Welcome to 2018!
Looking for hope?

Watch this short video featuring the staff and volunteers of Israel’s Peace Now movement. These young people work daily, year-round, with determination and faith, to keep alive the vision of Israel as a democracy and a Jewish state that lives in peace and security with its Palestinian neighbors.

This year, Peace Now’s activists are facing greater challenges than ever before. They need your help now. Please listen to them answer the question: "Why Peace Now?" and make a tax-deductible donation through Americans for Peace Now.

Reacting to several recent moves by Israel's government that sabotage a future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, Americans for Peace Now (APN) today called on fellow American Jewish organizations to join APN in vocal opposition to annexation and to unilaterally pre-judging issues that Israelis and Palestinians should negotiate to achieve a final-status peace deal.

This year has brought an assault on truth that has left us all feeling like Diogenes the Cynic, wandering the streets with a lamp, looking for “an honest man.” Since our founding, Americans for Peace Now has been meticulous in uncovering the truth. We  shine a lantern in places that extremists would prefer to keep dark and hidden. We are unshakable in our honesty, even when the truth we tell is unpopular.

So, let us get right to the point: Americans for Peace Now will continue speaking the truth in the New Year, as will our sister organization, Peace Now in Israel.  

We will speak the truth about settlements: Settlements are used to prevent a viable two-state solution, to dispossess Palestinians of their land and, sometimes even to outright punish them. Settlements are the most potent of Israel’s actions against them. Settlements are the most potent of Israel’s actions against them.  

Creeping Annexation: Changes in the Interpretation of the Laws Regarding Occupation
Settlements Watch Peace Now,
December 2017

Report's Main Points:

In recent years, the Attorney General and the State Prosecutor's Office have made dramatic changes in their positions on a number of issues regarding Israel's control over the occupied territories (OT). These changes are part of the g overnment's effort to apply the standards of Israel's democracy to settlements located in territory that is subject to belligerent Israeli occupation, where the Palestinian population lives without democracy and equal rights. These changes are contrary to previous positions of the legal echelon and the Supreme Court, and they magnify the legal question surrounding Israel's control of the OT in terms of international law.

Among other things, the Attorney General stated that:

• • It is permissible to expropriate Palestinian land in cases where the Israeli takeover was carried out "in good faith."
  • It is permissible to confiscate land for the purpose of access to a settlement.
  • Abandoned property may be used for settlement purposes.
  • It is permitted to "liquidate" the abandoned property without judicial process.
  • It is permissible to expropriate protected tenancy of the Hebron Municipality on public land, even without a judicial process.
  • Legislative changes were made to facilitate the demolition and deportation of Palestinian communities in Area C.

These changes mark another step in the policy of de facto annexation of the OT to Israel, and they are intended to "normalize" the settlements and make them part of Israel, even without declaring so.

Read more

At this time of the year, I typically write to you reflecting on the progress made toward Israeli-Palestinian peace in the year that passed, and highlight the reasons for hope for further progress in the coming year.

As 2017 comes to a close, "the hope thing" becomes more difficult. With Donald Trump in the White House, Benjamin Netanyahu in his ninth consecutive year as Israel’s prime minister, and no sign of diplomacy from any of the players, it's hard to find reasons for hope. At least not in the short run. Holding one's breath in anticipation of Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian “ultimate deal” would not be a healthy way to start the new year.