From Barbara Green, long-time APN supporter and activist:

Every morning, like many of you, I open my e-mail and groan: so much spam, so many unwanted messages and advertisements. It makes you want to kick the computer. But there's one item I never skip. In fact, I welcome it every day in my Inbox -- and that's APN's News Nosh. It's the very best available source of information about Israel/Palestine.

Orly Halpern, a brilliant journalist in Jerusalem, excerpts the news from an array of Israeli newspapers from left to right and gives it to us in a concise readable format. I don't read every article, but those of special interest to me are right there in my inbox every morning.

Orly is on the scene,­­ so by the time I get to my computer in the morning she has already posted News Nosh and I start the day with information that hasn't even made it to the daily newspapers here in the States.

Washington, DC - Touted as a means to stem the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college campuses, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA) would imperil free speech on American college campuses in order to quash constitutionally protected criticism of Israel. 

With white supremacists emboldened on campus and off, rising anti-Semitism in the United States is indeed a concern. The chief focus of the ASAA, however, is Israel-related criticism and activism on campuses – including but not limited to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The bill would cynically exploit claims of anti-Semitism to delegitimize and silence such Israel-related free speech.

Update: this action, now closed, ran from May-June 2018. 

If confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, Kenneth Marcus will be positioned to carry out his long-time mission to suppress speech critical of Israel on campuses by labeling it anti-Semitic.

After securing Committee approval on a strictly party-line vote, consideration of the controversial nominee by the full Senate was delayed given the substantial number of Senators opposed to his confirmation. A vote on Marcus is now expected shortly. 

Marcus has a history of pushing the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which he would head if confirmed, to launch investigations of harassment of Jewish students. While all of the ensuing complaints filed by OCR were dismissed, Marcus claimed victory for “creating a very strong disincentive” for criticism of Israel among students. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has expressed concern that Marcus “could push the government to start taking action against students who speak out against Israel.”

With this record of attempting to deter students from engaging in free speech, Kenneth Marcus is the wrong choice to be the lead official overseeing civil rights on American college campuses. Take action now to demand that your senators vote against his confirmation.

After Roseanne Barr's vile, racist tweet yesterday, ABC has cancelled her show. But we at APN know well - and personally - about Roseanne's vitriol on Twitter.

This episode of PeaceCast features Yizhar Be’er, an Israeli podcaster who formerly reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Haaretz, served as director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. and was the founder and director of Keshev, an Israeli nonprofit that focuses on improving public discourse in Isreali society relating to the conflict.

Yizhar’s Hebrew podcast Sacred Cows (Parot Kdoshot) takes apart Israeli myths. One of his chief topics is the Gaza Strip. In an eight-episode series, Yizhar addresses the Israeli truism that nothing can be done about Gaza.

The series features interviews with past Israeli governors of the Gaza Strip. One of the striking things these interviews is the foreshadowing, the writing that Israeli governors saw on the walls of Gaza’s neighborhoods and refugee camps in four decades of direct occupation, predicting the crisis that we see today in Gaza.

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 week, Alpher discusses whether there is a chance to avert conflict in Syria and Gaza; the recent mortar fire on Israel's Gaza perimeter settlements; de-escalation on the Israel-Iran front in Syria; and Israel registering success or at least limited progress on both the Iran/Syria and Hamas/Gaza fronts.