Yom Haatzmaut -Israeli Independence Day- a message from Shalom Achshav's director Avi Buskila

Buskila-on-reserve-duty

Dear partners and friends,

I am very excited at the opportunity to introduce myself to you as the new director of Shalom Achshav (Peace Now).

I was born and raised in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel. I studied in the regional high school in Kibbutz Kfar Blum, and then served in the IDF for 14 years as a combat soldier and a commander. If you follow the Israeli media, you may have seen my name mentioned in the context of my work for civil rights in Israel.

For me, Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day are both complex and special. Every year, on Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day, I mourn the tragic loss of my friends Avraham, Yuval, Ro’i and Ro’i, two dear friends who shared the same first name. Hours later, on Yom Ha’atzma’ut, after a day of commemorating friends lost in battle, I pivot with the rest of the country to celebrate my state and its many achievements. Yet, as I do, I cannot ignore my ever-growing frustration with the fact that our leadership is doing so little to end the ongoing violence and horror that haunts us. They are doing so little to actively pursue peace.

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News Nosh 05.10.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday May 10, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
"Nobody called S. Yizhar a traitor. Nobody boycotted him. This story, like many others, became part of the curriculum in schools. Israeli society has moved a long way since then."
--Israeli educator Dr. Revital Amiran wrote that the popular and political support for the 'Shooting Soldier,' is a watershed moment undermining the army and tells readers about the book, 'The Captive,' by S. Yizhar, a story about Israeli soldiers who arbitrarily took captive a Palestinian shepherd and how they put him through humiliating and brutal interrogations. In another Op-Ed today Amiran wrote about how the new civics textbooks made Israel appear as if it were a country of Ashkenazi religious Jews, without any internal conflicts. 

You Must Be Kidding: 
"He is the worst thing that happened to the people of Israel. Because he comes disguised as a right-winger, but in fact he is the most left-wing. He’s like Sharon. He became prime minister and then changed. He is the first one that needs to be taken down."
--‘D.,’ an Israeli hilltop youth in the West Bank tells Maariv reporter Lior Dayan about their plans to change the state.
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Berkshires Luncheon with Yossi Alpher - June 26th

Americans for Peace Now

Martin & Shirley Bresler, Debra DeLee & Arnie Miller,
Letty Cottin Pogrebin & Bert Pogrebin, and
Marcie Setlow & David Scribner, invite you to the:

Americans for Peace Now Luncheon with
Yossi Alpher, Israeli Security Expert

Sunday, June 26, 2016, 11:30 a.m.

Egremont Country Club in the Berkshire Mountains
685 S Egremont Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230

Lunch and Program: $90
(all but $25 is tax deductible)

RSVP to debradelee@peacenow.org, 202-408-9898, or ONLINE (indicate "Alpher Berkshires Reservations" in the comment box)


Yossi will be discussing issues raised in his latest book, just now hitting the shelves: "No End of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine". The book, available for purchase and for signing at the event, provides ways to better understand and navigate the current challenges.

This is Yossi's first visit to the Berkshires since a similar Americans for Peace Now event in 2010. Yossi provides an informed, straightforward, and valuable perspective, and we encourage you to join us on June 26.


"A thoughtful and compelling analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum by one of Israel's most astute and veteran political and security analysts."
- Aaron David Miller, vice president of the Woodrow Wilson Center and former Middle East analyst and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations.

"Alpher opens new ground in presenting five options for the future along with the challenges to making them work."
- Thomas R. Pickering, former US undersecretary of state and ambassador to Israel, Jordan, Russia, and the United Nations.

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

As published May 9th in Haaretz following Peace Now's investigation, construction of a huge structure referred to as the “Amana House” has recently started in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. The structure is intended to serve as an office building for the Amana association - a private entity operating toward establishing and expanding settlements and responsible for many of the illegal outposts in the Territories. The structure is being built within the Palestinian neighborhood  of Sheikh Jarrah, and is adjacent to St. Joseph Hospital, which serves the Palestinian population of Jerusalem and the West bank.

Construction of the settlement is supported by a wide array of governmental institutions, headed by the Israel Land Authority (ILA). The ILA, in an illegal and misleading procedure and without a tender, expropriated private Palestinian land and handed it over to Amana, a right-wing, pro-settler organization that is politically and ideologically affiliated with the right-wing government.

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May 09, 2016 - Paris peace summit; Sykes-Picot century; Davutoglu’s demise

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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 the backdrop to France's plan to convene an international conference on the Israel-Palestine issue on May 30; what Paris hopes to accomplish; how Israel and the Palestinians view the initiative; his assessment of the chances for progress; if there is a danger here; whether there is a lesson from the 100 year anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement between the UK and France that laid the foundation for the Levant boundaries of the modern era; if Syria and Iraq be put back together again; what the immediate ramifications of last week's resignation of Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu and if there is a link here to Sykes-Picot.

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News Nosh 05.09.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday May 09, 2016
 
Quote of the day:
“We have come to the Knesset of Israel today to warn about the trend of the slow and continued erosion of the foundation of Israeli democracy, which expresses itself in offensive discourse, verbal violence and lack of tolerance for the other and those who are different…”
--The Presidents of Israel's universities made a joint statement backing up the statement by General Yair Golan comparing trends in Israeli society to those of Germany 90 years ago.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
Israel expropriated land from an East Jerusalem Palestinian family without a tender and against the rules, then handed it over to Amana, an organization that works to establish settlements and outposts.**
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News Nosh 05.08.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday May 08, 2016
 
 
You Must Be Kidding #1: 
Israel's Defense Ministry plans to establish a new Israeli settlement for settlers it tried to evict because they lived on privately-owned Palestinian land. The new settlement will be next to the Geulat Zion outpost, which has been a focal point of violence against Palestinians and the home of the settler charged with the arson-murder of the Dawabsheh family.*

You Must Be Kidding #2: 
In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, far right-wing MK Bezalel Smotrich argued that revenge is an “important and moral value” that must be conducted against Palestinians by the Israeli government, and had that been done it could have prevented subsequent Jewish attacks on Palestinians, including the July 2015 arson attack that killed three members of the Dawabsheh family.**
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Peace Now hands out Shalom flags for Yom Haatzmaut, Israel's 68th Independence day

activists_TA_cropShalom Achshav's new Public Action director, Yotam Yaakoba (second from the right) set up two kiosks in Tel Aviv today to hand out Peace Now's Shalom flags for Yom Haatzmaut, Israel's 68th  Independence day, which will be celebrated on Thursday May 12th. In the week to come, Shalom Achshav will be handing out flags in other locations around Israel.

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News Nosh 05.06.16

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday May 06, 2016
 
You Must Be Kidding: 
The day after IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Gen. Yair Golan said he was frightened to recognize that "the revolting processes that occurred in Europe in general, and particularly in Germany, back then – 70, 80 and 90 years ago – and finding signs of them here among us today in 2016," the IDF Spokesman released a statement that General Golan "did not intend to compare the IDF and Israel to what happened in Germany 70 years ago. Such a comparison would be absurd and baseless."**
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