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APN Weekly Update - Remembering Board Member and friend Elaine Hoffman, Watch Peace Now's young activists, Tisha B'Av thoughts, + more
"Amona
must stay in place, thrive and flourish. The cabinet must make sure that a
vibrant community does not become a desolate place just because of
formalities."
Project Syndicate: "Israel's Government Hawks and Military
Doves"
Newsweek: "Why New Israeli Settlements Set Back the Day of
Peace"
The seventh in APN's series of security validators is from Secretary of State John Kerry.
Secretary Kerry is an American diplomat and Democratic Party politician who is the 68th and current United States
Secretary of State. He previously served in the United States Senate, where he chaired the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations.
A 1966 graduate of Yale University, he enlisted in the Naval Reserve that year, and during 1968–1969 served an
abbreviated four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a Swift Boat. For that service,
he was awarded combat medals that include the Silver Star Medal, Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Heart
Medals.
After receiving his J.D. from Boston College Law School, Kerry worked in Massachusetts as an Assistant District
Attorney. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1983 to 1985 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in
1984.
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While News Nosh's Israel editor is on vacation, we are publishing an abbreviated version produced in Washington and therefore it may be sent later in the day.
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
The Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, stated yesterday (August 7, 2016) that he will consider the option
of moving Amona to a nearby absentees' property despite "weighty legal issues." The option was proposed to him
by a committee established by the government to find a solution of the illegal outposts issue. Approving the
committee's legal opinion will consist of a sharp change of Israeli policy thus far, and contradict decisions of
the Supreme Court, according to which private land cannot be used for the purpose of settlements. Such an approval
will expose Israel to lawsuits and create a precedent that could lead to the doubling of the land taken up by
settlements.
Peace Now: "The Attorney General is signaling that he is willing to approve the stealing of private lands of
absentees for settlers who themselves stole private lands against the law. The extrapolation of the AG approving
this option is that from now on, absentees' property could be leased to the settlers, despite of the fact that
these are private properties. The government's willingness to politically compensate the settlers of Amona, who
settled on private Palestinian land, is leading to devastating consequences on the ground and to the distortion of
Israel's moral and legal systems."
Americans for Peace Now (APN) mourns the passing of
Elaine Hoffman, a longtime senior member of its Board of Directors, a staunch advocate for peace for Israel, a
devoted leader of Los Angeles' Jewish community, and a longtime political activist. (Picture: Elaine with
Senator George Mitchell at the APN Yitzhak Rabin Peace Award Event).
APN's President and CEO Debra DeLee said: "The APN family lost an important member. We all admired Elaine and were inspired by her commitment to public life, to our community and to a peaceful, progressive Israel.
While News Nosh's Israel editor is on vacation, we are publishing an abbreviated version produced in Washington and therefore it may be sent later in the day.
on the eviction of Amona illegal outpost
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 Minister of Defense Lieberman's response to last week's declaration by President Obama that the Israeli security establishment confirms that Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement, and why such needless confrontation over a done deal; how is Israel dealing with Hamas' announcement of two weeks ago that it would participate in West Bank and Gaza municipal elections scheduled for October 8, and how does Palestinian leader Abu Mazen hope to win the elections that he himself initiated; and the Hamas/World Vision story and why it is significant.
While News Nosh's Israel editor is on vacation, we are publishing an abbreviated version produced in Washington and therefore it may be sent later in the day.
the Munich Agreement of 1938 to the Iran deal
While News Nosh's Israel editor is on vacation, we are publishing an abbreviated version produced in Washington and therefore it may be sent later in the day.
"There has always been a large gap between the world the Palestinians see and the world the Israelis see, but in recent years this hasn’t been so much an argument over the narrative, or over the fairness or abnormality of the situation, so much as that, for every event, every death, every incident, there seems to be a Palestinian version and an Israeli version."
of his journey through the occupied territories in the West Bank
PRINCETON – Those who lead Israel’s defense establishment often come to consider peace with the
Palestinians a necessary condition for the country’s security. Being tasked with maintaining the territories
Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967 evidently causes the military and security brass to support
political measures that would end the occupation. And yet the government shows no interest in pursuing a
permanent settlement.
To appreciate this divide, consider the late Meir Dagan, who served as Major General of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and then as Director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Several years ago, I sat on a panel at a conference in Jerusalem convened by then-Israeli President Shimon Peres. To my right sat Dagan, who had just completed eight years as head of Mossad; to my left sat Dore Gold, a former academic and former Israeli ambassador.
The two men held very different views about how best to guarantee Israel’s security, and it is worth recapitulating their respective arguments.
Gold argued that returning to pre-1967 armistice lines would leave Israel without “defensible borders.” He insisted that Israel could guard against threats from the east only if it maintained a military presence in the West Bank and controlled the Jordan River – which runs along the border separating Jordan from Israel and the West Bank.
Dagan countered that the military’s role is to safeguard Israel’s borders, regardless of where those borders are drawn. While the IDF would certainly prefer to operate with the strategic advantages that holding more territory can confer, it would fulfill its mission under whatever conditions the Israeli government set for it.
But Dagan went further...
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more...