This week, Alpher discusses what motivates pro-settler critics of Kerry; what the Israeli public thinks about the danger of sanctions; whether there is more than meets the eye to the issue of the controversy provoked by Netanyahu's remark that he "doesn't intend to remove a single settler;" and with two Iranian warships are currently crossing the Atlantic and heading toward the US territorial water boundary, what is Iran trying to tell us.
Secretary of State John Kerry caused outrage in Israel recently when he declared: “For Israel there’s an increasing delegitimization campaign that has been building up. People are very sensitive to it. There is talk of boycotts and other kinds of things. Today’s status quo absolutely, to a certainty, I promise you 100 percent, cannot be maintained. It’s not sustainable. It’s illusionary.”
Members of the Israeli government were indignant. Israel, they declared, will not negotiate under pressure. Advice givers, stay away! But Kerry was only repeating what Israel’s own finance minister, Yair Lapid, had already said: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S.) movement is beginning to bite.
Huffington Post - February 4, 2014
APN's Lara Friedman: No such thing as "benevolent occupation"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lara-friedman/sodastream-scarjo-and-the_b_4719194.html
Washington Post (AP story) - February 5, 2014
Peace Now condemns new permits for construction in East Jerusalem
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-negotiator-blasts-ministers-on-kerry-rebuke/2014/02/05/2df10c08-8e5e-11e3-878e-d76656564a01_story.html
Jerusalem expert Daniel Seidemann, on a visit to Washington, briefed APN supporters and activists on Friday, February 7th, 2014.
Israel’s Peace Now movement took more than 150 Israelis to the West Bank Friday on a first-of-its-kind tour to learn about the extremist settlers’ violent campaign known as “Price Tag.”
Participants viewed Israeli military installations and Palestinian villages that are routinely vandalized by extremist settlers. Tour participants paid a solidarity visit to one of the Palestinian villages that has been a target of choice for the violent settlers, the village of Kusra near Nablus, where residents received them with flowers.
Peace Now has been taking Israelis to the West Bank for years to show them up close what the occupation is doing to Palestinians and to their own society. Recently, because of the uptick in settler violence and because of the re-energized peace talks, Peace Now decided to boost this program by adding topical tours. Last week it was a tour to explore the “Price Tag” phenomenon. In the coming weeks Peace Now is planning tours to other trouble spots, featuring other maladies of the occupation.
These tours are expensive, but critically important.
Please support this program. You can help Peace Now expose the occupation to Israelis.
A contribution of $50 will sponsor two seats on the bus. For
$100 you can send four Israelis for a day in the West Bank, and open their eyes to what their government
does there in their name, and to what the settlers are doing to the Palestinians and to the future of the
state of Israel. Join us now.
B'Shalom,
Debra DeLee
President and CEO, Americans for Peace Now