News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) published its data on construction starts earlier today. The Data shows that in the first six months of 2016, 1,195 housing units started to be constructed in the settlements. This is an increase of 40% in comparison to the previous six month (July-December 2015), during which 850 housing units began to be constructed. In contrast, a 3% decrease in construction starts was noted in Israel proper (23,691 housing units in the first half of 2016 as opposed to 22,898 housing units in the second half of 2015).

Peace Now: "Netanyahu is the Prime Minister of one sector only - the settler sector, which comprises of less than 5% of the Israeli population. His investments in the settlements do not only come on the expense of the Negev, the Galilee and the rest of Israel but also lead towards a one state reality.

Earlier this week, we called on Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, to speak out against Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that demanding a future Palestinian state free of Israeli settlements is supporting “ethnic cleansing.” We called on our activists to urge these groups to speak up. The ADL’s CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt did just that in an excellent article in today’s digital edition of foreign policy.

We commend Greenblatt and the ADL for speaking up, and thank our activists for taking action. To urge other national Jewish groups to follow ADL’s suit click here.

The latest in APN's series of security validators is President Jimmy Carter. The thirty-ninth president of the United States, he is, unusually, perhaps known best for his extraordinary post-presidency humanitarian work, including the Carter Center, founded in 1982 as his base for advancing human rights, extensive travel to conduct peace negotiations, observe elections, and advance disease prevention and eradication in developing nations.

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Update: this action, now closed, ran in September 2016. 

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video statement in which he claimed that evacuating Israeli settlements from the West Bank in the context of a future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is tantamount to “ethnic cleansing.” This statement, trivializing crimes against humanity and genocide, should outrage anyone who cares about international affairs and who cares about Israel.

Applying terminology borrowed from the darkest days of European history to a scenario in which Israeli settlements would be withdrawn to allow for a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians, reached by the sovereign governments of both peoples, is abhorrent. It merits the US Jewish community’s rejection and repudiation.

Every U.S. President since 1967, both Republican and Democrat, has accepted that settlements would be removed as part of a peace agreement. Menachem Begin, who evacuated all of Israel’s settlements in Sinai as a part of a peace agreement, and Ariel Sharon, who unilaterally removed all the settlements from the Gaza Strip and a handful in the northern West Bank, made a sovereign decision to do so out of national security considerations. Controversial as these moves may have been at the time, they were not “ethnic cleansing.”

It seems there is no line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t cross to defend settlements. Israeli law says settlers can’t steal Israeli-recognized Palestinian private land for their own purposes? Netanyahu leaves no principle of rule of law unchallenged in the effort to “legalize” the settlers’ actions. The boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement challenges Israel’s legitimacy? Netanyahu jumps on the chance to exploit the BDS threat to legitimize settlements, accusing anyone who differentiates between Israel and settlements of embracing BDS (and accusing Israel’s closest allies of adopting policies similar to those of the Nazis). The Palestinians – and virtually the entire world – argue that settlements are an obstacle to peace and will need to be removed? Last week, Netanyahu releases a video accusing them of supporting ethnic cleansing.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: the idea that Jews may not live in a given place, for no reason other than because they are Jewish, is abhorrent. But that isn’t what objecting to settlements is about, and Netanyahu knows it. The demand for the removal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank has nothing to do with where Jews, as Jews, can or cannot live. It has to do with whether Israel will be a permanent occupier or will accept a two-state solution.

And let’s make another thing clear: Defending settlements by appealing to Jewish historical trauma at the hands of the Nazis — which is what Jews think of when we hear the words “ethnic cleansing” or worse yet, the Nazi term often invoked Netanyahu and the settlers, “Judenrein” — is morally despicable, politically inflammatory and factually misleading.

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 three new Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives that are reportedly being incubated: a set of “Obama principles”, a Moscow summit, and an Israeli referendum in terms of potential content and advantages and disadvantages; what would he recommend for an Obama peace formula as part of his legacy; PM Netanyahu seemingly contemplating steps to dissuade Obama from any peace initiatives, including a possible Moscow summit with Palestinian leader Abbas; allegations that Abbas had been recruited sometime before 1983 by the KGB; and the campaign to hold a national referendum on the two-state solution, “Decision at 50.”