by Lara Friedman

People keep asking me: "Have you seen the news? Has Bibi actually frozen settlements? What does this mean?"

On February 6, Americans for Peace Now sponsored, Together with the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Just Vision, and the Telos Group, a special event on the threat that Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem are posing to the two-state solution.

The Israeli Peace Now movement (Shalom Achshav) today released an explosive report detailing the record of Prime Minister Netanyahu's government on settlements over the course of its full term in office (April 2009-present). The report, based on official Israel government statistics, reports, and Peace Now field research, documents how over the past four years, the Netanyahu government has used settlements as a tool to systematically undermine the chances of achieving a viable, realistic two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite Netanyahu's rhetorical embrace of such a goal.

On Tuesday, APN's Rabbi Alana Suskin joined rabbis from J Street and Rabbis for Human Rights- North America to deliver a letter to Israeli PM Netanyahu. The letter was signed by more than seven hundred US rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students and cantorial students from more than 40 states and all movements of Judaism, and conservatively represents an audience of 100,000 American Jews.

A breakdown of the myriad of settlement plans being aggressively pursued in recent weeks.

By Hagit Ofran and Lior Amihai

The past few weeks may have been confusing for those who try to keep track of Israeli settlement activity. So many plans and approvals, some of which are lethal for the two-state solution, make it clear that the Netanyahu government has decided to push forward as many plans as possible in order to determine facts on the ground before the elections in Israel, as long as there is no "threat" of any renewal of the peace process.

Shalom TV covers the rabbinic letter (begins at 2:01), which was coordinated by Americans for Peace Now, J Street and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America in which more than five hundred US rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students and cantorial students express grave concern about Israel's plans to advance the construction of settlements in the controversial E1 area of the West Bank and authorize thousands of new housing units in East Jerusalem.

In recent weeks it has been fascinating to watch defenders of the Netanyahu government and the settlement enterprise engaging in logical and rhetorical contortions to try to justify the Netanyahu government's pro-settlement policies. What has emerged is simultaneously the most disingenuous and in some ways the most honest discussion of settlements in years.

Open letter to PM Netanyahu says controversial settlement expansion could be 'final blow to a peaceful solution'

Washington, DC - More than four hundred US rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students and cantorial students are expressing grave concern about Israel's plans to advance the construction of settlements in the controversial E1 area of the West Bank and authorizing thousands of new housing units in East Jerusalem.

E-1 is back in the news, with a vengeance. In this document we provide all the information you need to know about this controversial settlement project, as well as answer questions you might have and refute the erroneous or deliberately misleading arguments that are being bandied about.

On December 3rd, 2012, NPR Morning Edition hosts David Greene and Renee Montagne interviewed Daniel Seidemann, on site in Israel with APN activists, on why E1 is not just another settlement.

Also, read the transcript at NPR's site here.