News Nosh 12.26.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"Years of uninterrupted right-wing rule have emblazoned on many Israelis’ minds the slogan of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal and undivided capital, such that they accept it reflexively as truth. Many Israelis are happy to pocket Trump’s gift of recognition without giving anything in return. American Jews are in a position to remind Jewish Israelis of the damage caused by eschewing compromise over Jerusalem."
--Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now, Debra Shushan, calls on Jewish Americans not to pander to so-called left-wing Israelis who have moved right.*

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The festivals of light, in the various traditions, fall during the darkest time of the year - or so it seems to this Christian on Christmas Eve. The darkness, of course, is what makes the light shine brightest. In a similar way, hope has its truest power when things appear to be hopeless. Hope is a choice.

My train of thought, I admit, is running along the track of contemporary desolation. I am writing this letter on behalf of Americans for Peace Now. Peace Now is the heroic - and deeply patriotic - Israeli organization that has steadfastly stood for peace between Israelis and Palestinians for a generation. Recent turns in the old story, taken in Washington and Jerusalem both, have made the struggle for such peace seem more difficult than ever, but that only makes it more precious.

The end is as clear as ever, and so are the means: a two-state solution arrived at through agreed negotiations, enshrined in a secure Israel living side by side with a fully recognized Palestine, formed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Good will, self-interested mutuality, respect by each side for the absolutes of the other, arrived at through compromise - these remain the elements of peace, and they are still possible.

As if the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians were not searing enough, the recent intervention from abroad - the U.S. administration’s feckless short-circuiting of final status negotiations by its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital - has complicated the peace process immeasurably. That defines the darkness of this moment. But that also defines the fresh importance of Peace Now, whose commitment has never depended on a shallow optimism that cannot survive when intolerant religious fanatics of whatever stripe seem ascendant. As a Christian, I am especially aware of the negative influence of Jesus-proclaiming American zealots whose End Time fantasies and Biblical literalism pre-empt both Israeli democracy and Palestinian nationhood. That such voices are heard in the White House only makes their rebuttal the more urgent.

That is why this is the time, more than ever, to support both Peace Now, and its U.S.-based sister organization Americans for Peace Now. Peace Now most emphatically affirms the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel. That means, with equal emphasis, that Peace Now opposes the Occupation of the Palestinians. Peace Now continues its crucial work of tracking and opposing the ongoing settlement project in the West Bank, especially when settlers seize land owned by Palestinians and illegally build on it. And Peace Now brings its power to the streets, as it did last summer, convening a throng inTel Aviv’s Rabin Square to reject the Netanyahu government’s disastrous anti-peace policies.

Peace Now receives nearly half of its funding from Americans for Peace Now. APN’s informative website (www.peacenow.org) offers a wealth of information and analysis for Americans to think more clearly - and pragmatically - about Israel’s challenges and about the role that our nation should - and still can - play as a peacemaker.

I am writing this letter as an American and as a Christian - at a time when detached uninvolvement, whether at home or abroad, amounts to a gross failure of civic and moral responsibility. Our religious and political texts; our doctrines and policies; our triumphalist dreams; our assumption of national innocence; our habits of racial and religious contempt; even our naive wishes for an easy peace - these are threads in the Holy Land’s still untied knot. Historically part of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, we are obliged now to be part of its solution. We must choose hope.

That is the invitation we have from Israel’s Peace Now and its U.S. sister organization. Please join me in supporting both Shalom Achshav and APN. Please make a generous tax-deductible contribution to Americans for Peace Now. Even in the present darkness, this is what the light of the possible peace looks like. Please commend Peace Now to everyone you know - now more than ever.

Thank you.
James Carroll

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News Nosh 12.22.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Friday, December 22, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"Hundreds of thousands of civilians will take to the streets to physically block it from happening, and the free media will consider it a disgrace and never allow it pass."
--Former prime minister Ehud Barak said that the 'backward' nationalist Netanyahu government is passing laws that will bring about a binational state.*
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Today's vote by the United Nations General Assembly, rebuking President Trump's irresponsible move to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, underscores Trump's flawed understanding of diplomacy and the heavy price the US pays when it subjugates a calculated foreign policy and national security interests to domestic politics.

The UNGA vote – 128 countries voting against Trump's move, with only 9 in favor and 35 abstaining – is a slap in the face of the US, a reality check for Israel, but also a welcome endorsement of the two-state solution and of diplomacy as a tool for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a rebuke of Trump's unilateralism and a bitter blow our country's global leadership role. "This is the price we pay for President Trump acting on a whim and reversing a fifty-year-old policy carefully implemented by past presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike," said Debra DeLee, APN's President and CEO.

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News Nosh 12.21.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Thursday December 21, 2017

You Must Be Kidding: 
--Verbal violence against the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, has grown 220% within two years.
A new report found that in the last year, over 5 million racist expressions, curses, calls for violence and offensive words were written in social media in Israel - a rate of one every 6 seconds.**
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News Nosh 12.20.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"We're operating in a space filled with people, and we need to differentiate between incidents in which a soldier acts in violation of orders or against IDF values, and incidents in which a soldier acts in accordance with IDF values and uses judgment, even if his decision is not perfect in the end."
--An unnamed senior IDF officer defended the two soldiers who did not use force against the Palestinian girls who hit them.*
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On September 1st, 2016, the Supreme Court ordered that 13 illegal houses the were built on private Palestinian land in the outpost of Nativ Ha’avot will be dismantled by March 6th, 2018. Since this ruling, the settlers have imposed tremendous pressure on the government to resist the implementation of the ruling. They issued a public campaign full of misleading information, inaccuracies and downright lies, in order to raise public support for their struggle.

Peace Now, which petitioned the court together with the Palestinian landowners, sets the record straight in the following “Nativ Ha’Avot File” – replete with all the facts and proof regarding the land grab and the illegality of the outpost.

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News Nosh 12.19.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"So much restraint, the world needs to learn from our soldiers. The proof of the humanity of the Jewish people."
--A social media post by an Israeli, quoted in Maariv, reacting to the video clip of the incident Friday where Palestinian girls cursed and hit Israeli soldiers, who were in front of a village home in Nebi Saleh, and the soldiers did not respond with physical force.*

You Must Be Kidding:
A settler teen who attacked a human rights activist rabbi at knife in the West Bank point got sentenced to community service. A Palestinian who threw stones at a group of settler hikers near his West Bank village, according to him, after one of the settlers shot dead a village farmer, was charged with attempted murder. The IDF closed the case against the settler who killed the farmer. **
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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.

This week, Alpher discusses important lessons from Trump’s December 6 declaration on Jerusalem; how the administration's recent statement - “We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not be part of Israel” - made the situation worse; if we're looking at a new intifada; examples from the recent past wherein far more sophisticated attempts at fostering peace ended up doing more damage than good; and other empty slogans related to the peace process.

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News Nosh 12.18.17

APN's daily news review from Israel
Monday, December 18, 2017
 
Quote of the day:
"Allow us to question, allow us to doubt and allow us to hear others, even if we disagree...We are opinionated and concerned youth who want to dream of peace. Please don’t take away our dream. Do not underestimate the value of knowing the other, do not harm democracy."
--Students at a Nesher high school wrote to the Ministry of Education to protest the Ministry's cancellation of a meeting for bereaved parents—both Jewish and Palestinian - at the school.*

You Must Be Kidding: 
11,000 Arab teachers are waiting for placements by the Education Ministry, which has a shortage of teachers. Many educated Arab teachers wait over a decade for a job, Haaretz+ reports.**
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