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Eid Mubarak!
1. Bills, Resolutions, and Letters
2. SFRC Amends/Passes Israel Wish-List Bill
3. Hearings
4. 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.
Heads up: New CRS report — Israel: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, May 18, 2020 (including reference to annexation)
Update: this action, now closed, ran in the summer of 2020.
Sumarins have lived in their family-built home in Jerusalem for 50 years. The Israeli court, as a result of a case brought by the Jewish National Fund's subsidiary organization, Himanuta, is soon likely to evict this Palestinian family from their East Jerusalem home.
The case rests on the application of Israel's unjust "Absentee Property Law" - and even an abuse of that law itself. It is part of a larger effort by Israeli settler organizations and their backers in the government to "Judaize" East Jerusalem at the expense of its inhabitants, like the Sumarin Family.
The eviction can be stopped, and the next few weeks will determine this family's fate.
Send an email or call Jewish National Fund to help stop the eviction. A previous eviction was prevented as a result of a campaign similar to this one. With your help, eviction can be prevented again.
Go HERE for more information, including a video with interviews from Sumarin family members, and to send an email to JNF.
APN and Peace Now are part of an international coalition of groups that have united to defend the Sumarin family from this unjust eviction.
APN's daily news review from Israel
Thursday May 21, 2020
Quote of the day:
"His admirers believe there won't be a trial because of the characteristics he has that others hate.
When you are a conniver, a liar and arrogant you manage to cancel trials. That's how his admirers want him -
conniving, arrogant, a liar and successful. They wouldn't want someone like that as a teacher, nor as a police
officer, nor as a plumber, but a prime minister? That, yes. They admire him because he fulfills the dreams they
have no chance of realizing. They, too, would want to avoid going to trial "because it would cost a lot of
money," they would also want a private jet and a royal palace. But he has and they don't. They admire the
qualities that have earned him that. They hate being ridiculed for that admiration. It offends them. They would
like people to think that they have elected him only for logical and substantive reasons."
--Yossi Klein looks at how Netanyahu's opponents and admirers view him.*
Breaking News:
Host of Israeli sites targeted in mass, alleged Iranian cyber-attack
National Cyber Directorate urges the public not to click on any links if they come across a site compromised with a message, 'countdown to Israel’s destruction has begun.' Among targeted sites are Ramat Gan Municipality, United Hatzalah, Kinneret Authority, official site of Meretz party leader. ttack mounted on the Islamic republic's Quds Day (Jerusalem Day). (Ynet and Israel Hayom)
--Yossi Klein looks at how Netanyahu's opponents and admirers view him.*
Breaking News:
Host of Israeli sites targeted in mass, alleged Iranian cyber-attack
National Cyber Directorate urges the public not to click on any links if they come across a site compromised with a message, 'countdown to Israel’s destruction has begun.' Among targeted sites are Ramat Gan Municipality, United Hatzalah, Kinneret Authority, official site of Meretz party leader. ttack mounted on the Islamic republic's Quds Day (Jerusalem Day). (Ynet and Israel Hayom)
APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday May 20, 2020
Quote of the day:
"The man accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, who dragged an entire country through three costly
election campaigns for a whole year in an attempt to evade justice, and who has, in the middle of an economic
plague, just finished putting together the most bloated, wasteful, ostentatious, exploitative government Israel has
ever known, is suddenly worried about the taxpayer’s money, and claims that his presence in court for a needless
technical hearing would “cost the public a fortune.”
—Haaretz Editorial on the request by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be absent from the upcoming opening of
his trial.*
You Must Be Kidding:
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lior Haiat, slammed the European Union for publicly declaring its
opposition to Israeli annexation of Palestinian land, calling it 'megaphone diplomacy' and said things should be
discussed in 'intimate diplomatic dialogue.' He
declared this on Twitter.**
APN is proud to join with 50 organizations from 17 countries in the initiative against Israeli annexation in the West Bank from the J-Link International Progressive Jewish Network, and in committing to take action to prevent this damaging, if not fatal, blow against the two-state solution and peace and security.
APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday May 20, 2020
You Must Be Kidding:
While on leave, a Givati brigade soldier from Dolev settlement dressed in uniform and carrying his weapon, stopped Palestinian cars at a fake checkpoint near his settlement, removed the occupants and then stole the cars.*
In response to the formation of Israel’s new government, which is officially committed to annexing parts of the West Bank, eight members of the Progressive Israel Network, including Americans for Peace Now, together released the following statement:
We are frustrated and alarmed by the intention of the new government, formed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank. We join with all Americans who refuse to sit idly by as Israel’s new government, with the encouragement of the Trump administration, contemplates action blatantly at odds with any commitment to democracy and the pursuit of peace.
APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday March 10, 2020
Quote of the day:"After all the empty talk about an 'emergency government,' they set
up the biggest, most wasteful government in Israel's history – 36 ministers, 16 deputy ministers. In Israel, there
are currently fewer than 50 corona patients on ventilators. There are more ministers and deputy ministers than
patients being ventilated.”
—Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid said
in an impassioned speech at the swearing-in of the new government.*
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.