This week, Alpher discusses whether former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren is just trying to sell his new book, or are his attacks on President Obama part of some sort of larger plan to widen the gap between the two countries; if Obama knowingly and deliberately violated previously sacred bilateral principles of “no daylight” and “no surprises;” what the American Jewish angle is; what the likely ramifications of Oren’s attacks for US-Israel relations are at the current juncture.
New York Times - June 9, 2015
Peace Now organizes tour to new settlement site
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/world/middleeast/west-bank-compound-irving-moskowitz.html?_r=0
Columbus Dispatch - June 10, 2015
APN represented at a Columbus conference on Israel-Palestine
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/10/conference-Israeli-Palestinian-conflict.html
Haaretz - June 11, 2015
Peace Now's Yariv Oppenheimer blasts bill that targets progressive NGOs
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.660648
New Jersey Jewish News - June 12, 2015
APN's Katherine Cunningham's op-ed: The conflict won't end until average Israelis acknowledge its costs
http://njjewishnews.com/article/27518/the-conflict-wont-end-until-average-israelis-acknowledge-its-costs#.VYRcPvlVikp
Jerusalem Post - June 15, 2015
Commenting on OU endorsement of Temple Institute, APN urges responsibility, respect
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/USs-Orthodox-Union-supports-freedom-of-prayer-for-Jews-on-Temple-Mount-406130
For the first time, the government is requesting to officially take over private Palestinian land
in order to legalize an unauthorized outpost, which is built, in part, on private Palestinian land. The request
was presented to the Supreme Court as part of the State's reply to a petition filed by Peace Now and Palestinian
land owners, against 17 houses built on private Palestinian lands in the Derech Ha'avot Ouptost, near
Bethlehem. The first hearing of the case will take place next Monday, 22 June at 9:00am.
Americans for Peace Now (APN) strongly condemns the murder of Dani Gonen, an Israeli citizen, in the West Bank near the settlement of Dolev, north west of Ramallah. Another Israeli was injured in the attack. APN sends its condolences to Gonen’s family and wishes quick and full recovery to the young man who was injured.
What would you say if I told you that the most recent right-wing initiative to stifle progressive organizations in Israel is a Knesset bill that would compel members of such organizations to wear a special badge, “visibly, on their clothing,” when they are in the Knesset?
You’d probably tell me that it’s an ugly joke, and that even satire shouldn’t use such loaded symbols for the sake of ridicule. And I would completely agree with you.
The problem, you see, is that this is not a joke. This is not The Onion. It’s yet another example of grotesque legislative overreach by right-wing Knesset members – in this case the Jewish Home’s Bezalel Smotrich – intended to delegitimize progressive Israeli organizations, to humiliate them and to stifle them. That, of course, includes representatives of our Israeli sister-organization, Israel’s Peace Now movement, the nemesis of extremist West Bank settlers who are chiefly represented in the Knesset by Smotrich’s party.
Raysh Weiss holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Minnesota and is currently entering her final year of Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is the founder and director of YentaNet, a pluralistic matchmaking organization, currently serves on the Board of Directors of T'ruah, and is a co-editor of the progressive Jewish blog www.jewschool.com.
With the unrelenting blitzkrieg of violent images flooding the media from the Middle East and
beyond, it can be hard not to resort to a sense of fear and hopelessness. Such images, coupled with political
leadership built upon collective fear and defensiveness, engender a society that cannot move beyond immediate
threats and anxieties. In constantly speaking of security, we all too easily lose sight of other rights,
relegating them to a tragically secondary status.
