For many of my American friends and former colleagues in the media, I am the Israeli they know and therefore a go-to person on Israeli affairs. They contact me with questions on Israeli politics, Jerusalem restaurants, Hebrew slang and Israeli popular culture.

Recently, their curiosity is turning into bewilderment and astonishment. Their lovingly inquisitive approach toward Israel is turning into exasperation. Their focus now is on trying to decipher Israel’s shifting character, on its changing face, on the fading vision of the Israel they grew up loving and hoped to see thriving — a state that embodies progressive, democratic, pluralistic, tolerant values.
“What the hell is going on there,” I’m often asked, “have they totally lost it?”

This week, most of the articles deal with the Peace Now settlement report that was released over the weekend, which you can read here: 

APN's Ori Nir op-ed: American friends of Israel must support Israeli progressives (The Washington Jewish Week, 2/19/2016)

Peace Now end of year settlement report: 1,800 housing starts in settlements in 2015 (JTA, 2/14/2016)

Peace Now report: 1,800 housing starts in settlements in 2015 (AFP, 2/14/2016)

Peace Now report: 1,800 housing starts in settlements in 2015 (Haaretz, 2/14/2016)

Peace Now report: decline in housing starts in settlements in 2015 (Times of Israel, 2/14/2016)

Peace Now annual report: Decline in construction in settlements in 2015 (Arutz 7, 2/14/2016)

 Peace Now report : Netanyahu authorized 20 West Bank outposts constructed illegally since 2009 (Jerusalem Post, 2/14/2016 ) 

Peace Now report: Housing Starts Down 40 Percent in West Bank Settlements in 2015 (Hamodia, 2/14/2016) 

Peace Now report: 1,800 housing starts in Israeli settlements in 2015 (Globes, 2/14/2016)

Peace Now report: Israel started construction on some 1,800 new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in 2015 (i24News,2/14/2016)

Oded Adomi Leshem, a doctoral student at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution is an expert on hope. One of his areas of expertise is strategies for impacting Israeli public opinion to be more supportive of peace. A new study that he recently published shows that messages of hope from Palestinians can go a long way in  fostering and enhancing hope among Jewish Israelis. Listen to our February 16^th 2016 conversation with Leshem.

Yesterday, Israeli media reported on a blockbuster report alleging that the Obama Administration is lying when it says U.S. policy regarding the labeling of products from West Bank settlements hasn't changed since 1995, and alleging that the policy reiterated last month in a statement issued by the U.S. Customs Service (CBP), in fact, represents a change in U.S. policy.

These allegations rest on a “smoking gun,” unearthed by the intrepid researchers at a right-wing Israeli non-governmental organization called the Legal Forum for Israel, in the form of a 1995 document issued by CBP.  The Legal Forum for Israel alleges that the document proves that U.S. labeling policy since 1995, according to which exports from the West Bank cannot be labeled as made in Israel, applied only to those areas of the West Bank under Palestinian self-rule in 1995. The NGO insists that the “reminder” of the policy issued by CBP in January 2016, which stated that labeling rules apply to the entire West Bank, thus clearly represents a (stealth) shift in U.S. policy.

Is this document, in fact, a smoking gun? Not in the slightest.

On January 11th, my mother, Ruth Epstein, died at the age of 100.  She was born in 1915: World War I was raging, Woodrow Wilson was president, the typhoid epidemic was spreading and Congress rejected giving women the right to vote.

Her mother spent her early years in County Cork Ireland, being part of a large group of Lithuanian Jews who hired 3 boats to take to them to America, only to learn that the "goniffs" had dropped them in English-speaking Ireland instead. Her father came from Russia, and shared numerous stories with us - none of which were ever confirmed - of his exploits with the Czar. She was engaged in the world, offended by injustice and devoted to the state of Israel until her last breath.