Palestinian Politics’ Ongoing Crisis
with Dr. Khalil Shikaki
New Government; New Opportunities?
with Member of Knesset Mossi Raz
Supporting Peace, Conditioning Aid
with APN Staff
APN is unveiling new policy position in support of conditioning United States aid to Israel. This position stems from our conviction that the US aid should not be used to cement and perpetuate the occupation, and thus undermine the long-term prospects for peace and the security of Israelis and Palestinians. Read President and CEO Hadar Susskind's article in Time magazine laying out the new policy here.
Listen below to the recording of a webinar discussing that new position.
Listen to the webinar recording below.
Israel's Political Earthquake
with Tal Schneider
Listen here to our recent webinar.
Rebuilding Bridges Between Arabs and Jews
with Maisam Jaljuli and Shuli Dichter
In recent years, while Israeli government policies and Knesset legislation challenged efforts to advance a shared Jewish-Arab society in Israel, Jewish and Arab activists were successfully building genuine bridges between the two publics, based on a sense of shared citizenhood.
Did the recent eruption of inter-communal Jewish-Arab hostilities smash these bridges? Could they be rebuilt? What should be the foundation for an effective Jewish-Arab shared society in Israel? Does the recent crisis open opportunities to establish such a solid foundation?
To answer these and other questions on the state of Jewish-Arab relations in Israel, APN will host a webinar featuring two leading activists in this field, Maisam Jaljuli and Shuli Dichter.
The webinar was held on Thursday, June 3rd
Listen here.
SPEAKERS:
Shalom (Shuli) Dichter is the author of Tensions and Good Intentions, a vision for shared society between Arabs and Jews in Israel. He is the former Executive Director of Hand in Hand, the Centers for Bilingual Education, and the former co-executive director of Sikkuy, The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, a Jewish-Arab advocacy organization.
Maisam Jaljuli is the co-chair of the board of directors of Sikkuy and a member of the secretariat of the Jewish Arab organization Standing Together, a Jewish Arab movement that mobilizes people for equality, social justice, and peace. She is active in a broad spectrum of a social, feminist, labor and political causes and a leading member of the political party Hadash
Please join us for this timely webinar.
Monday, May 24, 2021, 11:00 am (ET)
What Now? Lessons from the Recent Round of Israeli-Palestinian Violence
with Yossi Alpher and Shaqued Morag
May of 2021 will be remembered as a traumatic landmark in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What are its short-term and long-term repercussions? Where do Israelis and Palestinians find themselves after the recent hostilities? What’s next? How deep is the rift caused by Jewish-Arab inter-communal violence? What are the takeaways for Israel’s peace movement?
To answer these and other questions relating to the crisis, please join us for a webinar on Monday, May 24th at 11:00 am (ET) featuring Israeli strategic expert Yossi Alpher and Peace Now’s Executive Director Shaqued Morag.
The conversation will be moderated by APN’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind.
SPEAKERS:
Yossi Alpher, the author of APN’s weekly analysis Hard Questions Tough Answers, 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 Israel’s Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer.
Shaqued Morag is the executive director of Israel’s peace movement Shalom Achshav (Peace Now). A seasoned political and social activist, Shaqued served in senior positions at Israel’s Meretz party, including the party’s secretary-general.
Please listen to the recording of this webinar.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 2:00 pm (ET)
Jerusalem Crisis: What's Happening, What's Being Done, What's Needed
with Huda Abuarquob, Hagit Ofran, and Daniel Seidemann
Recent days have seen an escalation in violence in Jerusalem — even beyond what normally takes place around Jerusalem Day. With the violent events at Al Aqsa Mosque, police crackdowns on Palestinian protesters, the threat of home evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and today’s incendiary Flag March, the city is in a state of crisis. This is a highly volatile and dynamic situation—and we don’t know where it will lead.
This conversation featured leading Palestinian and Israeli experts from Jerusalem to update about what is happening on the ground, what Israelis and Palestinians are doing, and what we can do from afar.
Cosponsored by: Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), the New York Jewish Agenda (NYJA), and the Progressive Israel Network (PIN), a coalition which includes Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now (APN), Habonim Dror North America, Hashomer Hatzair, Jewish Labor Council, JStreet, New Israel Fund (NIF), Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI), Reconstructing Judaism and T’ruah.
