law suit // Shlomo Pyotrokovsky
Maariv This Week (Hebrew links only)
Israel Hayom
  • Catalonia: Independence on paper
  • Return of the “French Bill”
  • Without a flag, with pride: Israel national Judo team won 5 medals in grand slam in Abu Dhabi
  • Taking off: Record number of women (50) finish IAF pilots’ pre-course trial period
  • Police vs. Health Ministry: “Preventing the lessening of violence in hospitals” - Hospitals claim that police are delaying the deployment of officers in hospital departments; Police: “Budget was approved”
  • Prime Minister on lawsuit against Sara Netanyahu: “We are sick of the lies and the slander”

 
News Summary:
Catalonia declared independence and was taken over by Spain, the Israeli government coalition is in a crisis because the (Likud) coalition whip, David Bitan, insisted on voting over the ‘French bill,’ which would prohibit investigating a sitting prime minister and he won’t agree to bring to vote any coalition bills until the French (Bibi) bill is voted on, and text messages sent by a young woman who is suing Sara Netanyahu described what she claimed to have suffered while working for Mrs. Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Residence (she was not the first to make such claims) - making top stories in today’s Hebrew newspapers.

Also in the news, the head of the Hamas security forces was injured in an assassination attempt, but Israeli reporters said that it was likely the work of ISIS/Salafists, who wanted to see the man dead (also Haaretz+).

And, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sought to postpone a vote on the ‘Greater Jerusalem’ bill (proposed by MK Yoav Kish of Likud), which would make a “municipal annexation” of some West Bank settlements to Jerusalem, what some are calling a ‘crawling annexation' (Maariv). Meanwhile, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Zeev Elkin wants to cut out several Arab neighborhoods from the Jerusalem municipality and put them under the jurisdiction of other administrations. Together, the plans would increase the number of Jews in Jerusalem and reduce the number of Arabs.
 
 
Prepared for APN by Orly Halpern, independent freelance journalist based in Jerusalem.

News Nosh 10.27.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday October 27, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"The ruling is based on live and let live. My ruling does not reflect a ruling of value on the desirable character of the Shabbat. This is not a secular or a religious ruling. This ruling reflects the correct interpretation of the law."
Retired chief justice Miriam Naor read her last ruling yesterday, which allows supermarkets to operate on Sabbath.*
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Legislative Round-Up: October 27, 2017

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived

  1. Bills, Resolutions & Letters
  2. Hearings
  3. On the Record
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News Nosh 10.26.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Thursday October 26, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"This is a reckless step of a government that seems to be determined to ruin the possibility for a two-state solution. If passed, this bill will constitute a de facto annexation and a clear step toward a de jure annexation."
--Peace Now on the bill seeking to annex key - and distant - settlements to Jerusalem.*
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News Nosh 10.25.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Wednesday October 25, 2017
 
Quote of the day #1:
"A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."

-- Note that Alfred Einstein scribbled in German to a bellboy after he did not have cash to give him a tip. The note sold for $1.3 million Tuesday.*

Quote of the day #2:
"It is deeply worrying that the military terminology used by senior officials in the Strategic Affairs Ministry is being used in the fight against civilians abroad who criticize the State of Israel."
-- Attorney Eitay Mack, who over the past year, has asked the state to reveal information about a judicial arm it is secretly operating abroad against BDS activists.**
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News Nosh 10.24.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday October 24, 2017
 
Quote of the day #1:
“Did Netanyahu say he hoped the State of Israel would last 100 years? If that’s what he meant, that the state would keep a prime minister suspected of criminal offenses while its elected representatives ensure no one could touch him—I’m not sure we want the remaining years.”
—Senior Yedioth political commentator, Sima Kadmon, in a sharp Op-Ed on the legislative bill aiming to prohibit investigating a prime minister.*

Quote of the day #2:
“It hasn’t been even a day since the Knesset has resumed, and we are already embarrassed."
--Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid on the legislative bill aiming to prohibit investigating a prime minister.**

You Must Be Kidding: 
Two weeks after Israeli Police seized olives from a settler who was stealing them from Palestinian land, the police inform the Palestinian owner that they have the olives and he must prove that they belong to him.***

Front Page:
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