Americans for Peace Now (APN) mourns with the Palestinian people the death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the 16-year-old Palestinian kidnapped and brutally murdered last week in Jerusalem. APN (once again) condemns the kidnapping and the killing, and sends its condolences to the Abu Khdeir family. APN calls on the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian factions, to prevent further escalation and further loss of innocent lives.
APN's President and CEO Debra DeLee said:
Q. The past week has witnessed the discovery of the three yeshiva students' bodies near Hebron, their highly emotional funeral, the kidnapping and brutal murder of a Palestinian boy from Jerusalem, and the apprehension of his young Jewish murderers. Meanwhile, Arab citizens of Israel are rioting, while rockets from Gaza continue to hit as far as Beersheva. A new intifada?
A. No, or at least, not yet. There are a number of important factors that distinguish the current situation from the circumstances that led to the second intifada that erupted in the fall of 2000; they mitigate against a new one.
APN condemns the killing of a Palestinian youth in East Jerusalem. The government of Israel must act swiftly to investigate the murder and bring the perpetrator or perpetrators to justice. It remains to be established whether Muhammad Abu-Khdeir (16) was murdered as revenge for the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli youths in the West Bank. What is absolutely clear is that in the wake of the murder of the three Israeli youths, the Israeli government has fomented a mood of revenge among Israelis, beginning with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s promise of “revenge” for the killings. That mood began taking concrete form in demonstrations and marches yesterday in Israel, which were marked with calls of “death to Arabs,” as well as attacks against Arabs inside Israel.
by APN's Summer Intern, Hannah Ehlers
Not by might and not by power,
but by spirit alone shall we all live in peace.
I can still remember as a young girl sitting on the sun-stained carpet of our synagogue’s makeshift music room and allowing my shy, quiet voice to rise with the voices of the other children surrounding me. Our childish, out-of-tune voices sang of our love of God, the Earth, and one another. Debbie Friedman’s song, “Not by Might, Not by Power” became my Sunday school favorite and, when I was brave enough to speak up, I requested it and shouted “ruach!” as loud as I could at the right time.
Please join us for a briefing call with Israeli strategic affairs expert Yossi Alpher on Thursday,
July 3rd at 2:00 PM Eastern Time to analyze the security and political situation following the murder
of the three Yeshiva students in the West Bank.
The details of the call are as follows:
Date: Thursday, July 3rd
Time: 2:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Dial-in Number: 951-797-1058
Participant Access Code: 147414
To receive a link of the recording, please email us at kcunningham@peacenow.org
Americans for Peace Now (APN) stands with the people of Israel as it mourns the death of the three Israeli Yeshiva students, Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach, who were kidnapped earlier this month in the West Bank. APN strongly condemns the kidnapping and the killing of the three, and sends its condolences to their families. APN calls on the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian factions, to prevent further escalation and further loss of innocent lives.
This week, Alpher discusses new policy departures, including in the Palestinian sphere, that Netanyahu has justified by citing events in Iraq that affect Israel (see also last week's Hard Questions, Tough Answers); Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's new "peace initiative," whereby a solution to the Palestinian issue would be part and parcel of broader Israel-Arab peace arrangements; Netanyahu's support for an independent Kurdistan, which contradicts US policy; and the continuing West Bank kidnap drama.
Israeli strategic affairs expert, Brigadier General (Ret.) Shlomo Brom, is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Israel's leading national security think tank. He is also one of the leaders of the Council on Peace and Security, an organization that brings together hundreds of high-ranking members from Israel's security and diplomacy establishments to support a viable and sustainable peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East as a necessary step towards ensuring Israel's security and social resilience and maintaining its democratic foundation in the long-term.
In 2011, Brom authored a short report for the Council on future defensible borders between Israel and the state of Palestine in the context of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. The report concludes that the 1967 lines, with reasonable land swaps, would be defensible borders between Israel and the West Bank portion of the future state of Palestine. We asked Brig. Gen. Brom, the former top strategic planner of the IDF, to explain why.
by Hamze Awawdeh, APN Summer Intern
On the eve of the holy month of Ramadan this year, excitement, spirituality and happiness are conflicting with fear, sadness and desperation over last week’s incidents in the West Bank: the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers and the killing of five young Palestinians.
For me, however, this year’s Ramadan experience is very special. I am spending this month in Washington DC, far from my family in the West Bank town of Doura, near Hebron, and far from the quick escalation on the ground. Moreover, I am working for Americans for Peace Now, the Jewish pro-Israel, pro-peace organization that is lobbying for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution.
On the second week of APN's Reclaiming Israel's Future campaign, Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann was our guest on a briefing call. He discusses the latest developments on the ground in East Jerusalem, examines the situation on the ground 47 years after the Six Day War, and addresses the future of Jerusalem.