SPEAKERS:
Huda Abuarquob is Alliance for Middle East Peace's (ALLMEP) on-the-ground regional director in 2014. She has years of experience in conflict resolution, NGO leadership, and social change education and activism, as well as a life-long commitment to building strong people-to-people Israeli-Palestinian relations. She is a well-known speaker on issues related to Middle East politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Huda is the oldest of twelve children, the daughter of respected Palestinian educators, and an aunt to twenty-two nieces and nephews. Born in Jerusalem, she has traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, lived for six years in the U.S., and now resides in Hebron.
Daniel Seidemann is an Israeli attorney specializing in Israeli-Palestinian relations, with an emphasis on Jerusalem. He is the founder and director of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an NGO that works towards a resolution to the question of Jerusalem that is consistent with the two-state solution.
Hagit Ofran is the Co-Director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch project and has two decades of expertise on issues related to the settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. She is widely recognized as Israel's foremost expert on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Please listen to this webinar.
Tuesday, May 4, 2021, 2:00 pm (ET)
A Briefing on New Human Rights Watch Report on Israeli Violations
of Palestinian Rights
with Omar Shakir and Eric Goldstein
A new report by Human Rights Watch on Israeli violations of Palestinian rights is ruffling feathers in Israel and beyond. The comprehensive report, “A Threshold Crossed,” is based on years of documenting violations of Palestinian human rights, to state, controversially, that “Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians” in order to maintain “Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land.” The report contends that these violations “are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
To better understand how the world’s leading human rights organization has reached such harsh conclusions, APN hosted a webinar with Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine Director, Omar Shakir, and Eric Goldstein, Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division.
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, investigates human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Prior to his current role, he was a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he focused on US counterterrorism policies, including legal representation of Guantanamo detainees. As the 2013-14 Arthur R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow at Human Rights Watch, he investigated human rights violations in Egypt, including the Rab’a massacre, one of the largest killings of protesters in a single day. A former Fulbright Scholar in Syria, Omar holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he co-authored a report on the civilian consequences of US drone strikes in Pakistan as a part of the International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford. He speaks English and Arabic.
Eric Goldstein, acting Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, is an expert on Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Western Sahara. He has conducted research missions to these and other regions of the Middle East since the 1980s, writing numerous reports for Human Rights Watch and publishing articles in news media and academic journals. He has taught courses on human rights at Princeton and Georgetown universities. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Goldstein worked at the Committee to Protect Journalists. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University.
Please join us for this timely webinar.
Thursday, April 29, 2021, 3:00 pm (ET)
Evangelical Support of Israel's Settlement Enterprise
with Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon
What are the theological concerns at the core of evangelical support of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem? What material support for settlements in the occupied territories have American Christians provided? And what do U.S. churches who support Israel think about settlements?
These are some of the questions to be addressed in our April 29th, 3:00 pm (ET) webinar with Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, Executive Director of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP). CMEP is a coalition of 30 national Church communions and organizations that works to encourage pro-peace U.S. policies, and which opposes the occupation and the settlements.
Ordained in an evangelical denomination, Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon has first-hand experience in evangelical engagement with Israel. Dr. Cannon’s doctorate, Mischief Making in Palestine, focused on the historic engagement of American Christians in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. She is the editor of A Land Full of God, a book that discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Christian perspective, which is pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian and pro-peace.
Please listen to a recording of this webinar.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021, 1:00 pm (ET)
Israel-Palestine on Capitol Hill
with Congressman Mark Pocan
The dynamics and politics of working on Israeli-Palestinian affairs on Capitol Hill have changed over time, as have the dynamics of advancing progressive sensibilities in Congress.
APN hosted a webinar to discuss these topics with Rep. Mark Pocan, one of the House leading progressives. APN President Hadar Susskind will engage Rep. Pocan in a conversation on April 21st.
Congressman Mark Pocan has represented Wisconsin's 2nd district in Congress for 8 years. Over that time he has become a leader and a progressive champion on many issues, including Israel/Palestine. Rep. Pocan is a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee. He is also the Chair Emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.