APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday July 30, 2020

(NOTE: News Nosh will be on holiday till Wednesday next week.)

Quote of the day:

"God help our democracy if people start to kill each other."
-- President Reuven Rivlin said in response to the latest assault by right-wingers against anti-Netanyahu demonstrators.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
“This was about two groups who provoked each other. I don’t know who started and who hit back.”
--Despite the numerous videos showing right-wingers brutally assaulting anti-Netanyahu demonstrators in Tel-Aviv on Tuesday, Magistrate Court Judge Anat Yahav decided to release to house arrest two of the men suspected of assault.**

Michael Sfard's recent legal opinion, commissioned by the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, concluded that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is a form of apartheid, constituting a crime according to international law.

Listen to APN's Webinar with Michael Sfard from August 10, 2020:

Michael Sfard is an Israeli attorney who represents various Israeli and Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements, and activists. He is an expert in international humanitarian law and international human rights law. He was educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at University College in London.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday July 29, 2020

Quote of the day:

“People are scared to come to protests because of this. It’s frightening to think that next time the attackers might use a knife.”
--Dor Segal, an eyewitness of the Tuesday night attacks on anti-Netanyahu protesters by groups of young men wearing black.*

On Tisha B'Av, the "saddest day of the Jewish calendar," our tradition dictates that we mourn the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and consider the cause of their destruction. Although we haven't known a Judaism that revolves around a Temple for centuries, we take this day every year to remember a time when the center of gravity of the Jewish people was brutally destroyed. This act of painful remembrance also serves as a difficult exercise in empathy: putting ourselves in the shoes of our ancestors to understand our lost past.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday July 28, 2020

You Must Be Kidding: 
"A siege on the Arabs and not on the Jews."
--Words spray-painted by settlers on the walls of a mosque in a West Bank village before they set it ablaze.*

APN's daily news review from Israel  - Monday July 27, 2020

Quote of the day:

“Until now, we dealt with police violence, which is terrible in and of itself. Now the messages of incitement and violence brought citizens to stab a demonstrator in the neck. This could have ended much worse. This could have ended like Emil Greenzweig. Like Yitzhak Rabin. The incitement must end.”
--Labor Party MK Merav Michaeli said following attacks on demonstrators protesting against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.*

You Must Be Kidding:
"I also sometimes ask myself in the middle of the night why is the traffic light red."
--Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's response to question about why there are no female lawmakers left in the downsized corona cabinet.**

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 July 26, 2020

You Must Be Kidding: 
Police shot water cannons at heads of people demonstrating against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu across from his residence.*

Quotes of the Day:
“When I got up. I got another jet [of water] in the back. I tried to hide but they were spraying at us from everywhere. It was a battlefield. They didn’t attempt to disperse us, but rather to scare us from demonstrating again.”
--Yonatan Kimmel, who came to Jerusalem to demonstrate against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, was hit by police with a water jet to his head, puncturing his eardrum, knocking him down, cutting his head and bruising him all over his face and body.*

"I'm the one who was proud to defend. I'm the one who was brainwashed. I'm the one who traveled with you in the big world, the one who went with you to demonstrations and I'm also the one who is unable to explain to my children why I did it. You won’t remember me. I don’t matter to you. Only you are important to you. So guess what? Yesterday I came to visit you, yes, yes, at Balfour. I am the one who, if you wake him up in the middle of the night, will know in 37 seconds to how to reach every house in the area with my eyes closed. I was the one who heard the voices of despair of our people yesterday in both the left-wing demonstration and the right-wing demonstration on the other side of the street. I was the one who was beaten by policemen yesterday just because I came to exercise the basic democratic right in Jerusalem. I am the one who was hit by water with unreasonable force from an extreme means of dispersing demonstrations (water cannon) simply because the police…does not have the capacity for restraint.”
--Nir Aden, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's former Shin Bet personal security guard, wrote in a Facebook post that went viral.**

1. Bills, Resolutions, & Letters
2. FY21 SFOPS — House
3. FY21 NDAA – House
4. FY21 NDAA – Senate
5. FY21 Defense Approps – House
6. Hearings & Markups
7. On the Record

*Brought to you in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Round-Up was born!

APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday July 23, 2020

You Must Be Kidding: 
Israel’s Civil Administration on Tuesday tore down a building at the entrance to Hebron that Palestinians say was meant to serve as a center for coronavirus testing and quarantine.**