This week, Americans for Peace Now's 2015 Israel Study Tour is exploring Israel and the West Bank, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and efforts to resolve it.

See below for pictures, video, and highlights from our Twitter feed.

Congress has a long record of supporting and defending Israel's security, Israel's economy, Israel's position and treatment in international organizations and the international community, Israel's right to self-defense, and Israel's reputation as a nation that seeks peace. For this it deserves credit. 

Congress also has a long record of refusing to affirmatively support Israel's policy of building settlements in the occupied territories, including, for example, by barring the use of U.S.-backed loan guarantees for settlement activity. For this too, Congress deserves credit.  Israel's settlements enterprise runs counter to the policy of every U.S. administration since 1967, whether led by a Republican or Democrat, and runs counter to Israel's own interests.  Settlements undermine Israel's security, erode Israel's position in the international community and belie Israel's commitment to peace and the two-state solution - and if there is no two-state solution, Israel cannot survive as both a democracy and a Jewish state.  

This week, Alpher discusses whether there is any chance former US President Jimmy Carter will succeed in generating Palestinian unity where everyone else has failed when he arrives in the region this Thursday to mediate between Hamas and Fateh, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia; if Israel’s northern front is heating up or if recent incidents are connected to events in the Syrian civil war; how US involvement in the Saudi-led effort in Yemen, directed against Iranian intervention squares with the US-led nuclear talks with Iran; why Israel couldn’t observe the centenary of the Armenian genocide on April 24.

Watch the video below.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Conflict Management Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) are pleased to host Lara Friedman (Americans for Peace Now), Ghaith Al-Omari (WINEP), Ilan Peleg (MEI) and Shibley Telhami (Univ. of Maryland) for a discussion about the policy options confronting key players in the peace process following the re-election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  

Is the peace process over, as critics of PM Netanyahu allege? Depending on what kind of a government Netanyahu forms, what are Israel's options for dealing with the Palestinian issue? How might Israel's settlement policies be affected by the formation of a "right-wing" government versus a "national unity" government?  Will the Palestinian Authority accelerate its campaign for state recognition in global organizations? And finally, what influence can the Obama Administration exert on the two sides?   

Washington, DC – APN Today released the following statement regarding pro-settlements legislation in the House and Senate:

“As a pro-Israel, pro-peace organization and the sister organization to Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), Israel’s veteran grassroots, Zionist peace movement, Americans for Peace Now (APN) rejects and condemns efforts in Congress, backed by AIPAC, to legislate U.S. support for Israeli settlements. We urge Congress to recognize the danger and folly of this approach and to hold firm in its well-established support for Israel and its equally well-established refusal to endorse Israeli settlements – and to reject HR 825 and efforts to pass similar language in the Senate.

Israeli author Amos Oz likes to say that he loves Israel even when he can’t stand it.

Israel’s public sphere has in recent months given Israelis such as Oz, and their friends overseas, many reasons for frustration. The growing gap between rich and poor (the widest in the world), overt expressions of racism, intolerance and xenophobia, anti-democratic ultra-nationalist legislation, government policies that pull the rug from under the pro-peace rhetoric of its leaders. And rhetoric that doesn’t even presume to be pro-peace.

Dr. Baskin, renowned Israeli peace activist and political commentator, award-winning journalist and author, and negotiator of Gilad Shalit's release, visited Los Angeles for this special post Israeli election event.

By effectively equating Israel proper with the occupied territories, Israel's High Court has made life harder for pro-Israel, pro-peace activists.

The High Court's decision to uphold the so-called Anti-Boycott Law will, regrettably, be a boon to Israeli settlers and their supporters, whilst giving a gift to activists worldwide who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

This week, Alpher discusses when Israel will have a new government and what will it look like; how bad the regional situation could get given the increased chaos in the Middle East, with Russian missile supply to Iran and territorial gains by al-Qaeda in Yemen; where do the external powers fit in: the US, Russia, the EU and China; and why Israel is so concerned about the Russian sale of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran.