The prospect of a U.N. Security Council vote on parameters and a timeline for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, coming as it does in the lead-up to Israeli elections, is eliciting this tricky argument: “We can’t pressure Israel when Israelis are going to the polls, because it will only help the Right.”

That argument fits neatly into the list of memes that time and time again have been used to justify U.S. inaction in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Memes like: “We can’t press for peace with the region in upheaval.” “We can’t ask any Israeli prime minister to take action that could destabilize his government.” “This is a losing issue that will cost any president and his party dearly.”

This week, Alpher discusses Jordan's draft resolution to the UN Security Council regarding Palestinian statehood; last week's request from Tzipi Livni to Secretary Kerry to delay the UNSC vote and thereby keep the Palestinian statehood issue off Israel's election agenda lest this generate more votes for the Israeli political right and whether this makes sense; whether there is still an Israeli consensus against UN intervention in the conflict; and why last week's firing of a rocket from the Gaza Strip at an Israeli community on the Gaza periphery was cited by a number of Israeli security commentators and authorities as a step toward renewed escalation of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu condemned the UN Security Council Resolution introduced late Wednesday by Jordan as a unilateral move that would result in “a Hamas takeover of Judea and Samaria.”  Foreign Minister Leiberman blasted the resolution as an act of aggression against Israel.  Strategic Affairs and Intelligence Minister Steinitz branded it an “act of war.”

What can one conclude except that this resolution is manifestly anti-Israel?  It must, for example, reject Israel’s right to exist and endorse a full Palestinian “right of return.”  It must deny any Israeli or Jewish claims to Jerusalem and require Israel to leave its security in the hands of its erstwhile enemies.  And no doubt it includes text justifying violence and terror against Israel.  More broadly, this resolution must seek to impose on Israel a “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along lines defined unilaterally by the Palestinians.  How could Israel respond to such a text with anything less than outrage?   

Netanyahu, Leiberman, Steinitz, and others critics of the effort must be hoping that people won’t bother to actually read the text of the resolution, because, in fact, it is nothing of the sort. 

APN today called on the Obama Administration to support action in the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel-Palestine that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  APN president and CEO Debra DeLee commented:

This week, Alpher discusses how the momentum for recognition of a Palestinian state is building up in Europe and at the United Nations and how this affects Israel, particularly at election time; emerging political dynamics as regards Israel's elections; the role of violence in Israeli and American security tactics; whether Palestinian Authority threats to sever security coordination with Israel over the Abu Ein incident are credible.

Ahead of the 2015 elections, American Jews should influence Israel's future character – not through their pocketbooks, but by asserting their vision of how a Jewish, democratic state should look.

For American Jews who care about Israel’s future as a democracy, as a Jewish nation-state that champions Jewish values, as a Jewish homeland they can be proud of, Israel’s early elections are a call for action.

The next 96 days leading up to the March 17 elections offer American Jews a rare opportunity to influence Israel's future character – not through their pocketbooks, but by asserting their vision of what a Jewish, democratic state should look like.

On December 7, 2014 the High Court ruled on Peace Now’s petition number 7891/07 which demanded to carry out Central Command’s delimitation orders and evacuate six West Bank outposts. High Court President, Asher Grunis, ruled that the state must evacuate structures in the outposts located on private Palestinian land, but that there is no place for the court to intervene in the state's prioritization of delimitation orders enforcement and did not oblige the state to evacuate structures located on state lands or survey lands, in light of the state's intention to legalize them.

I know that the headlines are terrible, and that people are throwing up their hands and feeling defeated. "The two-state solution is hopeless," they say. "We will never have peace."

But... consider:

On December 8, 2014, APN hosted Akiva Eldar of al-Monitor.com, the former chief political writer of Israel's Haaretz, for a briefing call on the Israeli political scene following the decision taken by Israel's political leaders to hold early elections in March 2015.