At this time of the year, we all look for light and cherish it.

This year, as we struggle with a deadly pandemic and with so much darkness around us, it is incumbent upon us, more than ever, to share the light and spread it.

As I was adding candles to my hanukiah last week, I listened to an interview on Americans for Peace Now’s podcast with Vera Baboun, the former mayor of Bethlehem.

She spoke about the sadness of celebrating Christmas in the midst of a socially distancing pandemic, under occupation, with no tourists at Manger Square and with hardly any freedom of movement for her fellow Palestinians.

Vera is a peace activist, a staunch supporter of peace with Israel. On her PeaceCast conversation, albeit somber, Vera did not forget to share the light of hope for peace from Bethlehem. We must extend our arms toward each other, not simply reach out our hands, she said, “in order to bring a peace that we both deserve, Israelis and Palestinians.”

I am joining Vera in wishing peace to her Palestinian compatriots and to her Israeli neighbors, and in wishing our Christian friends a merry Christmas and a happy, healthy new year.

In this coming year, may the Almighty lift up His face unto us, and give us peace.

Salam - Shalom - Peace,

Rabbi Shira

Shira Stutman is Senior Rabbi at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington DC.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday December 23, 2020

You Must Be Kidding: 
“The Knesset is the legislative branch and it also has the authority of the Constituent Assembly. The High Court draws its authority from the power of the Knesset, and not vice versa.”
—Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin (Likud) sparked a storm with a letter he wrote to the High Court ahead of its first hearing over whether the controversial Nation-State of the Jewish People Law is unconstitutional.*

WEBINAR COMING UP - Monday, December 28, 12 Noon (ET)

An Israel-Palestine Policy for the Biden Administration
with Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes

REGISTER TO ATTEND

Recordings from APN's Webinar Series on the Transition from the Trump to Biden Administrations

Europe, Biden, and Israel-Palestine
with Dr. Anders Persson 
(Dec. 22, 2020)

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi - Palestinian Perspective on Trump to Biden Transition
(Dec. 9, 2020)

West Bank Settlements Between Trump and Biden 
with Peace Now's Hagit Ofran
(Dec. 7, 2020)

Israel and the Biden Administration
with Israel Security Expert Yossi Alpher
(Nov. 24, 2020)

Joe Biden and Palestinian Politics 
with Khaled Elgindy, Director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute
(Nov., 20, 2020) 

Middle East Policy Under the Biden Administration and a New Congress
with Mira Resnick and Ilan Goldenberg 
(Nov. 6, 2020)

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday December 22, 2020

You Must Be Kidding:
“In the center of the State of Israel.”
—Settler leader Yossi Dagan described the place where the Esther Horgen, an Israeli mother of six, was murdered Sunday night while out on a run near her settlement. Reporter Amira Hass writes that Esther Horgen was murdered in a West Bank enclave created by Israel’s separation barrier, where seven Palestinian villages have been penned inside, cut off from neighboring villages and the rest of their land, and the residents need an Israeli permit to live in their own homes and cannot leave at night because Israel won't allow it.*

Quote of the day:

“If the murderer is Palestinian, is there a connection between his deed and the cumulative cruelty of Israeli policy, which has stabbed and wounded him every day since he was born? If so, it’s a cruelty that millions of Palestinian experience personally from the cradle to the grave, one that stokes wrath and disgust in every one of them. But only very few of them vent their anger and hatred on an older woman running in the forest.”
— Amira Hass writes in an Op-Ed in today’s Haaretz.*

The Middle East in the FY21 Consolidated Appropriations Bill

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

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This week Congress moved to avert a government shut-down (barely) by passing the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes 11 FY21 must-pass appropriations bills (funding core government functions/agencies), the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2021, and the Coronavirus Response and Relief bill. In addition, the Consolidated bill includes fully 16 other (non-must-pass) bills — dealing with a seemingly ad hoc collection of legislative priorities including bio/agriculture, pipelines, the environment, intellectual property, homeland security, museums, aircraft, energy, water, health, and taxes. On 12/21, the House passed this massive bill in two roll call votes (coming in at 327–85 and 359-53), and the Senate then passed the bill by a recorded vote of 92-6. The bill now goes to President Trump.

All told the bill weighs in at 5593 pages, plus there are hundreds of pages of joint explanatory statements laying out Congressional intent with respect to each bill included in the Consolidated bill. All of which was released the same day Congress had to vote on it. Which means that the chances that any member of Congress actually read even a small portion of the text or explanatory language before being forced to vote on the entire package are virtually nil.

The full text of the FY21 Consolidated Appropriations Act is here (the text of the bill was inserted into an existing bill, HR 133, which was hollowed out for this purpose; confusingly, as of this writing, that bill still shows up in the Congressional Record under its original title and with its original content).

Middle East-related provisions – which are present in Division C (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2021), Division K (Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Act, 2021) and Division W (Intelligence Authorization Act, 2021) are detailed below. This analysis covers both bill language and language from the relevant Joint Explanatory Statement. Text of the Joint Explanatory Statement for SFOPS Approps is here; text of the Joint Explanatory Statement covering DOD Approps is here (and there is no statement for Intell Authorization).

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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 - Monday December 21, 2020 

Number of the day:

64.
-- Number of seats out of the Knesset's 120 of MKs in parties that have pledged not to join a government led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu if elections were held now.*