Report on APN Israel study tour 2014

Americans for Peace Now Israel Study Tour

September 6 – September 11, 2014

erekatSeveral themes dominated our meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials, journalists, and activists. This report explores themes that came up in our meetings, and provides highlights from meetings that were not off the record. It also provides some information about things that the tour participants saw.

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News Nosh 09.24.14

APN's daily news review from Israel
Wednesday September 24, 2014

NOTENews Nosh will be off for Rosh Hashana holiday Thursday and Friday. News Nosh will resume SUNDAY.

Number of the day:
54.
--Percentage of the Israeli public believes Israel is a good place to live in.**

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Not to be Missed

News Nosh 09.23.14

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday September 23, 2014

NOTE: Wednesday is Rosh Hashana Eve, consequently News Nosh will come in its shortened Friday-style form. Thursday there will be no News Nosh and Friday News Nosh will resume.

Excerpt of the day:
(From video clip: Man in van pulls up in gas station and asks attendant (former President Shimon Peres) to fill it up.
Peres (in blue and yellow uniform): Oil, water?
Man: No thank you.
Peres: Two six-packs of water for 20 shekels?
Man: I'm not interested.
Peres:  Do you want cleaning liquid for windshield wipers?
Man annoyed: I'm not interested.
Peres: A camping mat?
Man: Hey, let's get going.
Peres: Okay, a karaoke set?
Man getting angry: I'm not interested, okay?
Peres: Water wings for pool?
Man: No! Can I pay?
Peres: If you keep saying no to every offer, you'll pay a hefty price.
Man: Alright, give me the water wings.
Peres: Drive to peace, it's the only solution.
--From the fabulously funny and witty video clip about Peres' search for a job after the presidency - with some embedded messages about peace and nuclear reactors.**

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The New Yorker: Friends of Israel

The lobbying group AIPAC has consistently fought the Obama Administration on policy. Is it now losing influence?

By Connie Bruck

 On July 23rd, officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—the powerful lobbying group known as AIPAC—gathered in a conference room at the Capitol for a closed meeting with a dozen Democratic senators. The agenda of the meeting, which was attended by other Jewish leaders as well, was the war in the Gaza Strip. In the century-long conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the previous two weeks had been particularly harrowing. In Israeli towns and cities, families heard sirens warning of incoming rockets and raced to shelters. In Gaza, there were scenes of utter devastation, with hundreds of Palestinian children dead from bombing and mortar fire. The Israeli government claimed that it had taken extraordinary measures to minimize civilian casualties, but the United Nations was launching an inquiry into possible war crimes. Even before the fighting escalated, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, had made little secret of its frustration with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “How will it have peace if it is unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation, and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security, and dignity?” Philip Gordon, the White House coördinator for the Middle East, said in early July. “It cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely. Doing so is not only wrong but a recipe for resentment and recurring instability.” Although the Administration repeatedly reaffirmed its support for Israel, it was clearly uncomfortable with the scale of Israel’s aggression. AIPAC did not share this unease; it endorsed a Senate resolution in support of Israel’s “right to defend its citizens,” which had seventy-nine co-sponsors and passed without a word of dissent.

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This week, Alpher discusses the prospects of nuclear negotiations with Iran and Gaza negotiations in Cairo; whether a new intifada has erupted in East Jerusalem; is the resignation of a senior Likud minister who was conflicted with Netanyahu, leaving the party second in size to Yesh Atid in the Knesset, the beginning of the end for the current government;

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News Nosh 09.22.14

APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday September 22, 2014

Quote of the day:
"Below is an affidavit from my dentist confirming that on Friday, August 1, 2014, at 9 A.M., I presented myself at his clinic to insert a pair of fillings in my molars."
--Israeli satirist, B. Michael, writes in Haaretz+ how he couldn't possibly be responsible for the IDF killing of hundreds of people in Rafah on a single day, the government plan to evict thousands of Bedouin Palestinians from their homes, or the High Court approval of a law that permits communities to refuse families from moving to them based on nationality, origin, race, gender, etc.**

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News Nosh 09.21.14

APN's daily news review from Israel
Sunday September 21, 2014

Quote of the day:
"In the end, we got nothing but casualties and injuries. I have personally had it. This is clearly not the way. There must be another way. We feel abandoned."
--At a rally in the south calling for a diplomatic solution, Sderot resident Nitza Makan says successive Israeli governments have only brought war.**

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Book Review: Seeking Palestine by Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh

This is another in a series of reviews of new books on Middle Eastern affairs. We asked Dr. Gail Weigl, an APN volunteer and a professor of art history, to review the book Seeking Palestine, edited by Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh.

Penny Johnson and Raja Shehadeh, Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian
Writing on Exile and Home (Northampton, Massachusetts: Olive Branch seeking-palestine
Press, 2013), 202 pages. $16.00.

What does it mean to be an exile from Palestine? Is it defined merely by physical dislocation, or is it less tied to a place than to an idea, to a Palestine that once or perhaps never existed, to a pervasive sense of being displaced, even from a land that was not the land of one’s birth? The essays that compose Seeking Palestine: New Palestinian Writing on Exile and Home examine notions of exile, of Palestine, of Palestinian identity in diaspora from the perspectives of poets, academics, novelists, artists and independent writers living as outcasts from a country that never existed as a nation-state, the idea of which calls forth irrepressible longing for a way of life known only through memories, many of those not memories of their own. These writers ask themselves what it means to cling to an identity, a way of life, a set of grievances across generations, and whether the persistence of an idea and an identity can persuade the world at large to seriously address the Palestinian longing to return to their homeland.

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APN/Peace Now in the News: September 12-19, 2014

Boston Globe - September 15, 2014
In Memory: Leonard Fein 
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/09/14/leonard-fein-writer-and-activist-illuminated-roles-and-responsibilities-america-jews/PIzs464sVq3Qy1f3HZGiiM/story.html

 

Boston Globe (AP Story) - September 17, 2014
Peace Now's Yariv Oppenheimer commenting on surge in number of West Bank settlers
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2014/09/16/west-bank-settler-group-boasts-rapid-growth/9TjFJXTydM6EFQndZ5TpML/story.html

 

LA Jewish Journal - September 17, 2014
Peace Now data quoted in opinion article criticizing Israeli government's West Bank settlement policy
http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/west_bank_land_grab_undermines_two_state_advocacy

 

Haaretz - September 18, 2014
Peace Now data quoted in opinion article criticizing Israeli government's West Bank settlement policy
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.616291

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