Today, thirteen organizations – the coalition members of The Progressive Israel Network (PIN), the Israel Policy Forum, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association – sent a letter to the heads of Israel’s political parties calling on them to refuse any kind of unilateral annexation of the West Bank or parts of it.

Letter to Israeli Political Leadership Opposing Annexation

As heads of American Jewish organizations who care deeply about the State of Israel and are committed to safeguarding its future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people, we implore you to consider the costs of any unilateral annexations in the West Bank, and ask that you refuse to support annexation as a policy guideline for any government that your party may join.

On Saturday, November 2, in Tel Aviv, an estimated 100,000 gathered to commemorate the 24th year of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Peace Now displayed a banner "We demand a government of peace. Now!" in encouragement of Keynote speaker Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue-White Party. and had the largest booth from which it distributed signs and merchandise.

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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.

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.

Ori Nir and Debra Shushan, April 2018 (updated October 2019)

download or view as a pdf here

Introduction

Since President Donald Trump took office, the Israeli right has launched an unprecedented drive to alter the West Bank’s legal status, piecemeal or in its entirety. In this paper, updating analysis first released in April 2018, we lay out the developments that present a quantum leap in Israeli annexation efforts and analyze them against the backdrop of Israel’s 52-year occupation of the West Bank. Further, we examine the ramifications of the transition from “creeping” to “leaping” annexation and present explanations for why this transformation is happening now.

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.

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.

Americans for Peace Now mobilized opposition to the confirmation of Kenneth Marcus as Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights in the Department of Education over concerns that he would use his position to suppress free speech and intervene in curricula on college campuses. To our dismay, following his narrow confirmation by the Senate, Marcus has done exactly that. In the latest instance, the Department of Education ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to develop a plan for remaking their joint Middle East studies program in order to continue receiving federal funding. Among the alleged problems raised was “a considerable emphasis placed on the understanding the positive aspects of Islam” in programming for elementary and secondary school teachers and a lack of “similar focus on the positive aspects of Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion of belief system in the Middle East.”

Americans for Peace Now signed on to a letter sent by T'ruah, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, to Israel's High Court of Justice ahead of the Court's hearing of Human Rights Watch's Omar Shakir against the government of Israel's decision to deport him from Israel: 

24 September 2019
Israeli Supreme Court Chief Clerk, Idit Malul
Supreme Court Justices and Registrars
Sha’arei Mishpat St
Jerusalem 9195001 Israel

Dear Ms. Malul,

We write on behalf of five American Jewish organizations in support of Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch. We call on the Israeli government to cease its efforts to deport Shakir and on the Israeli Supreme Court to reverse the lower court ruling that upheld the deportation.

This episode of APN's podcast features a presentation that Nizar Farsakh and Ori Nir gave at Ithaca College on September 17th. The talk was an attempt to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more accessible to young people by weaving personal narratives of an Israeli-American and a Palestinian-American into the collective national narratives of Israelis and Palestinians.

Listen to the full episode