Two pieces of controversial legislation may be inserted into a must-pass omnibus spending bill, virtually guaranteeing that they would become law without debate. Please contact your members of Congress to let them know that you oppose the Israel Anti-Boycott Act and the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.720 and H.R.1697), under the guise of preventing companies from joining boycotts of Israel promoted by international non-governmental organizations, intentionally blurs the distinction between Israel and the occupation. Under this bill, measures targeting West Bank settlements and the occupation would be regarded as targeting Israel. APN opposes the occupation and supports boycotting West Bank settlements. While opposing boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel (BDS), APN believes that boycotts are a legitimate nonviolent expression of protest, which should not be criminalized.

The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (S.2940 and H.R.5924) would require the Department of Education to utilize a definition of anti-Semitism employed by the Department of State in assessing whether a school has violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by tolerating anti-Semitic harassment. That definition labels as anti-Semitism certain types of criticism of Israel and the occupation. The definition’s author opposes the ASAA, arguing that his definition was never intended for use on campuses as a means of censoring constitutionally protected free speech. Should it pass, the ASAA likely will have a chilling effect on speech related to Israel on college campuses.

A new bill introduced in the Senate would block President Trump from launching an unnecessary war against Iran. Introduced by Senator Tom Udall and enjoying bipartisan support, the Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2018 draws on Congressional power of the purse and power to declare war in to constrain the Trump administration. The legislation mandates that no funds may be used for military operations against Iran absent Congressional authorization for such operations or an imminent threat to the United States.

Thank your Senators for signing the Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act, and encourage them to do so if they have not.

The possibility that the Trump administration may launch an ill-advised American strike against Iran, reminiscent of the 2003 Iraq war, is real and dangerous. Trump has surrounded himself with Iran war hawks like National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. At their counsel, the United States is now violating the Iran nuclear deal, which increases the likelihood of an unnecessary war. And Trump’s Twitter threats against Iran — for example, warning that Iran will “suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before” — increase the risk of miscalculation by both sides.

Take action to thank you Senators if they have co-sponsored this bill. If they haven’t yet signed on, ask them to do so now.

Thirty-four Senators and 112 House members recently released letters to the Trump administration calling on it to restore humanitarian funding to Palestinians, which President Trump has slashed in order to pressure the Palestinian leadership to acquiesce to his unannounced “peace plan.” As Israeli security officials have indicated, this funding is not only essential for Palestinians, it is also critically important for Israeli security.

Did your elected officials sign? Tell them where you stand.

The funding in question was passed by Congress, with bipartisan support, and included aid for:

• UNRWA, the UN agency which provides critical assistance to Palestinian refugees;
• Humanitarian programs administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the West Bank and Gaza;
• The East Jerusalem Hospital Network which provides essential care for many Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza; and
• People-to-people conflict mitigation programming which promotes coexistence, particularly among the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians.

Congress allocated this funding because it serves the US national interest in a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the face of Trump’s outrageous decision to cancel all non-security-related funding that benefits Palestinians, Congress must speak out.

Take action to thank your elected representatives if they signed these letters, or take them to task if they did not.

If confirmed as Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights in the Department of Education, Kenneth Marcus will be positioned to carry out his long-time mission to suppress speech critical of Israel on campuses by labeling it anti-Semitic.

After securing Committee approval on a strictly party-line vote, consideration of the controversial nominee by the full Senate was delayed given the substantial number of Senators opposed to his confirmation. A vote on Marcus is now expected shortly. 

Marcus has a history of pushing the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which he would head if confirmed, to launch investigations of harassment of Jewish students. While all of the ensuing complaints filed by OCR were dismissed, Marcus claimed victory for “creating a very strong disincentive” for criticism of Israel among students. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has expressed concern that Marcus “could push the government to start taking action against students who speak out against Israel.”

With this record of attempting to deter students from engaging in free speech, Kenneth Marcus is the wrong choice to be the lead official overseeing civil rights on American college campuses. Take action now to demand that your senators vote against his confirmation.

Urge your senators to sign the letter, being circulated by Senator Bernie Sanders, that calls for action by the Trump Administration to alleviate the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. The crisis in Gaza not only makes life virtually unlivable for the two million residents of the Gaza Strip; it also endangers Israeli security by creating a breeding ground for the radicalization of Gaza’s residents.

The letter, addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, calls on the Trump Administration to:

• restore US funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)
• encourage easing of restriction on movement of people, goods, and equipment in and out of Gaza, especially for water projects and health essentials
• ensure greater electricity flow into energy-starved Gaza
• pursue proposals to build Gaza’s economy, including the proposed Gaza Seaport

More than this is needed to address the situation in Gaza. In particular, Secretary Pompeo and the Trump Administration should take steps to bring about a political solution which would facilitate an end to the Israeli and Egyptian siege on Gaza. This letter is, at least, a positive and necessary step – and one that should be entirely uncontroversial.

Yesterday, President Trump announced his choice of former Republican Congressman and current CIA director Mike Pompeo to be his nominee for Secretary of State. This is a potentially catastrophic decision that could lead the U.S. to war against Iran and threaten Israel’s national security.

Pompeo is an ultra-hawk on Iran and fierce critic of the Iran nuclear deal. After Trump was elected in November 2016, Pompeo tweeted, "I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism." He has used his post as CIA Director to push for the demise of the agreement, and we expect him to continue to do so as Secretary of State. This is despite the continued support for the deal from numerous U.S. and Israeli security figures.

On March 5^th, 2018, Senator Schumer stood before 18,000 AIPAC activists and told them what they wanted to hear: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not an obstacle to peace. This ridiculous statement brought the AIPAC crowd to its feet, but it further damaged the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

As a seasoned politician, Senator Schumer knows that settlements are a chief obstacle to peace. Settlements are not only an obstacle to a two-state peace solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they are a tool that extremists use to torpedo two-states. Yet he chose to misrepresent the facts and pander to AIPAC.

