As a part of our series on the first intifada, as its 30th anniversary approaches, this episode features a conversation with Mubarak Awad, the Palestinian-American who in the mid-1980s returned to Jerusalem, determined to lead a revolution, to get the Palestinians to shift from armed struggle to nonviolence. Awad got in trouble with both the Israeli authorities, which ended up deporting him, and with the PLO, which at first viewed him as a sellout, a collaborator and a traitor, but ended up embracing and adopting many of the methods he advocated.

Awad is the founder and director of Nonviolence International.

From Peace Now's Settlement Watch:

The past few months have seen unprecedented developments in the settlements, causing severe damage to the chances of a two-state solution. Accelerated population growth, approvals of housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, promotion of bypass roads, advancements of Knesset bills, home demolitions and changes in legal interpretations - all lead to a situation of de-facto annexation of area C. Without any official declarations, the Israeli government is preventing the viability and contiguity of a future Palestinian state, while treating lands in area C as its own. The implications of the abovementioned developments are far-reaching for Israel, the Palestinians and the region as a whole. 

Peace Now's new report summarizes key developments of the last several months and analyzes their impact, individually and together, on the viability of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and the possibility for a two state solution.

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.

This week, Alpher discusses Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely's disparaging remarks about American Jews; pessimism regarding the likelihood that the Trump administration’s anticipated Israeli-Palestinian peace plan will succeed; and the international legal backdrop to the Netanyahu government's refusal to negotiate with a Palestinian unity government and Russian FM Lavrov's declaration that Iranian forces are in Syria legally.

Americans for Peace Now is shocked and deeply saddened by the mass-casualty attack on worshipers at a mosque in Sinai, Egypt. Our condolences to the families and the people of Egypt, and wishes of full recovery to those injured.

Update: this action, now closed, ran in November 2017. 

President Trump says he wants to broker the “ultimate deal,” a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But since taking office in January, he and his aides have failed to offer a framework for negotiations, have failed to assert positions that are vital for securing a peace deal, such as sternly opposing settlement construction, and have refused to endorse the only viable formula for a deal: the two-state solution. 

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