Update: this action, now closed, ran in October 2018.  

Thirty-four Senators and 112 House members recently released letters to the Trump administration calling on it to restore humanitarian funding to Palestinians, which President Trump has slashed in order to pressure the Palestinian leadership to acquiesce to his unannounced “peace plan.” As Israeli security officials have indicated, this funding is not only essential for Palestinians, it is also critically important for Israeli security.

Did your elected officials sign? Tell them where you stand.

The funding in question was passed by Congress, with bipartisan support, and included aid for:

• UNRWA, the UN agency which provides critical assistance to Palestinian refugees;
• Humanitarian programs administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the West Bank and Gaza;
• The East Jerusalem Hospital Network which provides essential care for many Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza; and
• People-to-people conflict mitigation programming which promotes coexistence, particularly among the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians.

Congress allocated this funding because it serves the US national interest in a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the face of Trump’s outrageous decision to cancel all non-security-related funding that benefits Palestinians, Congress must speak out.

Take action to thank your elected representatives if they signed these letters, or take them to task if they did not.

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

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

Dr. Debra Shushan, APN Policy and Government Relations Director, was recently in the Philadelphia area where she was the featured speaker at a J Street Philadelphia / J Street U event at Haverford College and guest at parlor parties. In her September 30 talk at Haverford entitled "Off the Table: Israeli-Palestinian Peace in the Trump-Netanyahu Era," she surveyed recent developments that threaten prospects for peace - from the rise of illiberal democracy in the US and Israel, to President Trump's efforts to take key issues off the negotiating table - as well as the work that APN and Shalom Achshav in Israel are doing to push back against this tide.

A J Street U leader called the talk "phenomenal" and welcomed further collaboration with APN. 

Educational advocacy is an important part of APN's work. If you are interested in inviting someone from APN's Speakers Bureau to your university, synagogue, church, parlor event, or other gathering, please contact apndc@peacenow.org. 

Orly Halpern is an American-born, Jerusalem-based freelance journalist who edits News Nosh, Americans for Peace Now’s roundup of the daily news from Israel.

She prepares the English language review of Israel’s Hebrew media early in the morning, Israel time, taking advantage of the seven-hour time difference between Jerusalem and America's East Coast so that News Nosh subscribers can scan the Israeli news of the day with their morning coffee and bagel.

Subscribe to APN's News Nosh for free

This episode goes much beyond News Nosh. Orly talks about her career in journalism, about Israeli journalism and about Israeli society.

In conversation with Jafar Farah and Nabila Espanioly of the Mossawa Center, APN Political Director Debra Shushan moderated "The Nation-State Law: Implications for Democracy and Peace in Israel/Palestine" on September 27. Watch the video to see how Palestinian citizens of Israel are responding to the new Israeli law that has relegated them to second-class status -- and why they are taking their case abroad. 

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

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

Washington, DC – Yesterday at the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again chose to ignore Israel’s real strategic existential threat and instead to focus on Iran.

Netanyahu could have taken up the challenge posed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who recommitted to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and by President Donald Trump, who belatedly expressed a personal preference for such an outcome.

The world laughed at Donald Trump yesterday. In response to his ludicrous assertion that in less than two years his administration “has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country” on the world arena, the assembled diplomatic representatives to the UN General Assembly did not conceal their amusement.

Trump earned the ridicule of the United Nations, in particular regarding his administration’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather than advancing peace, the Trump administration has caused more damage than any government in US history.