Sign our petition! Ask Senator Schumer to tell the truth about the occupation, West Bank Settlements and Israeli-Palestinian peace.

President Trump says he wants to broker the “ultimate deal,” a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But since taking office in January, he and his aides have failed to offer a framework for negotiations, have failed to assert positions that are vital for securing a peace deal, such as sternly opposing settlement construction, and have refused to endorse the only viable formula for a deal: the two-state solution. 

In a speech at the Zionist Organization of America’s annual dinner, David Friedman showed, once again, why he should be removed from his post as US Ambassador to Israel.

The shamefulness of Friedman’s appearance stems in part from the despicable company with which he associated himself. Featured prominently at the ZOA gala were the likes of Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka. In his speech, Bannon proclaimed himself to be a “Christian Zionist” even as he employed common anti-Semitic dog whistles, like characterizing his opponents as the “permanent globalist class.” Bannon received enthusiastic cheers from the ZOA crowd, who represent the far-Right fringe of American Jewry, and was “proudly” welcomed by the organization’s president, Morton Klein. Sebastian Gorka, formerly a prominent Trump adviser who The Forward has identified as a member of extremist Right-wing Hungarian organization Vitezi Rend, was seated at the head table. Other notable attendees included Sean Spicer, who famously dubbed concentration camps “Holocaust centers” and claimed that Hitler did not use chemical weapons against his own people, conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, and alt-right gadfly Laura Loomer.

As contemptible as the company Ambassador Friedman kept at the ZOA fête was, it was his own remarks after receiving an award for “outstanding diplomacy” that illustrate – once again – why he should be fired.

Apparently, no one has told Friedman that ambassadors are diplomats who represent the interests of the countries they serve, rather than engage in partisan attacks. Friedman used his platform to attack former President Barack Obama, referring to “the dark days of last December” when Obama committed “perhaps the greatest betrayal of Israel by a sitting president in American history.” This is a patently false smear, as APN pointed out when President Obama took the courageous decision not to exercise the US veto against UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the status of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territory and urged countries to maintain a distinction in all their dealings between Israel within the Green Line and West Bank settlements. On the watch of every other American president since 1967, the US abstained on or even voted for multiple Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. In eight years, Obama did it once.

One would think no one should have to tell Ambassador Friedman that his job is to represent the United States. Yet, Friedman seems confused on this point. He had no trouble rehearsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top three foreign policy priorities (hint: Iran, Iran, and Iran). And Friedman took pains to brag that “there is no daylight between the United States and Israel” when it comes to Bibi’s anti-Iran agenda. By contrast, there was no discussion about an American foreign policy agenda or strategy, no indication of what a Trump peace plan might look like, and certainly no embrace of the two-state solution, to which Friedman has been doctrinally opposed.

Sign our petition calling on President Trump to endorse the two-state solution.

A long-term supporter of settlements, Friedman declined to utter this word in his remarks. Using the Biblical terminology of Judea and Samaria when referring to the West Bank, Friedman spoke of “building a house in the Samarian village of Halamish” as a quotidian act. In fact, this settlement deep in the occupied West Bank near Ramallah and others like it threaten the prospects of Palestinian statehood and thus a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At an event at which prominent figures with ties to the alt-right were well-represented, Friedman used the Holocaust to establish beyond question the pro-Israel bona fides of himself and others in the Trump Administration. Because Jared Kushner is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, “he doesn’t just understand the importance of the US-Israel relationship, he feels it profoundly within his heart,” said Friedman. And Friedman began his speech with the story of his 15-year-old daughter who had just sent the family a picture of herself on a class trip to Auschwitz, wrapped in an Israeli flag. Said Friedman, “No picture better represents who we are, what we are, and what we are fighting for.” Just who is the “we” to whom Friedman refers? Is it the American people, who are not only Jews, of course, but people of indigenous, Italian, Irish, German, and (dare we say) Arab heritage?

In focusing on the outrageous presence of Bannon and his cronies at the ZOA gala, it would be easy enough to miss the significance of Ambassador Friedman’s appearance and remarks there. That would be a mistake.

APN is proud to lead the way in calling on President Trump to fire him. Join us.   

Click here to tell President Trump to fire Ambassador Friedman.

President Trump says he wants to broker the “ultimate deal,” a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But since taking office in January, he and his aides have failed to offer a framework for negotiations, have failed to assert positions that are vital for securing a peace deal, such as sternly opposing settlement construction, and have refused to endorse the only viable formula for a deal: the two-state solution. He won’t even say “two states.”

Sign our petition: Tell President Trump to Say Two States

Only the two-state solution – two states living side by side in peace and security, each exercising sovereignty and political independence in part of the land that both peoples claim as their exclusive national homes – is a reasonable, viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is the only viable option for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because neither Israelis nor Palestinians will, nor should be expected to, give up their desire for self-determination in their own state and because neither side can, nor should force the other side to, relinquish its national aspirations.

Successive U.S. administrations, Republican and Democratic, have recognized these basic facts. They therefore made the two-state solution America’s official policy – a key position guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East – for over 15 years.

The two-state solution has become a matter of consensus in the region and internationally. The parties, under their own successive leaderships, have committed to this vision and negotiated to realize it. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu, who heads the most hardline government in Israel's history, has explicitly endorsed it. For the Trump Administration to eschew it is disastrous.

Without a concrete vision for peace, negotiations are fruitless punctuations to perennial violence. Extremists on both sides have been trying to discredit the two-state vision since it was internationally adopted. Now they have a partner in the White House.

President Trump, don’t play into the hands of the anti-peace extremists. We call on you to endorse the two-state solution. Say two states!