APN's daily news review from Israel - Wednesday February 17, 2021

Word of the day:

"Occupation."
--Now erased from the entry regarding the Palesitnian Territories by Hebrew Wikipedia community of volunteer editors on Hebrew Wikipedia, who replaced it with Israel’s “rule” or “control."** 

APN's daily news review from Israel - Tuesday February 16, 2021

Quote of the day:

"The Jewish National Fund’s decision this week to officially work to expand settlements and continue planting forests as part of a policy of seizing land in the West Bank is yet another milestone in the growing gap between the two communities. While Netanyahu’s governments have actively advanced this approach, along with the settlement enterprise and the occupation as a whole, Diaspora Jewry long ago distanced itself from the legendary blue JNF collection boxes."
--Haaretz+ political affairs correspondent, Noa Landau, writes that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has long followed the dictates of the ultra-Orthodox and right-wing religious Zionist communities, rather than reaching out to American Jews, whose views are liberal and pro-peace and whose support he needs.*

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.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Monday February 15, 2021

Quote of the day:

"Anyone who thinks that a Palestinian inhabitant of the occupied territories cares much whether he is uprooted by extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir or the Jewish National Fund, pride and joy of the Zionist vision, would be wrong. The Iraqi poet Muthaffar al-Nawab wrote: 'The sheep cares not for the shape of the blade in the slaughterhouse.'"
--Haaretz commentator Odeh Bisharat writes about the cynicism of the Jewish National Fund (JNF/KKL), which asks Jews in the Diaspora to fund forestation of the Negev, and meanwhile, expells Arabs from their land.*

Breaking News:
Israel Struck Near Damascus, Syria Says, Killing Six, as Israel Air Force Begins 'Surprise Exercise'
Missiles were fired from Golan Heights and Galilee, Syrian army statement says, not mentioning casualties. (Haaretz, Ynet and Maariv and VIDEO) 

APN's daily news review from Israel - Sunday February 14, 2021

Quote of the day:

"We will not stand silently by as the Jewish National Fund, an agency that was created to build the State of Israel, serves as a tool to destroy the prospects of building a Palestinian state, thus denying Palestinian self-determination and undermining Israel's future as a democracy."
—Americans for Peace Now President and CEO Hadar Susskind says after the Jewish National Fund put up plan to purchase land in the West Bank for to expand Israeli settlements.*

Washington, DC – Americans for Peace Now (APN) strongly condemns the decision by the Jewish National Fund's Executive Board to start officially purchasing land in the West Bank to expand Israeli settlements.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) is alarmed by reports that the Jewish National Fund intends to start officially purchasing land in the West Bank to expand Israeli settlements. Such a step would be a dramatic change in the JNF's policy, with potentially dramatic repercussions. It could significantly bolster the Israeli settlement enterprise, which is aimed at thwarting a future two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

APN's daily news review from Israel - Thursday February 11, 2020

Quote of the day:

"The four candidates with a chance of being elected prime minister are all painfully similar. Don’t believe the fairy tales about a great ideological chasm between them. Fundamentally, they are identical: All are Zionist Jews who support the occupation, devotees of Jewish supremacy in Israel."
--In an Op-Ed, Gideon Levy on the four candidates vying to become Israel's next prime minister.*

Thirty Eight years ago, on February 10th 1983, Peace Now activist Emil Grunzweig was murdered by an extreme right Jewish terrorist at a Peace Now demonstration in Jerusalem.

Not far from the Prime Minister’s Office, the terrorist, Yona Avrushmi, lobbed a hand grenade at the front row of the Peace Now marchers. It killed Emil and injured nine of his friends.