“I can tell them, look, you’ve suffered a lot as Jews around the world, and there were issues of suffering and agony in Spain or Europe. Don’t repeat what has been. You were treated badly in Europe during the war and also during the inquisition in Spain. Don’t repeat what you have suffered. You are causing the Palestinians suffering by pushing them to the wall. This land, Palestine, is the holy land for all the people of Abrahamic faiths, who lived together through history for centuries. I think we can all live here in this land – Muslims, Christians and Jews – in this blessed land Allah chose for all the good people of Palestine, Muslims, Jews and Christians. This is my message to the Jewish community in Israel or to the Jewish people in Israel.”
—Senior Hamas official Dr. Ahmed Yousef tells Haaretz journalist Nir Gontarz in phone interview, when asked what he would like to say to people in Israel.*

Note from Linda Heller Kamm, an event co-chair:

How wonderful that Americans for Peace Now has chosen Lara Friedman and Michael Walzer as the honorees for its upcoming Vision of Peace Celebration. Lara, APN’s former Director of Policy and Government Relations, has tirelessly represented the risks to Israel’s democratic and Jewish character of the expansion of settlements. Always armed with the facts, she has presented them clearly and accurately to both the State Department and the Congress while also alerting us all to the effects of Israel’s shortsighted policies.

Michael has been an APN stalwart and Board member from the very beginning. Better than anyone else, he has articulated the moral vision that should motivate the Jewish state and its supporters. Through his writings and his soft spoken but forceful clarity he has laid out the imperatives for a just and peaceful outcome to the conflict now in its 70th year.

And APN is always there. As it has provided a voice for reason, APN has built a community of Americans and Israelis who cherish the idea of an Israel that is a light to the nations and who never give up. We must give it our full support.

So please join APN and Lara and Michael in an evening of tribute and rededication to the hard work that still lies ahead.

Go HERE - or see below - for an invitation to the event with a link to make your reservation to join us in New York. I hope I'll see you there!!

Linda Heller Kamm

P.S. If you aren't able to attend, you can still join the celebration and congratulate the honorees, recognize the work of APN, or send a message of peace that will be shared that night in our tribute presentation. Just return the response card with your contribution and your message.

“It means a lot to us that Israelis, who have changed their way of thinking, stand together with us – the people of Hebron and the Palestinian people.”
— Izzat Adel, a spokesman for the Palestinian group ‘Youth Against Settlements,’ said ahead of the large-scale "Freedom Seder" on April 4th, it is jointly organizing in Hebron with ‘All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective,’ with the goal of reaffirming the “commitment to liberation” and protesting “the dispossession and violence of the occupation.” This year’s Passover holiday is more significant, said the organizers, because it marks 50 years since the first settlers got military permission to enter Hebron to celebrate the week-long religious holiday in 1968 - and then they never left.*

Each year at the Seder, Jews read this line in the Passover Haggadah, "In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as if they had left Egypt." This concept reminds us that each year we must approach the haggada with a fresh eye. It demands that we not merely read the words, but understand them afresh. We must have both empathy for what our forefathers and mothers have suffered, and – more importantly – be aware that change is possible, that we are masters of our fate, and that with determination and courage we can accomplish liberation. In our generation, liberating Israelis and Palestinians from the yoke of the occupation, which is subjugating both societies, is imperative. And it is within our reach.

This year, you can add flavor to your seder by sharing this thoughtful reflection by Rabbi Rachael Bregman. Rabbi Bregman has graciously contributed our 18th haggadah insert. In it, she asks us to reflect upon what questions we want to ask this year, offers questions for the table - to be asked when we reach the explanation of the three symbols of Passover: pesach (the offering), matzah and maror.

Since 2001, Americans for Peace Now has asked rabbis from the extended APN family to contribute reflections on the haggadah: that story which has for centuries been understood as the archetype of liberation. Many of us have made these reflections a permanent part of our seder - we hope you will, too. You can find them here.

May we all enjoy a sweet and liberating Passover,

Debra DeLee
President and CEO,
Americans for Peace Now

Submitted by Rabbi Rachael Bregman (2018)
To be read before the three symbols of Passover.

"The vision of an Arab prime minister, which at present seems like a delusional idea, is drawing near. And then this will be an equal and democratic country, and not a Jewish and democratic one.”
—Arab MK Ahmad Tibi said after new statistics showed that an equal number of Jews and Arabs live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or possibly more Arabs.*

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Number of the day:
17.
Percentage that settlement growth has surged from the annual average since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took office in 2009, according to Peace Now report.**