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.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday July 2, 2020

Quote of the day:

"And so, to sum up, what Netanyahu has managed, right now, to do is to burn the stew, to make Israeli initiatives, once again, loathsome to countries around the world, to harm relations with the United States, to quarrel with the neighbor to the east, and to deepen the chasm between the leadership and the people, between the decision makers and the hundreds of thousands of unemployed who do not understand how a government set up to fight corona and the collapsing economy has plunged us all into a far-fetched, unnecessary initiative, that has no connection to a real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
--Yedioth Ahronoth commentator Ariella Ringel-Hoffman writes about Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's annexation bid.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Israel’s Public Security Minister Amir Ohana (Likud) postponed the enforcement of a decision requiring private security guards to leave their guns at work in order to reduce the danger that hovers over the lives of women in violent relationships and he is trying to obtain a six-month delay in the implementation of a law that makes it a crime to pay for prostitution services.**

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday June 30, 2020

You Must Be Kidding:
There are no fewer than 10 cameras in the 150 meters (164 yards) between Lions Gate, where the chase began, and the garbage room, where the Border Policeman shot dead the autistic Palestinian young man, Eyad Alhalaq. Yet the Police and the Justice Ministry have produced no video footage of the killing.*

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday June 22, 2020

 Quote of the day:

"I want to know that when I check out, my daughters and my granddaughters will continue to live a normal life here. That is all we wanted. But today I do not see that normal life as assured. I do not see the future of my daughters and granddaughters as assured. And that truly haunts me. What haunts me is knowing that what exists today is liable to fall apart tomorrow.”
--Prof. Zeev Sternhell, a world renown expert on fascism and a Holocaust survivor, was a vocal supporter of peace and opposed occupation. He died Sunday.*

Quote of the day:

"One doesn’t need to read 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' in order to be filled with feelings of discomfort and injustice by the fact that the team mediating between representatives of the nation-state of the Jewish people and representatives of the Palestinian people is comprised entirely of Jews."
--Carolina Landsmann writes in Haaretz of the hypocrisy of the right-wing, which accuses the left-wing of being 'PC' and which likes to portray itself as “telling it as it is,” but is silent about the make-up of the US team that drafted the Trump peace plan and offered itself as an objective, impartial, unbiased broker between Palestinians and Israelis. Landsmann writes that one of the Trump team members, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, is so pro-settler he "makes Bibi (Netanyahu) look like Ahmad Tibi."*

You Must Be Kidding: 
45 days of community service.
--The sentence an IDF soldier received for shooting and killing a Palestinian fisherman in Gaza in 2018.**

APN's daily news review from Israel

Monday June 1, 2020

 Quotes of the day:“He didn’t even know there was such a thing as Jews and Arabs in this country.”
--Dr. Hatem Awiwi, the cousin of Eyad Al-Hallaq, the autistic Palestinian young man who was shot dead in cold blood by Israeli Border Police.*

“Today it comes down to this: what are you going to do about it? When actions are taken that threaten the viability of two states living side by side in peace and security, what do you say? What do you do?"
--In an Op-Ed in Haaretz, President of Americans for Peace Now, Hadar Susskind, examines why the “mainstream" Jewish organizations, who all tout their support of a two-state solution, are silent about Israel’s intention to annex Palestinian Territories on July 1st.**

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday May 25, 2020

Quote of the day:

"It seems to me that even those who expected drama yesterday did not think that was what would happen."
--Senior Yedioth political commentator Sima Kadmon writes in a sharp Op-Ed about the opening of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's trial in which he accused the police and attorney general of fabricating the cases against him.*

The Israeli supreme court has been the focus of much media attention recently, most notably for giving the go-ahead to the new coalition government between Netanyahu and Gantz. This decision was undoubtedly a great disappointment and a blow to Israeli democracy, allowing a man with three charges of corruption to serve at the highest level of government. However, there have been some smaller human rights victories in the courts recently surrounding the coronavirus.