When government officials visit Israel and seek the truth about West
Bank settlements, they go to one source: Peace Now’s Settlement Watch.
Last week, UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson did just that. While on an official visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, Johnson met with Peace Now for a briefing on settlements. Lior Amihai, head of Settlement Watch, explained the extent to which settlements damage prospects for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel’s new Entry Law is actually much worse than we originally thought.
It turns out that its final language is even more draconian than the text published in the media when the law was adopted. The new language uses a much broader definition of who would be subject to denial of entry into Israel. It seems that right before it was brought to a final vote someone changed the language of the bill to include anyone who acts “for the sake of” an organization that calls for boycotts (rather than people who “represent” such organizations).
Peace Now reports:
Last night, Channel 2 News reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu intends to argue to American officials that the
new settlement for the Amona outpost evacuees should not be considered as such. Yet based on its proposed location,
the new settlement, often referred to as “Geulat Zion,” cannot be considered as anything but a new settlement.
Geulat Zion is located approximately 2.5 kilometers east of Shilo, on an empty hilltop, and beyond the settlement’s
jurisdiction.
Americans for Peace Now on February 27th 2017 sponsored a panel discussion at J Street’s national conference on West Bank settlements with MK Tamar Zandberg, APN’s Lara Freidman, Peace Now’s Lior Amihai and moderated by Haaretz’s Amir Tibon.
APN Panel on Settlements 27 February, 2017 from Americans for Peace Now.
Americans for Peace Now’s Ori Nir on February 27th 2017 delivered a talk at J Street’s national conference on the basics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
APN: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 101 from Americans for Peace Now.
If supporting a non-violent boycott of the settlements makes me an enemy of the Israeli state, so be it. But
Israel's border officers will have to hear my story before they turn me away for good.
Okay, yes, I’ve written critical articles and signed Open Letters protesting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and decrying the settlement enterprise; and yes, I’ve been a member of Americans for Peace Now for more than 30 years and a supporter of B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, ACRI, and the New Israel Fund, among other “suspect” organizations. So it’s a safe bet that, under the new Israeli entry ban, I’m going to end up on the government’s blacklist.
Since the mid-1990s, the settlers established nearly 100 illegal outposts and built dozens of neighborhoods and illegal projects in many settlements. In 2015 alone 15% of the units constructed in the settlements was illegal.
During the past year, Settlement Watch conducted extensive research on illegal construction in settlements and
outposts. The data collected exposes a process parallel to the official planning process in the settlements – that
of illegal construction. This parallel process is what allows for thousands of housing units to remain on the
ground, and be connected to roads and infrastructure.
I’ve been devoting much of my life to activism in support of Israel’s future wellbeing,
advocating for peace and security, working to bolster Israel as a democracy and a Jewish state, living side by
side in peace with a sovereign Palestinian state.
I was raised with the infant state of Israel in the late 1940s as the sixth child in the household of my parents Philip and Ethel Klutznick, activists and strong supporters of Israel’s right to exist and thrive as the homeland of the Jewish people. Dad, an international Jewish leader, advocated for the survival and the growth of Israel throughout his lifetime, but warned in the early 1980s that Israel must negotiate peace with its enemies, a common sense position of strength through peace.
Monday, Israel’s Knesset kicked me in the behind. It made me into a persona-non-grata.
"A person is obligated to get drunk on Purim until he cannot tell the difference between
‘blessed is Mordecai’ and ‘cursed is Haman’.” Purim is upon us. The wicked Haman convinces the clownish King
Ahasuerus to kill all the Jews by executive order, but Queen Esther prevails upon the King to rescind this
dictate and Haman is hanged.
Day after day, our current reality reads like a story concocted for Purim. We see a carnival of populist buffoonery in which reality is indistinguishable from satire. Professional comedians, who straddle the line between reality and fiction, feel like the politicians are trespassing, usurping their turf.
Americans for Peace Now strongly condemns new Israeli legislation adopted today by the Knesset, which would ban entry to Israel of foreign nationals who support or publicly engage in boycotts of either Israel or West Bank settlements.
APN's President and CEO Debra DeLee said: "This new draconian law is a severe blow to Israeli democracy. It is aimed at a basic civil liberty, the freedom of expression, and will severely harm Israel by keeping out some of its greatest supporters.