YOU can help reclaim Israel's future in Jerusalem. Here are actions you can take right now:

• Spread the word. Two of the greatest obstacles to changing Israeli policies are apathy and ignorance. Challenge both. Here are some easy ways:
  • Don't miss Thursday's briefing call with Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann, on Thursday, June 26th at 3:45pm Eastern Time. Details here.
  • Share Facts on the Ground: APN’s Map App on Facebook and Twitter.
  • Send your friends the Jerusalem chapter from APN’s landmark publication, “They Say, We Say”.
  • Post and send out APN’s "Danny Seidemann: Why E-1 matters" video filmed last winter during APN's Israel Study Tour (below).
  • Read and share APN's Top 10 Myths about Jerusalem  from 2010 (sadly, little has changed).

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On the second week of our Reclaiming Israel’s Future campaign, Mr. Seidemann will help us address the theme of the week: Jerusalem. He will discuss the latest developments on the ground in East Jerusalem, examine the situation on the ground 47 years after the Six Day War,  and address the future of Jerusalem.

Some Hard Truths about Jerusalem…

• Jerusalem is of central importance to Israelis and Jews everywhere.  It is a city that throughout history has been the focal point of Jewish collective yearning and collective identity. The Jewish return to the Old City and its holy sites after 1967 was the fulfillment of this yearning. No one can deny or undermine the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is and will forever be the capital of Israel.

• Jerusalem is also a city that has deep political, historical, economic, and cultural significance to Palestinians, and deep religious importance not only for Jews, but for Christians and Muslims everywhere.  

• Jerusalem is already a divided city.  One-third of its population is Palestinian, in addition to large Palestinian urban areas lying just beyond the municipal border. The patterns of life in the city disclose two distinct populations - Israelis and Palestinians - living separate and rarely overlapping existences. 

• Jerusalem must be re-fashioned as two capitals for two states.  No resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian or Israel-Arab conflicts is possible without compromise on Jerusalem.  Refusal to negotiate in good faith over the future of Jerusalem will mean the loss of the two-state solution.   Settlements in East Jerusalem are and have always been about only one thing: cementing Israel’s hold on the land in order to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian capital in the city. After 47 years, a two-state solution is still possible in Jerusalem, but barely. 

• If political obstinacy and extremism are allowed to stand in the way of compromise, or if settlement-related developments continue and succeed in taking Jerusalem off the negotiating table, it will mean the end of the two-state solution.  Loss of the two-state solution directly threatens Israel’s viability as a democracy and a Jewish state.

• The current borders of Jerusalem have no historical or religious meaning. Shortly after the 1967 War, Israel annexed large areas of land, including a number of Arab towns and villages, to expand Jerusalem. There is nothing sacred about these borders, either to Israel or to Jews.  The emergence of a Palestinian capital in Arab areas of Jerusalem, along with a special regime or special arrangements for the Old City and its surrounding area – would not undermine Israel's claim to Jerusalem as its capital. Rather, it would clear the way for international recognition of Jewish Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

• For the sake of Israel's security and stability – and for the health and stability of this remarkable city – a formula must be found to share Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Pragmatic, creative solutions exist to satisfy competing claims to Jerusalem and its holy sites; what is needed is the leadership, courage, and goodwill to explore them.  Most of the proposed solutions for Jerusalem's future would put Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian control, while Jewish neighborhoods would remain under Israeli control. These arrangements would make Israel's capital a more Jewish city and would allow Israel to shed the burden of ruling over Palestinians, while guaranteeing Jewish access to holy sites.

Don't miss our briefing call with Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann or with Daniel Seidemann and APN's Lara Friedman regarding the tension in Jerusalem in 2014.

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Israel's occupation of the West Bank is indefensible

by Max Fisher

 There is a pleasant fiction in the United States and parts of Israel that the Israel-Palestine conflict exists in a sort of suspended animation, on pause and simply awaiting diplomatic resolution. But the truth is that the conflict, which over the decades has included several wars, countless terrorist attacks, and two Palestinian uprisings, never really goes away for most of the 12 million people in Israel and the Palestinian territories. And periodically it will escalate so rapidly, with such relatively slight provocation, and to such a level of severity, that the rest of us can't ignore what every Palestinian and many Israelis already know: the conflict may be quieter today than in the past, but it is still active, still destroying lives and communities, still scarring these two societies, every day.

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The following article by Peace Now's Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer, headlined The Bloody Shrapnel, was published in today's edition of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth:

We had good reason to keep our fingers crossed during the negotiations in hope of a breakthrough; we had good reason to pull our hair out when the minister of housing kept issuing tenders for settlement construction; we had good reason to be angry when we saw the footage of the unjustified shooting in Bituniya; we had good reason to become angrier when the government ignored the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike. It was obvious that the despair, the hate, the hostility and the anger on the Palestinian side would find their way out.

We knew that time is not on our side, and that this was a matter of crucial decisions and human lives.  Seven years of quiet, in which we could have improved our relations with the Palestinians and achieved a peace agreement, had been wasted.

Please join us for a briefing call with Lior Amichai, the director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Project on Friday June 20 at 12:00pm Eastern Time.

Lior Amichai is a world renowned authority on West Bank settlements. He has been with Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project for the past two years. He spends his time collecting and analyzing data on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem both on the ground and from the air. To view a new short video documenting the work of Lior and Settlement Watch, click here.

Lior will highlight current trends in West Bank settlement construction, talk about particular settlement hot-spots and comment on the current crisis stemming from the abduction of the three teens in the West Bank and its link to the settlement enterprise.

Listen here.

To receive a link of the recording, please email Katherine Cunningham at KCunningham@peacenow.org  APN will send you a link to the recording of the call as soon as it is available

Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project is recognized worldwide as the authority on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.