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.

REMINDER: APN Webinar with Yossi Alpher on Tuesday, November 24, 12 noon (Eastern): Israel and the Biden Administration - Register to attend 

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday November 23, 2020  

Quote of the day:

"We don't owe him anything, sorry. He was an American spy who worked for a lot of money. This was not some Zionist volunteer who sacrificed his life."
--Former prime minister Ehud Olmert said that Jewish-American spy Jonathan Pollard should not immigrate to Israel because it will harm US-Israel relations further.*

APN's daily news review from Israel - Sunday November 22, 2020 

Quote of the day:

“I don’t know. We’re still counting votes in the US, so there’s not much game in talking about that, other than to say we’re very convinced that we have made the Middle East safer, and the policies we put in place are the right ones.”
—In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo answers the question: How easy or difficult will it be for the next administration to scale back its policies (vis-a-vis Israel and the Middle East)?*

1. Bills, Resolutions & Letters
2. Hearings & Markups
3. On the Record

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.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday November 19, 2020

You Must Be Kidding: 
Inspectors from Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank impounded cows belonging to a Palestinian resident of the northern Jordan Valley on the grounds that he had been grazing them in a nature reserve. However, the same Umm Zuka nature reserve has been used for grazing hundreds of cows by settlers of an unauthorized outpost in the same area.***

This webinar on November 24 featured strategic affairs analyst Yossi Alpher providing a view from Israel, as part of our series examining the Middle East policy impact of transitioning from the Trump to the Biden administration.

LISTEN

• How is the transition from Trump to Biden viewed in Israel, both by its leaders and the public?
• How might dealing with a Biden administration alter Israeli government policies and priorities?
• How would Israel’s conservative government and the Israeli public at large adapt to a liberal administration with a worldview diametrically opposed to Trump’s and very different from Netanyahu’s?

These and other questions were addressed by Yossi Alper, one of Israel’s leading strategic affairs analyst, and the author of APN’s Hard Questions Tough Answers, our weekly analysis of Middle East policy, politics, and strategic affairs. Alpher 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.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) strongly condemns an initiative by four Republican Senators to label products made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as being “Made in Israel.” 

The four, Tom Cotton (AR), Kelly Loeffler (GA), Marco Rubio (FL), and Ted Cruz (TX), sent a letter Monday to outgoing President Trump, with copies to the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, and Homeland Security, urging Trump to allow “Israeli goods produced in Judea and Samaria to be labeled as ‘Made in Israel.’” Judea and Samaria is the biblical term used by Israeli religious nationalists and their supporters to refer to the West Bank.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday November 18, 2020

Number of the day:

71.
— Percentage of Israelis who reported being satisfied with the US election results, according to a new poll.*

Breaking News:
10 said killed, including Iranians, in IDF strikes in Syria
In a rare move, Israeli military claims airstrikes against Iranian Quds Force sites near Damascus, targeting central command of Iranian forces near capital's airport and compound housing high-level Iranian visitors; strike comes day after Israel uncovered explosives on its side of Syrian border. (Israel Hayom and Ynet)

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In an effort that APN supported, Representative Pocan led a letter of 40 Democrats to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanding condemnation of the Israeli government’s demolition of 76 structures in a Palestinian Bedouin community, displacing 73 people including 41 children.

Congressman Pocan: "Demolishing Palestinian homes, in occupied territory, by the Israeli government is a violation of international law and must be condemned by the United States government... There is no excuse for the de facto annexation of Palestinian land..."

Go HERE to read the letter to Secretary of State Pompeo.

Photo L: The belongings of 73 people who were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces stand in the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank. Photograph: United Nations /  R: Congressman Mark Pocan