Israel’s Peace Now movement took more than 150 Israelis to the West Bank Friday on a first-of-its-kind tour to learn about the extremist settlers’ violent campaign known as “Price Tag.”
Participants viewed Israeli military installations and Palestinian villages that are routinely vandalized by extremist settlers. Tour participants paid a solidarity visit to one of the Palestinian villages that has been a target of choice for the violent settlers, the village of Kusra near Nablus, where residents received them with flowers.
Peace Now has been taking Israelis to the West Bank for years to show them up close what the occupation is doing to Palestinians and to their own society. Recently, because of the uptick in settler violence and because of the re-energized peace talks, Peace Now decided to boost this program by adding topical tours. Last week it was a tour to explore the “Price Tag” phenomenon. In the coming weeks Peace Now is planning tours to other trouble spots, featuring other maladies of the occupation.
These tours are expensive, but critically important.
Please support this program. You can help Peace Now expose the occupation to Israelis.
A contribution of $50 will sponsor two seats on the bus. For
$100 you can send four Israelis for a day in the West Bank, and open their eyes to what their government
does there in their name, and to what the settlers are doing to the Palestinians and to the future of the
state of Israel. Join us now.
B'Shalom,
Debra DeLee
President and CEO, Americans for Peace Now
This week, Alpher discusses the flood of policy statements from the most senior spokespersons on every side; whether Abbas is making concessions; Kerry's remarks about the consequences for Israel of not reaching an agreement; Indyk's statement in a phone briefing to American Jewish leaders that the upcoming framework agreement would address the right of Jews who fled Arab countries; and the issue of public attitudes toward the peace process in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority and whether they are changing.
The Forward - January 28, 2014
APN's Debra DeLee: Love Israel. Oppose BDS. Reject SodaStream.
http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/191768/love-israel-oppose-bds-reject-sodastream/
Cleveland Jewish News - January 23, 2014
APN Board Member Mark Silverberg op-ed: Proposed new Iran sanctions all wrong
http://m.clevelandjewishnews.com/mobile/opinion/op-eds/article_ffa5f870-82c0-11e3-83fe-0019bb2963f4.html
Haaretz - January 23, 2014
US Students on Project Extend meet with Peace Now in Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/twilight-zone/.premium-1.570193#.UuPcNFGbFRw.facebook
Arutz 7 - January 28, 2014
Peace Now organizes "Price Tag" tours
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176810#.UughPbso5Mw
JTA - January 28, 2014
APN part of a loose coalition supporting the Obama administration on Iran
http://www.stljewishlight.com/news/world/article_53961a8f-d185-565e-a636-957989e830eb.html
LA Jewish Journal (JTA story) - January 29, 2014
APN among loose coalition working to support Obama administration on Iran
http://www.jewishjournal.com/world/article/groups_join_to_oppose_sanctions
Maariv (English translation, no link) - January 28, 2014
Peace Now Offering West Bank Tour in the Footsteps of "Price Tag"
Price Tag Tourism: Peace Now Offering Tour in the Footsteps of the Extreme Right
Wing
Ma’ariv (back page) by Itamar Fleishman -- There is now another kind of tour to Judea and Samaria in
addition to the popular tours to the sites where historic events took place, and visits to settlements and
wineries. These news tours are being sponsored by people who oppose all settlement beyond the Green Line, and
they will take visitors to places where price tag operations were committed.
These tours are being organized by Peace Now and they will go to Arab villages in the territories where participants can see the places where graffiti was spray-painted on walls and where acts of arson and attempted arson was committed, targeting houses mosques and cars. Peace Now has already prepared ads, but has not made public the date of the next tour because it fears members of the extreme right wing will sabotage it. Peace Now says that there is great demand. “There is a great thirst, mainly from students and other young people to see reality with their own eyes,” says Yariv Oppenheimer. “The goal is to present a geopolitical picture and to show that expanding the settlements hurts the chances of peace, and to show the effect of the settlements and the outposts on life in the area and to reveal to the public the attacks [on Palestinians].”
Oppenheimer promises that the tour will also visit places that have become “hostile for IDF soldiers.” He is most likely referring to outposts that are considered more militant but refuses to give details due to “concern that settlers will decide to block the roads and only let in tours of people of their own mindset,” as he puts it.
The tours are meant to counter the successful tours given by the settlers in which thousands of Israelis, among them VIPs, visit the territories, are given a subsidized tour and learn about the settlers’ view of events. One agency that gives such tours is the Settlers Council.
Settlers Council Deputy Director General Yigal Dilmoni said last night: “There’s no question that seeing and tours are important. Our tours show the reality of Judea and Samaria, without filters.”