In a recent interview, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman – a long-time supporter of Israeli settlements – falsely claimed that Israel occupies “only 2 percent” of the West Bank.

In fact, with the entire West Bank under Israeli military law, 100 percent is occupied by Israel. Yet, when a reporter followed up with State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, asking what percent of the West Bank the Trump administration believes is occupied, she stated: “I don’t know that we have a map of that.”

We at Americans for Peace Now have good news for the State Department: Facts on the Ground 2.0 is coming soon.

Members of the right-wing majority coalition in Israel’s Knesset, particularly Knesset members from Likud and the Jewish Home Party, have been filling the legislature’s docket with populist, anti-democratic bills.

Such bills will be front and center on the Knesset’s docket as it opens its Winter Session on Sunday, October 22, 2017.

Update: this action, now closed, ran in October 2017. 

As we expected, President Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal on October 17th but declined to kill it outright by imposing new sanctions. Instead, he dropped the fate of the deal in the lap of Congress, hoping to make lawmakers complicit in US violation of the terms of the JCPOA.

This would give Iran the green light to resume its nuclear program and increase the risk of escalation to an armed conflict with Iran. But that’s not all. It would mean that as the US and Israel seek to combat Iran’s nefarious activities in the Middle East we could be up against a nuclear-armed state. Further, the US would rupture relations with our allies and undermine our credibility, such that North Korea would have no reason to negotiate its nuclear disarmament.

We can’t let this happen. Tell Congress to preserve the Iran deal.

Quote of the day:
"Despite the ideological distance, geographic proximity is more important than all, and creates a shared life. For that, we are here. Moti worked in Kafr Qassem, he did not talk about coexistence—he lived it."

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 why the Netanyahu government’s response to the Cairo agreement has been so low key; how Trump's “decertification” of the Iran nuclear deal might affect Israel; how the US decision to leave UNESCO might affect Israel; and how escalation between the US and North Korea might affect Israel.

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