Hagar Shezaf is the new West Bank correspondent of Haaretz. In this episode she discusses her current reportage on the spike in violent attacks by West Bank settlers against Palestinians.

Hagar also spoke about an explosive expose she published in Haaretz last summer, where she revealed that Israel’s security establishment was systematically combing through archives and picking out embarrassing or incriminating documentation of what could be considered as war crimes against the Palestinian civilians during the 1948 war, the so-called Nakba.

Listen to the full episode

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.

This night WILL be unlike other nights.

On Wed. April 8, we will celebrate the first Passover Seder and re-tell the story of the Jewish people's exodus out of Egypt. Given the COVID-19 pandemic this year, we are faced with an acute challenge to the freedoms we usually enjoy. While our seders may be limited to those physically residing in our households (and perhaps remote feeds for some), the crisis provides the opportunity to make a meaningful connection to the themes of the holiday and our ancestors and their quest for freedom.

APN is pleased to once again provide a supplemental reading for Passover, this time by Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Santa Monica, CA.

The new reading centers around the directive that "In every generation, a person is required to see him/herself as if s/he came out from Egypt." We thank Rabbi Neil, who is an indefatigable champion of peace and justice (pictured at a protest against the "Muslim Ban").

Our previous readings are also available to share and include in your seder.

APN wishes you and your family health and strength for Passover and moving forward.

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This year we are slaves: What can these words mean?

We are slaves...

Because yesterday our people were in slavery, and memory makes yesterday real for us.

We are slaves because today there are still people in chains, around the world, and no one can be truly free while others are in chains.

We are slaves...

Because freedom means more than broken chains.

Where there is poverty and hunger and homelessness, there is no freedom;

Where there is prejudice and bigotry and discrimination, there is no freedom; Where there is violence and torture and terrorism and war, there is no freedom.

And where there are pandemics, there is no freedom.

And where each of us is less than he or she might be, we are not free, not yet.

And who, this year, can be deaf to the continuing oppression of the downtrodden, who can be blind to the burdens and the rigors of the most vulnerable in our own midst?

Who can be indifferent to the victims of violence — our brothers and sisters in Jerusalem and throughout Israel, the Palestinians themselves, our neighbors — children, women — here at home?

Who can ignore the silenced and the intimidated in Syria and in so many other places, the murdered and the plundered and the starved in Yemen, the dying and suffering now even in our own country and worldwide?

So long as such things persist, who among us can say that he or she is free?

Therefore, when we say that this year we are slaves, but that next year we shall be free, we make a pledge.

It is the same pledge we made last year, and the year before that, and we shall make it next year, too, for the road to freedom is not an easy road and we will not soon reach its end, our goal.

Yet it is the road we have chosen, and the choice itself is a foretaste of freedom and it is up to us to make it happen.

Together, we will in health and triumph.

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