What to Expect from the New Round of Israeli Elections, with Tal Schneider

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Schneider is one of Israel’s leading political correspondents and analysts. Currently with The Times of Israel and formerly with Israel’s economic daily Globes, Schneider was the Washington bureau chief of Maariv.

In 2011, she established an independent political blog. Her “Plog” quickly became a leading source for news and analysis and a standard-setter for ethical, balanced political coverage, and catapulted her to the front line of Israeli TV and radio pundits. Schneider’s Plog won the 2012 Excellence in Digital Journalism Award by Google Inc. and by Tel-Aviv’s Journalists Association.

What we saw on Capitol Hill yesterday was horrific: both the violent actions of the hooligan mob, and Donald Trump’s incitement to take such actions.  

As an organization that advocates Israeli-Palestinian peace, the US sister-organization of Israel’s peace movement, we at Americans for Peace Now are well acquainted with political violence and with the incitement that irresponsible politicians use to fuel it.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday January 7, 2021

You Must Be Kidding: 
"Soldiers lives were threatened."
-- The Israeli army said in response to the shooting by a soldier of an unarmed Palestinian shepherd, Harun Abu Aram, who was trying to pull his generator away from three armed soldiers. The soldier shot Abu Aram in the neck, paralyzing him from the neck down for life. Abu Aram is on life-support.**

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday January 6, 2021

Quotes of the Day:
“We grew up with the ideal of the heroic soldier, we sent them care packages, we visited the tanks they fought in, we dressed up as soldiers in pre-military training camps and we elevated their deaths on memorial days. The fact that this is the reality we’re all used to does not make it a-political. Enlistment is a political act, no less than refusal to do so.”
—From a letter signed signed by 60 Israeli high seniors declaring they refuse to serve in the Israeli army because of the occupation of the Palestinians.*

“It starts with school trips to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, in which no political contexts are discussed. We’re only told about the battles. There’s an elephant in the room that no one is talking about…Until we talk about the Nakba in class, how it happened that most of the Palestinians who lived here fled or were expelled, or about the theft of their possessions, we won’t understand how much the problem remains part of our lives. This is sweeping history under the rug. When I began to understand this, I immediately started thinking about what else we were ‘sold’ in school.”
— Daniel Paldi, one of 60 high seniors who signed a letter refusing to serve in the Israeli army because of the occupation.*

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APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday January 5, 2021

Quote of the day:

״It seems that no matter how many achievements the MKs bring to the public, there will always be commentators who will volunteer to explain to the Arab citizens what our real interest is and who really works for us.״
--Amjad Shbita, co-CEO of Sikkuy, an organization that promotes equality and partnership between Arab and Jewish citizens in Israel, writes in Yedioth that Arab-Israelis have a right as citizens and as equal human beings for the government to deal with the wave of crime in the Arab-Israeli sector and not because they serve the political interest of the right or the left.*

Veteran Israeli journalist and social activist Eliezer (Gezer) Yaari talks about his efforts to Make East Jerusalem's Palestinian population accessible to Israeli Jews, and speculates that Israeli-Palestinian peacemakers may want to leverage Jerusalem's coexistence mechanisms as a launching point for future peace. 

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APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday January 4, 2021

Quote of the day:

"Netanyahu should look for voters in Hadera, not in Um al-Fahem."
--MK Mansour Abbas said about the Israeli Prime Minister's attempts to get Arabs to vote for him in the upcoming elections.*

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Sunday January 3, 2021

You Must Be Kidding: 
The Israel Defense Forces said that “a violent disturbance developed involving about 150 Palestinians that included stone-throwing on a massive scale,” to which soldiers responded by “using crowd-dispersal methods and firing into the air.”
--A video of the incident in al-Rakiz village in the West Bank shows neither 150 people nor firing into the air or even at limbs. It shows three unarmed shepherds scuffling with armed soldiers as they try to wrest back their property – an electricity generator the size of a medium carton. The generator is a lifeline for the shepherds, whose village Israel won't allow to connect to the water or electricity supply. It is pulled back and forth between the soldiers and the shepherds. A photo shows an Israeli soldier aiming from point-blank range at Harun Abu Aram's head. The shot is heard in the video and then screams of women and Abu Aram is seen sprawled on the ground, he was shot in the throat. Another shot is heard. Then the soldiers left with the generator.**

“Sometimes the tanker arrives late or only half-full. By the time it returns full, school is over. So another day goes by without water, and I have to convince my young daughter that the next day she’ll be able to wash her hands there.”
—Adnan al-Nabari, chairman of the parents’ committee of the Israeli-Bedouin school in Tel Arad, which receives its water from tankers because the state refuses to lay a pipeline to hook up schools to the water grid.**

Quote of the day:
“When the IDF Spokesperson covers up for the army this way, it is an accessory to a crime. When the IDF Spokesperson whitewashes this way, soldiers know that nothing terrible happened. They can rely on the collaborators – most of the military reporters – not to make a fuss. After all, nothing happened. Nothing.”
--Gideon Levy writes in an Op-Ed after an Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian shepherd in the neck frompoint-blank range, while the shepherd tried to wrest a generator from the soldiers trying to confiscate it.*