Please join APN for a briefing call on Wednesday, July 1, at 12:00 noon Eastern Time with Prof. Ami Pedahzur, an expert on Israel’s radical right. The author of recent articles on the power of Israeli West Bank settlers, Pedahzur will discuss the political power of the settlers as a chief constituency of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government. He will also analyze other ways in which the ideological settlers built their influence inside Israel’s establishment.

An expert on Israeli right-wing violence, Pedahzur will be available to comment on extremist West Bank settlers’ use of violence to advance their agenda.

Listen to the call here

This week, Alpher discusses the key dynamics from Israel’s standpoint of the ten-year anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip and a low-key interception and thwarting by Israel of a flotilla trying to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza; regarding the publication of a UN report on human rights aspects of last summer’s Gaza war, whether there is anything that Israel can constructively build on as it looks to future conflicts; whether it made sense that the Netanyahu government refused to cooperate with the Human Rights Commission and refused to allow the latest flotilla to approach the Gaza coast; and why the Gaza Strip is relatively quiet, with Hamas seemingly collaborating with Israel by pursuing the occasional more extreme Islamists who fire isolated rockets at Israel.

Jerusalem Post - June 21, 2015
High Court to debate Peace Now petition to demolish homes of settlers built illegally on Palestinian owned land
http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/High-Court-to-debate-demolition-of-homes-in-West-Bank-outpost-406716

Haaretz - June 23, 2015
Responding to Peace Now petition, High Court orders government to explain why it would not demolish illegal outpost
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.662557

Times of Israel - June 25, 2015
APN among groups opposing BDS law that passed the Senate
http://www.timesofisrael.com/landmark-anti-bds-law-passes-final-senate-legislative-hurdle/

This week, Alpher discusses whether former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren is just trying to sell his new book, or are his attacks on President Obama part of some sort of larger plan to widen the gap between the two countries; if Obama knowingly and deliberately violated previously sacred bilateral principles of “no daylight” and “no surprises;” what the American Jewish angle is; what the likely ramifications of Oren’s attacks for US-Israel relations are at the current juncture.