This week, Alpher discusses Israel's next government, due for confirmation by Wednesday of this week; recent concerted warnings by high-level US officials that the new Israeli government must adhere to the two-state principle; do the violent mass demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv by second-generation Ethiopian immigrants, protesting Israeli racism have any connection to Ferguson and Baltimore;
APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday May 1, 2015
Quote of the day:
"They took my shoes and beat me with a crowbar."
--Walla Bayach, an Israeli of Ethiopian descent who was filmed being attacked by inspectors
from Israel's Population and Immigration Authority, thinks it was because they thought he was a migrant.**
This week, Americans for Peace Now's 2015 Israel Study Tour is exploring Israel and the
West Bank, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and efforts to resolve it.
See below for pictures, video, and highlights from our Twitter feed.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Thursday April 30, 2015
Quote of the day:
"Sadly, even when the Nepal coverage dies down, Israelis will probably still not be interested in the Gaza
crisis. How is that possible? Can people truly be selectively compassionate, and if so, are they really
compassionate, or are they just fooling themselves and everyone else?"
--Haaretz+ commentator Asher Schechter asks why Israel is more concerned by people thousands of miles away than
the 100,000 people still homeless in Gaza.**
APN's daily news review from Israel
Wednesday April 29, 2015
Quote of the day:
“I was scared. It was my first time in Ramallah, and before I entered her home, I was really afraid of what I would
say, how I would speak with her mother. I had a lot of fears. And then, when I went in, I saw an elderly, tired
woman, and the first thing she did when she saw me was hug me. I saw behind her a huge poster of her dead daughter,
and during this hug I suddenly felt her daughter, the one she didn’t have. It was all mixed in my head. I was
suddenly her daughter, who wanted to kill me, and this confusion — the understanding that all is one, and suffering
is suffering, and that a woman who loses her daughter is a woman who loses her daughter no matter where, and that I
can be anyone’s daughter — is basically one of the things that brought me to writing the script.”
--Israeli filmmaker Shira Geffen tells about her visit to the home of a Palestinian suicide bomber in a
fascinating interview in Haaretz+.**
APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday April 28, 2015
Quote of the day:
“They were chanting ‘Muhammad is dead’ and ‘Death to the Arabs.’ It’s painful to witness, because these
aren’t just chants, it’s incitement that becomes ecstatic. Guys were jumping up and down, adults as well as
youngsters. Every year this day brings out the bad in people.”
--Neta Polizer, 26, Hebrew University student, part of a group strategizing how to prevent a 'bad' Jerusalem Day.**
This week, Alpher discusses whether there is any chance former US President Jimmy Carter will succeed in generating Palestinian unity where everyone else has failed when he arrives in the region this Thursday to mediate between Hamas and Fateh, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia; if Israel’s northern front is heating up or if recent incidents are connected to events in the Syrian civil war; how US involvement in the Saudi-led effort in Yemen, directed against Iranian intervention squares with the US-led nuclear talks with Iran; why Israel couldn’t observe the centenary of the Armenian genocide on April 24.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday April 27, 2015
Quote of the day:
"It is dangerous and irresponsible to deposit the education portfolio in the hands of Naftali Bennett. We are at
such a critical time. The video going around the Internet yesterday of young people brutally abusing a helpless
dog, the violence and racism that long ago left the Internet comments and reached the street, the absolute
indifference of so many people to the pain of people living in poverty, of refugees, of Palestinians - those things
are closely related to the image of the education system, to the values or lack of values that it bequeaths to the
citizens it raises. We must not give its reins to the leader of Messianic nationalism, who has never been ashamed
to instigate and incite."
--Meretz party leader Zehava Gal-On fears the likely appointment of far right leader of Habayit Hayehudi,
Naftali Bennett, as the next Education Minister.**
APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday April 26, 2015
Quote of the day:
“In truth, it’s wrong for them to dare to spoil the Jewish homogeneity, and on the eve of Memorial Day yet.
Arrogant bastards.”
--Omer Senesh wrote cynically on Facebook after witnessing three young Arab men being barred from entering the
posh Tel-Aviv shopping mall where he works.**
