Americans for Peace Now (APN) condemns today’s Knesset vote on the so-called “reasonableness law” which bars Israel’s Supreme Court from challenging unreasonable laws and executive measures. This vote is, according to the very members who supported it, only the first step towards more unreasonable, anti-democratic legislation by the government, including measures to move forward with the annexation of the West Bank and perpetuate the occupation.

APN calls on the Biden administration to move past declarations of concern and respond by iterating the concrete steps it will take in response to the actions of the Netanyahu government. APN also urges fellow American Jewish organizations to speak out loudly and clearly against  the anti-democratic trajectory of Israel under Netanyahu’s government of nationalistic zealots.

APN strongly supports the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been demonstrating for over six months against the government and its anti-democratic policies and practices. We stand in solidarity with them and encourage them to further escalate their protest. By embarking on its anti-democratic “legal reform” today, the governing coalition underscored the protesters’ assertion that the government, while legally elected, is illegitimate and should be treated as such.  

We hope that some members of the ruling government coalition would appreciate and understand what the demonstrators are concerned about, change course, and work to protect the rights of all citizens of Israel - Jewish and non-Jewish alike. We also encourage Israelis to look beyond specific legislation to push for creating a constitution that would protect all Israelis and avoid the fiasco that Israel has been experiencing in the past few months.

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. Israeli President on the Hill
3. Thou Shalt Not Call Israel “Racist”!
4. Hearings & Events
5. Media & Reports
6. Members on the Record (Israel/Palestine)
7. Members on the Record (Iran & other Mideast countries)

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.

By Madeleine Cereghino, Director of Government Relations

Yesterday, House Republicans forced a vote on a resolution intended to specifically target Democratic members of Congress who have been vocal in their opposition to the Israeli government’s ongoing occupation and anti-democratic practices.

 While we may not agree with every comment made about Israel, it is crucial to emphasize that criticizing Israeli policies and actions is not inherently antisemitic. Still, it is disappointingly obvious that Speaker McCarthy is only concerned with antisemitism when it is politically expedient. This was the clear impetus for yesterday’s messaging resolution, which says that Israel is not a racist or apartheid state, rejects antisemitism, and reaffirms United States support of Israel. For Congress, it was about as groundbreaking as the renaming of a post office.

Voting for or against yesterday’s non-binding resolution is inconsequential. It requires little effort to claim to "stand with Israel." But what does it mean to “stand with Israel?” Do House Republicans stand with Israel as its Prime Minister seeks to dismantle the judicial check on the Knesset's power, jeopardizing the country’s democracy? Do they stand with Israel as sitting members of its government incite violence and then allow the military to stand by and watch as settlers rampage through Palestinian towns? The answer, unfortunately, is a resounding yes.

After nearly six decades of occupation and seventy-five years of conflict, we cannot settle for mere platitudes. As Israel's closest ally, the United States must stand not just with Israel but FOR Israel and FOR the individual and national rights of the Palestinian people. We must stand FOR a democratic and secure Israel that coexists harmoniously with its neighbors, and FOR a Palestine that is free, independent, and sovereign.

The United States should stand for practices and policies that bring us closer to a viable long-term solution. Even when it means confronting difficult truths, we must be willing to speak out. The United States, as Israel's closest ally, has a responsibility to champion policies that pave the way for a brighter future—a future of justice, self-determination, and equality for both Israelis and Palestinians.

There could hardly be a greater disconnect between tomorrow’s US Congressional salute to Israel and its democracy, and the anti-democratic campaign that Israel’s government is ramming through the Knesset. While the US government in Washington is embracing Israel’s ceremonial head of state, President Isaac Herzog, Israel’s political head of state, Benjamin Netanyahu, is systematically working to wreck the very values of democracy, equality, justice and peace that Washington wishes to see and respect in Israel.

President Herzog, aware of this discordance, told President Biden in the White House today that “Israeli democracy is sound and resilient” and that the heated internal Israeli debate over the so-called legal reform is testament to that resilience. But Herzog knows how endangered Israeli democracy is as the government of Israel works to gut it by denying it basic judicial checks on the already vast powers of the executive branch.

Furthermore, both Presidents Herzog and Biden know that Israel cannot and will not be a true democracy as long as it continues occupying the West Bank and ruling over millions of Palestinians who lack national sovereign rights and human rights.

Americans for Peace Now’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind said: “President Biden and other leading Democrats have spoken about their concerns regarding Israel’s character as a democracy. Israel’s democracy is indeed important and worth fighting for. But the administration and Congress need to  see past Herzog’s ‘shared values’ platitudes and address the issues of settlement expansion, settler violence, and creeping annexation.

“What Israel needs from its friends in Washington is not more enabling, but rather a reality check, an intervention, which would clearly define what the US is and is not willing to accept from a state that wishes to continue enjoying a values-based ‘special relationship’ with America. The red lines should be clear and so should the consequences if they are crossed.”

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.

Guest edited by Madeleine Cereghino, Director of Government Relations here at Americans for Peace Now, where the Round-Up was born!

by Madeleine Cereghino, Director of Government Relations- APN

Every year as Congress reviews and approves the United States' annual spending bills, we have a valuable opportunity to advocate for change. Each year, Congress passes spending bills funding the United States government for the upcoming fiscal year, specifying the budgets of each department, and outlining the allocation of funds within those departments. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) specifically focuses on authorizing defense-related expenditures, including funding for the military, defense programs, and national security initiatives. However, it is important to note that the NDAA often includes provisions that go beyond defense matters and is used by both parties as a vehicle to raise other policy issues.

We at Americans for Peace Now have long called for increased oversight to ensure that our funds aren’t used in ways that run counter to our values and to US policy. This commonsense concept is reflected in some of this year’s NDAA submissions.

This year, several of the over 1500 amendments proposed in the NDAA address the issue of US assistance contributing to human rights violations and offer language that would add additional scrutiny to the use of US funds as it relates to the Israeli occupation. These amendments encompass a range of provisions aimed at promoting accountability and safeguarding human rights. They include mandating an annual report to Congress on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, reaffirming Congressional support for a two-state solution, requiring vetting for gross human rights violations by program recipients, and directing reporting on journalist killings including Shireen Abu Akleh’s.

Ori Nir  00:15

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this Americans for Peace Now webinar. With us today is peace now Executive Director, Lior Amihai. As you know, we before we start, we have our usual comments. So I will remind you that like all our webinars, this one is recorded and you will find the video recording probably tomorrow that will happen on our YouTube channel. The audio will be uploaded sometime later today to our podcast Peace Cast. I will also remind you that you are invited to ask questions and you can do that anytime during the webinar beginning now using our q&a tool that is at the bottom of your screen. I ask you that you keep your questions short, because we go through them as we go along with the webinar. I'm assuming that you by now you most of you, if not all of you are familiar with Lior Amihai, The executive director of Israeli sister organization Shalom Achshav, peace now, Lior has been with Peace Now for quite a few years as the co director of its settlements watch project. Then he joined Yesh Din and was its director, the director of Yesh Din, and recently he came back home to us to head Shalom Achshav, we're very happy about that. And really, you know, very few people know the situation in the West Bank on the ground, particularly as it relates to settlements, but better than Lior. So, Lior, thanks for joining us.

Lior Amihai  02:04

Thank you Ori, thanks for inviting me, and thank you for being here.