We join fellow members of the American Jewish community in grief and shock over the horrific attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Our hearts are with Pittsburgh’s Jewish community during this time of mourning.

The surge in anti-Semitism we are witnessing in the United States is extremely disturbing and dangerous. Not only is ancient hatred against Jews being stirred up, it is being legitimized. We are being attacked for our tikkun olam, the work we do to repair our world.

We and our colleagues at Israel’s Peace Now movement are committed to confronting political violence and the hate speech that incites it and to making the world a better place. We have our work cut out for us, but thankfully, we are in this together. And we will emerge stronger from this tragedy.

עוֹלָם חֶסֶד יִבָּנֶה.

Olam chesed yibaneh.
We will build this world with lovingkindness.

In solidarity,

Jim Klutznick
Chair of the Board

Aviva Meyer
Acting CEO and Vice-Chair of the Board

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.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) is devastated and outraged by the mass shooting murder at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life congregation. We offer heartfelt condolences to the families whose loved ones were killed and wish full recovery to those injured.

This mass shooting is likely the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in US history, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). As an American Jewish organization, APN is extremely concerned by rising anti-Semitism in the US and worldwide.

Amid a barrage of anti-Palestinian actions, a tacit endorsement of Israel’s West Bank annexation, and an occupation-denying U.S. Ambassador, are the big guns of U.S. Jewry – AIPAC, ADL, AJC, JFNA – really too afraid to rock the boat with Trump?

While Donald Trump’s word salad du jour on Israeli-Palestinian peace vacillates between one state and two, it is by now clear that his administration has jettisoned the longtime bipartisan U.S. goal of a two-state solution. Nothing the administration has said indicates that it embraces this vision, and everything it does undermines it. 

Where does that leave American Jewish establishment organizations which have made the two-state solution a pillar of their policy on Israel? 

This episode’s guest is Daniel Kurtzer, a professor in Middle East policy studies at Princeton University and the United States’ former ambassador to Israel and Egypt.

Dan’s New York Daily News article blasts the Trump administration’s decision to merge the US consulate in Jerusalem with the US embassy to Israel, which has recently been removed from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In this conversation, Ambassador Kurtzer examines this development and analyzes this administration’s approach policy on Israeli-Palestinian peace.

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.