Please join us for a call with Brian Hauss of the ACLU who will brief us on First Amendment issues concerning anti-BDS/pro-settlements legislation.

Brian is the lead attorney for the ACLU in its lawsuit challenging the Kansas law that requires all state contractors to certify that they are not participating in boycotts of Israel and/or settlements in the West Bank. The ACLU is representing Esther Koontz, a Kansas math teacher and trainer who was removed from a teacher training program administered by the Kansas Department of Education when she would not sign a contract certifying that she does not boycott Israel – or companies profiting from settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Americans for Peace Now is deeply concerned at the increasing pace with which state governments are adopting legislation that conflates Israel and the occupied West Bank, and denies American citizens their constitutional right to protest the occupation through boycotts. 

While opposing boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) that target Israel, APN supports boycotting Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a legitimate way to protest the settlements and the occupation. APN also believes that fighting BDS should not require – or justify – eroding constitutionally-protected rights to free speech and political protest.

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 President Rivlin's attack on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition; Netanyahu's response; how you explain Rivlin; Netanyahu's birthday celebration and his son's birthday greeting; another lawsuit against Sara Netanyahu from an employee of the prime minister's residence; and the bottom line.

President Trump says he wants to broker the “ultimate deal,” a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But since taking office in January, he and his aides have failed to offer a framework for negotiations, have failed to assert positions that are vital for securing a peace deal, such as sternly opposing settlement construction, and have refused to endorse the only viable formula for a deal: the two-state solution. He won’t even say “two states.”

Sign our petition: Tell President Trump to Say Two States

Only the two-state solution – two states living side by side in peace and security, each exercising sovereignty and political independence in part of the land that both peoples claim as their exclusive national homes – is a reasonable, viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is the only viable option for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because neither Israelis nor Palestinians will, nor should be expected to, give up their desire for self-determination in their own state and because neither side can, nor should force the other side to, relinquish its national aspirations.

Successive U.S. administrations, Republican and Democratic, have recognized these basic facts. They therefore made the two-state solution America’s official policy – a key position guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East – for over 15 years.

The two-state solution has become a matter of consensus in the region and internationally. The parties, under their own successive leaderships, have committed to this vision and negotiated to realize it. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu, who heads the most hardline government in Israel's history, has explicitly endorsed it. For the Trump Administration to eschew it is disastrous.

Without a concrete vision for peace, negotiations are fruitless punctuations to perennial violence. Extremists on both sides have been trying to discredit the two-state vision since it was internationally adopted. Now they have a partner in the White House.

President Trump, don’t play into the hands of the anti-peace extremists. We call on you to endorse the two-state solution. Say two states!

• Elkin: We will soon advance separation of Palestinian neighborhoods from Jerusalem
• Catalonia declared independence, Spain took control over it
• And only Netanyahu didn’t know // Yossi Verter
• Commander of Hamas security forces was injured in assassination attempt
• Zionism or supporting a state for all its citizens? Internal debate in Meretz on definition of party
• Apax (company) operated lobbyists, hired public servants and received billion shekel tax break
• The original sin // Gideon Levy
• Sour face // Rogel Alpher

• Catalonia: 5 hours of independence
• Israel - Judo powerhouse
• “She made my life miserable!!” - Text messages that woman suing Sara Netanyahu sent to her sister that show what she claims to have suffered while working for Mrs. Netanyahu
• Pitiable // Sima Kadmon
• The blackening law suit // Shlomo Pyotrokovsky

• The newest Sara Netanyahu scandal: The text messages were revealed
• The “French” crisis in the coalition
• Good law, (but) not retroactive // Adv. Yechiel Gutman
• Catalonia: Independence being tested

• Catalonia: Independence on paper
• Return of the “French Bill”
• Without a flag, with pride: Israel national Judo team won 5 medals in grand slam in Abu Dhabi
• Taking off: Record number of women (50) finish IAF pilots’ pre-course trial period
• Police vs. Health Ministry: “Preventing the lessening of violence in hospitals” - Hospitals claim that police are delaying the deployment of officers in hospital departments; Police: “Budget was approved”
• Prime Minister on lawsuit against Sara Netanyahu: “We are sick of the lies and the slander”

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived

1. Bills, Resolutions & Letters
2. Hearings
3. On the Record