--Percentage of Israelis who think a nuclear agreement with Iran is an existential threat and the percentage of those who support Israeli military action against Iran.**
This week, Alpher discusses the key dynamics from Israel’s standpoint of the ten-year anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip and a low-key interception and thwarting by Israel of a flotilla trying to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza; regarding the publication of a UN report on human rights aspects of last summer’s Gaza war, whether there is anything that Israel can constructively build on as it looks to future conflicts; whether it made sense that the Netanyahu government refused to cooperate with the Human Rights Commission and refused to allow the latest flotilla to approach the Gaza coast; and why the Gaza Strip is relatively quiet, with Hamas seemingly collaborating with Israel by pursuing the occasional more extreme Islamists who fire isolated rockets at Israel.
Please join APN for a briefing call on Wednesday, July 1, at 12:00 noon Eastern Time with Prof. Ami Pedahzur, an expert on Israel’s radical right. The author of recent articles on the power of Israeli West Bank settlers, Pedahzur will discuss the political power of the settlers as a chief constituency of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government. He will also analyze other ways in which the ideological settlers built their influence inside Israel’s establishment.
An expert on Israeli right-wing violence, Pedahzur will be available to comment on extremist West Bank settlers’ use of violence to advance their agenda.
Doron Rosenblum, one of Israel’s leading satirists, recently wrote on his Facebook page: “I got it. They (members of the ruling coalition) are defeating criticism and satire through using satire’s own power, as judokas do, by taking themselves beyond the absurd. Today, no satirist can outdo the insanity of" Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Indeed, Israel’s leading television satire show, Eretz Nehederet (What a Wonderful Country), recently ran a humorous quiz on its web site, in which participants were asked to guess whether quotes attributed to Likud Knesset Member Oren Hazan were true or false. I took the quiz and failed miserably. Hazan’s real quotes were much more outlandish than the made-up ones.
Shortly before I ended my sophomore year of college, I found myself in my advisor’s office with an important question:
Jerusalem Post - June 21, 2015
High Court to debate Peace Now petition to demolish homes of settlers built illegally on Palestinian owned
land
http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/High-Court-to-debate-demolition-of-homes-in-West-Bank-outpost-406716
Haaretz - June 23, 2015
Responding to Peace Now petition, High Court orders government to explain why it would not demolish illegal
outpost
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.662557
Times of Israel - June 25, 2015
APN among groups opposing BDS law that passed the Senate
http://www.timesofisrael.com/landmark-anti-bds-law-passes-final-senate-legislative-hurdle/
Yesh Din (June 21, 2015)
Addresses Israeli soldiers’ practice of standing idly by in the face of crimes committed by Israeli civilians
against Palestinians and their property in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), a common practice that is
"almost as old as the occupation itself." Read More >