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.

This week, Alpher discusses the fragmentation of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the history and current state of the Mossad, and Israel-Diaspora relations.

As I get ready for Middlebury College’s summer Hebrew immersion course in preparation for beginning rabbinical school in fall 2019, I am reflecting on my APN story.

For pretty much everyone I grew up with, my Presbyterian parents in particular, my decision to become a rabbi comes as a surprise. A few years ago, before I came to work at APN, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine it myself.

I began attending Hillel events in college at the same time that I started studying Arabic and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Initially, I found it difficult to embrace conversion wholeheartedly because of the conflict between my spiritual and cultural attraction to Judaism and my strong criticism of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

While I was living in the West Bank in the summer of 2014, the IDF set off sound bombs and tear gas outside my window as it raided Ramallah at 3 am every night for a week. That first night, I was more afraid than I had ever been, but the next day at work I realized this was normal for my Palestinian colleagues. While strongly committed to Jewish values, I was deeply conflicted about embracing Judaism when I saw, up close, such abuses committed by the Jewish state. And as a person committed to ending the occupation, would I be accepted by the Jewish community?

Along with many other U.S. Jews, I wanted to feel pride at the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. But amid the carnage in Gaza, I felt nausea

Debra Shushan | May 16, 2018 | 

For Jews around the world, the opening of the U.S. embassy to Israel in Jerusalem should have been an occasion for jubilation and pride. And while for some it was, many of the rest of us watched the ceremony feeling a combination of nausea and cognitive dissonance.

There were at least three reasons to feel ill.

The first and most obvious is that the ceremony took place yesterday against the backdrop of carnage in Gaza.

While American and Israeli officials congratulated themselves in Jerusalem, denizens of the open-air prison which Israel continues to occupy (through its control of air, sea, and land routes out of Gaza and even of its population registry) were being shot to death by the dozens.

The White House says it wants to help Gaza. So it punitively cuts aid to desperate Gazans, adopts one-sided policies in Israel's favor – then blames the Palestinians for 'politicizing' humanitarian assistance.

Two conferences held last week underlined the Trump Administration’s combination of bad faith and ineptitude in addressing Gaza’s severe humanitarian crisis.

The first one, convened by the White House, was dubbed a "brainstorming session" on Gaza by Trump’s special representative for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt. At the outset, Greenblatt enjoined participants to "leave all politics at the door" in order to help Gaza.

Trump has consistently privileged the Israeli narrative and claims over those of the Palestinians. In his Jerusalem decision he also helped the destructive, unnecessary transformation of the conflict from a political to a religious struggle.

Mae Elise Cannon, Yahya Hendi, and Debra Shushan

President Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and commence moving the US embassy was harmful enough.

And still, he has managed – repeatedly – to make it worse. In the latest development, the State Department announced last week that a provisional U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will open on May 14, timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment.

The Trump Administration’s original decision was fatally flawed.

In the absence of a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Palestinian claims to Jerusalem are addressed, the decision was blatantly one-sided. American credibility as an honest broker plummeted, Trump’s avowed goal of reaching the "ultimate deal" was set back, and the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and His Holiness Pope Francis condemned the new policy.

ABC News: February 19, 2018
"Israeli settler leader says settlements grew rapidly in 2017," Brian Reeves, spokesman for Peace Now, an anti-settlement monitoring group, said it could not corroborate Katz's figures but that they are in the "ballpark" of its own estimates.

Haaretz: February 19, 2018
"Netanyahu eyes paying settlers millions for leaving illegal outpost built on private Palestinian land," the High Court ordered the structures in the outpost to be pulled down, following a petition from Peace Now and some Palestinian residents of the Palestinian town of al-Khader.

Times of Israel: February 19, 2018
"Government scrambles to ease pain of illegal outpost evacuation," Peace Now slammed news of a compensation plan for the residents, calling it “political bribery for building offenders.”

Times of Israel: February 13, 2018
"Israel okays temporary homes for residents of outpost slated to be razed," Peace Now slammed approvals, saying that the government had actually authorized the establishment of several new settlements, claiming that projects, such as the one for the Netiv Ha’avot residents are located well beyond the borders of the settlements they’re adjacent to.

Jerusalem Post: February 13, 2018
"New housing site approved for 15 Netiv Ha'avot families," Peace Now and Yesh Din have filed multiple cases on behalf of the Palestinian village of El-Khader, which claims the land falls under their jurisdiction.

American Jews shouldn't take their cue from an Israeli left which is veering rightwards and indoctrinated by the false slogan of an 'eternal and undivided Jerusalem'. Trump's move sabotaged peace, and we U.S. Jews must push back against it

If President Donald Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem had a silver lining, for me it is this: many progressive, pro-Israel American Jews saw Trump’s gambit as the narrowly self-serving, reckless move it was, and rejected it. 

For this reason, I read with great interest the recent Haaretz op-ed by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, a former president of the Union for Reform Judaism (U.S. Liberal Jews Read It Wrong. Trump’s Call on Jerusalem Was Good for the Peace Camp).

An ardent Trump critic, Yoffie’s "default position is to resist every word on foreign affairs that comes out of [Trump’s] mouth." So what brought Yoffie to conclude that President Trump’s new Jerusalem policy is “generally responsible”?

On December 7^th, 2017, APN hosted former US consul General in Jerusalem, Jacob (Jake) Walles. Ambassador Walles spoke about the repercussions of President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his decision to start preparations for transferring America’s Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.