Yuli Tamir is one of the founders of Israel’s peace movement, Peace Now. She is a former minister in the Israeli government and a former Knesset member. She is a professor of philosophy and now the President of the Shenkar College near Tel Aviv.

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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.

 You Must Be Kidding: 

Since I began covering Israel and its Middle East neighbors in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967, it has been apparent to me that an enduring peace is possible only after Jews and Arabs reach a point of mutual respect and understanding. This objective has over the ensuing years has proven extremely elusive. Both societies have staked territorial claims that leave little room for the interests of the other. Both overlook the fact that history does not stand still, not in the Middle East or anywhere else, and that territorial claims are not sacred. If Jews and Arabs do not respond to changing conditions, and embrace a vision of social justice, both surely risk destruction. Peace Now -- Shalom Achshav in Hebrew -- has recognized that truth since its founding thirty-five years ago.  As a Zionist, dedicated to the ideal of a homeland for the Jewish people, I applaud the struggle that Peace Now wages for the well-being of the two peoples who live in Palestine.   

Read APN Chair Jim Klutznick's letter for Rosh Hashana 5780 (2019)

Milton Viorst most recent book is Zionism: The Birth and Transformation of an Ideal. It examines Zionism from the sowing of its seeds in enlightenment Europe centuries ago to the establishment of a nation state in 1948 to the widespread criticism to which it is subject today for an unduly harsh policy toward its Palastinian neighbors. Zionism is Viorst's sixth book on the Middle East. He was the Middle East corespondent for the New Yorker and has written on the Middle East for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, as well as The Atlantic, Time and The Nation. He served on the faculty at Princeton as a Ferris Fellow. He lives in Washington with his wife, Judith, a celebrated poet.    

Americans for Peace Now mobilized opposition to the confirmation of Kenneth Marcus as Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights in the Department of Education over concerns that he would use his position to suppress free speech and intervene in curricula on college campuses. To our dismay, following his narrow confirmation by the Senate, Marcus has done exactly that. In the latest instance, the Department of Education ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to develop a plan for remaking their joint Middle East studies program in order to continue receiving federal funding. Among the alleged problems raised was “a considerable emphasis placed on the understanding the positive aspects of Islam” in programming for elementary and secondary school teachers and a lack of “similar focus on the positive aspects of Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion of belief system in the Middle East.”