Peace Now’s executive director, Shaqued Morag, was among the speakers at a peace rally in Tel Aviv Today.

Shaqued said: “We are the proof that things can be different here. There is a generation raised here, which cannot even imagine peace and coexistence. As much as it concerns the prime minister of the past 12 years, this generation will, too, live by the sword. From the Gaza border to Tel Aviv, from Lydda to Um el-Fahm, children are paying the price for this lack of leadership.

We must not accept this!

Americans for Peace Now welcomes the ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas and thanks the third parties who helped broker it. APN urges both sides to adhere to the ceasefire and – in the coming days and weeks – to do their utmost to stabilize the situation.

After a week of deadly hostilities, with a horrific toll in Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Americans for Peace Now (APN) reiterates its call for an immediate ceasefire.

APN and its many supporters and activists throughout the United States – as well as our friends at Israel's peace movement – are heartbroken as Israelis and Palestinians, Arabs and Jews, bury their loved ones. We send our condolences to the bereaved families on both sides, and wish recovery and health to the many hundreds who have been injured and displaced.

Clarity 

By Ori Nir, APN's Vice President for Public Affairs

Responding to a somber Eid al-Fitr holiday greeting last week, a friend from East Jerusalem responded with a line from the Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish. It says: “We have on this land what makes life worth living.” It’s a love song, a song of love for life as well as a song of love for Darwish’s homeland.

Hello my friends,

I’ve been staring at this page, blank, for a long time. How to write about this week? What to write about?

I should tell you about the briefing that APN held, bringing Israeli and Palestinian voices directly to Congressional staff. About the many one-on-one conversations and consultations with members of Congress, as they struggled to figure out what to say. About our efforts pushing the State Department and the Administration to do more and better. And about the fact that while others circulated petitions and sent thoughts and prayers, we supported a Congressional action that demands specific steps from our government in clear and unequivocal language.

This is what APN does. This is what we are here for. 

But when I sit to write about that, I get a WhatsApp messages from my son, in Israel for his post high school gap year. And texts from my nieces and nephews, both in Israel and the US, trying to sift through the whirlwind of news and social media in order to understand what is really happening. I try my best to reassure them that it will be ok.

And then there are the messages and posts from friends and colleagues whose families are not in Israel, but in Gaza. How do they tell their children, their families, that it will be ok?

The calls with the State Department, webinars with our partners, Congressional briefings and actions, all of them are crucial, and we will continue to push for an immediate ceasefire and to address the underlying issues that led to the this most recent round of violence. But beyond that, we will continue to speak up for the humanity and inherent value of both Israelis and Palestinians.

We will not be silent as so many elected officials, commentators and “Jewish community leaders” fall back on the old tribalist approach and demand that people “take a side”. This is not a sporting event, and we are not interested in scoring points for our team or cheering on others as they do so. I will not celebrate the death of others and I will not cheer the destruction of their homes.

We have so much work to do. I am deeply grateful to be doing it with you.

B’Shalom,

Hadar

May 12, 2021

APN supported a letter sent by 25 members of the House of Representatives to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging him to take urgent action to prevent the displacement of Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah.

READ THE LETTER

As violence in Jerusalem triggers hostilities across Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, Americans for Peace Now (APN) urges all the parties and stakeholders to take action to prevent further bloodshed and to stop the escalation toward war.

The steep escalation of the past weeks requires responsible leadership in the short term, and underscores the need for renewed US-led Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic engagement to end the occupation and advance peace efforts. Recent developments again demonstrate that the current situation is not viable and requires immediate attention.
The Biden Administration may not have wanted to prioritize Israel/Palestine. They may have hoped to maintain the status quo. But the status quo is no more, and looking away does not make this crisis go away.

Update: this action, now closed, ran from May 7-10, 2021. 

Monday is Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day. This city, sacred to billions of people across the globe, is not only the spiritual center of multiple religions. It is also the home of real people.  Families, men, women and children. Jewish and Muslim. Israeli and Palestinian. And this city is in crisis.

In Sheikh Jarrah, in Silwan, Palestinian families are being forcibly evicted from their homes, only to be replaced by Israeli settlers. This crisis has been building for a long time. Our colleagues at Shalom Achshav have been on the ground fighting against this, and we here in the US have been pushing for our government to speak up and take action. 

Today members of Congress, led by Representatives Marie Newman and Mark Pocan, are urging Secretary of State Tony Blinken and the Biden Administration to do just that. 

See the full text of the letter here.

Members of Congress need to speak up and to push the Administration to act before it is too late. And they need to hear from you.