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 - Sunday August 23, 2020

Quote of the day:

“You have to understand that a person like this truly believes that people are meant to serve him, that everything is intended to serve him, and that he has no problem getting rid of people after they have fulfilled his need. When he stands on the stage, it’s actually compensation for his empty world. He is fighting for his life – in the psychological sense – and that is how he is so effective. Positive leaders don’t have this need. There isn’t this pit that they have to keep filling all the time. They aren’t dependent on the admiration of the public, they don’t feel that if that’s taken from them they’ll remain with nothing, so that leadership, from their point of view, is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Many of them retired, resigned or gave up leadership of their own volition."
—Emeritus psychology professor Micha Popper explains how narcissistic personality disorder differentiates between a toxic charismatic leader, and a positive charismatic leader.**

1. Bills, Resolutions & Letters
2. Hearings & Markups
3. On the Record

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived. 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 August 20, 2020

 Quote of the day:"I am sitting in government with a defendant in three indictments - isn't this a huge compromise?"
-Alternate and Defense Minister and Chairman of Kahol-Lavan party, Benny Gantz, responds to Likud accusations that his party is to blame if Israel goes to a fourth election.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
"Get help from a relative or anyone else who speaks Hebrew."
--The Israeli Employment Service's response to complaints that it is not allowing online forms to claim unemployment be filled out in Arabic, which may result in thousands of unemployed people losing their stipends.**

Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab spoke and answered questions on the Palestinian response to the announced normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and its immediate and longer term impact on them. From their perspective, could they make lemonade out of this lemon?

Award winning Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab is the director of the Community Media Network in Amman, Jordan. He is the former editor of Al-Fajr English weekly newspaper, a columnist for the Arabic language al-Quds daily and a regular contributor to leading American newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday August 19, 2020

Quote of the day:

"(Netanyahu tells Israelis:) 'Annexation is around the corner. In a moment Jared Kushner will finish lunch, and voila, there is approval for annexation. And there is no arms deal. We did not discuss it at all. Actually, yes we discussed, but it won't happen. I brought peace for free.' This is a lie, of course. A lie that Netanyahu is the only one who believes."
--Senior Yedioth political correspondent Nahum Barnea writes that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is 'captive to the concept that there are free meals.'*

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday August 18, 2020

Quote of the day:

“That land is land that right now Israel, quite frankly, controls.”
—Senior Trump administration advisor, Jared Kushner, ‘frankly’ reveals that he thinks that the West Bank is land that does not belong to Israel and, therefore, essentially, is occupied.*

You Must Be Kidding: 

The Israeli police released a video of the 30-year-old Palestinian man stabbing a Border Policeman in Jerusalem's Old City yesterday. The Israeli police did not release the video of the Israeli guards shooting a 60-year-old deaf Palestinian man at the Kalandia checkpoint in E. Jerusalem yesterday.* And it said that none of the 10 CCTV cameras that pointed to the place where a Border Policeman shot in cold blood an autistic Palestinian man in the Old City in June worked.*

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday August 17, 2020

You Must Be Kidding: 
Israeli army seeks three months community service for soldier who shot dead innocent Palestinian young man who stopped to help the wife and children of another innocent man the soldier also shot in cold blood.*

Quotes of the day:
"Not pleasant, but not terrible, either."
—Haaretz's Gideon Levy writes that's the message the IDF is delivering to soldiers for shooting Palestinians for no reason.*

“After all, how will Israel maintain the occupation, a military regime over an entire people, for generation after generation, without resorting to tremendous and ongoing violence? How can it be imagined that Israeli control over the Palestinians will continue in such a manner, if the soldiers we send to carry it out will have to face a real, not symbolic, accountability for what they were sent to do on our behalf.”
—Amit Gilutz, Spokesman for B’Tselem, writes in Yedioth why the IDF almost never prosecutes soldiers who have harmed Palestinians or just gives them light sentences in the rare case that they do go on trial.***