Watch Dr. Debra Shushan on Israel's i24 News! Debra discusses AIPAC's losing battle for progressive support and what it means to be pro-Israel, pro-peace (a term popularized nearly 20 years ago by APN) in the Trump Era. She is APN's Director of Policy and Government Relations.  

@ShushanAPN, of left-wing @PeaceNowUS, and @omriceren, of @israelproject, discuss where progressives fit in with @AIPAC: pic.twitter.com/5bGhf3gpQG

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) March 6, 2018

Trump has consistently privileged the Israeli narrative and claims over those of the Palestinians. In his Jerusalem decision he also helped the destructive, unnecessary transformation of the conflict from a political to a religious struggle.

Mae Elise Cannon, Yahya Hendi, and Debra Shushan

President Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and commence moving the US embassy was harmful enough.

And still, he has managed – repeatedly – to make it worse. In the latest development, the State Department announced last week that a provisional U.S. embassy in Jerusalem will open on May 14, timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment.

The Trump Administration’s original decision was fatally flawed.

In the absence of a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Palestinian claims to Jerusalem are addressed, the decision was blatantly one-sided. American credibility as an honest broker plummeted, Trump’s avowed goal of reaching the "ultimate deal" was set back, and the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and His Holiness Pope Francis condemned the new policy.

Washington, DC – Commenting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, his meeting with President Trump, and his speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference today, Americans for Peace Now's President and CEO Debra DeLee issued the following statement:

"Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu again missed an opportunity to offer Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and the world a shred of hope for peace.

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

This week, Alpher discusses the dilemmas Prime Minister Netanyahu is leaving behind during his visit to the U.S.; whether Netanyahu could be trying to dissolve his coalition; the peace process; where the Gaza Strip is in these calculations; and the growing likelihood of a “first northern war” pitting Israel against Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon.

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

This week, Alpher discusses the possible indictment - on at least three counts - that Prime Minister Netanyahu faces; what the allegations are about; what Netanyahu's options are; how to account for the public's lenient attitude; and if anyone in Israel will emerge from this looking good.

On Purim, which begins this Wednesday evening, Jews retell the story of a world turned upside down. Haman’s plan to kill the Jews of Persia is thwarted by Esther, the Jewish orphan who became Queen. Haman is hanged on the gallows he had planned to use to kill Esther’s cousin Mordechai. The king is foolish, the advisers wicked, the heroes weak, and the powerful defeated.

We don’t need Purim to remind us that the world is topsy-turvy.

A TV reality show personality is President of the United States. He and his Administration avoid saying “two-state solution,” let alone leading serious efforts to help bring it to fruition. President Trump unilaterally changes the US position on Jerusalem and declares he has solved this complex issue for the Israelis and Palestinians. Ardent US supporters of Israeli settlements are responsible for brokering Middle East peace. One of them, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, publicly contradicts US policy.

The Purim story encourages us to flip the script.

APN does this by fighting for a world in which our leaders are responsible, strategic, and bold in moving forward toward peace and security for Israel via a two-state solution. In partnership with Shalom Achshav in Israel, APN works every day to make that world a reality by fighting the occupation and the settlement enterprise - a catastrophe for Israel in moral, political, security, legal, and economic terms.

APN illustrates how settlements corrupt Israeli society while obstructing peace with Palestinians. We shine a spotlight on how the Trump Administration is allowing Netanyahu’s right-wing government to gradually annex the West Bank and create a one-state reality, in contravention of international law and the national interests of both the US and Israel.

Please support the work of Americans for Peace Now in righting this topsy-turvy world.

Veteran Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar of Al-Monitor spoke at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC on February 20, in discussion with APN’s Debra Shushan. The focus of the event was recent steps towards annexation of the West Bank and the state of the settlement enterprise in the Trump-Netanyahu era.

This is the reality of Palestinian life in East Jerusalem today.

76% of all Palestinians in East Jerusalem live below the poverty line, including 83% of Palestinian children. Only 41% of Palestinian children are enrolled in official municipal schools, with 33% dropping out before 12th grade. And over a third of residents are not connected to Jerusalem's water infrastructure.*

Beyond those grim statistics lies the additional threat of home eviction – the fate that befell Mohammad Shamasneh and his family. After 45 years, through no fault of their own, the Shamasneh family was thrown out of their own house. They were forced to watch helplessly as right-wing settler ideologues occupied the home in which multiple generations of their family has been raised. Their lives have been upended ever since.

Reports have shown that at least 180 Palestinian families are at risk of eviction, with most of these cases initiated by settler organizations.

Through our "Shelter for the Shamasnehs" campaign, Americans for Peace Now is working to right this injustice. With over $4,000 raised so far, we're well on our way to achieving this goal – but we need your help. Join us and help make a real difference on the ground by finding a new home for the Shamasneh family.

(*Association for Civil Rights in Israel)

(**UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)

From Peace Now's Settlement Watch:

Today, 12 February, the Settlement Subcommittee of the Higher Planning Committee of the Civil Administration convened to discuss a series of new plans in the settlements. Among other things, the committee approved the establishment of a new, “temporary” settlement for the evacuees of Nativ Ha’Avot. The committee also  approved 68 new housing units in the settlement of Elazar, the construction of a hotel in the Jordan Valley with 120 rooms next to a motor park and Tourist Area, and the construction of a cemetery near an industrial zone planned for the construction south of Qalqiliya. A further plan for an educational campus in the illegal outpost of Mitzpe Danny was discussed but the subcommittee has postponed its decision to a later date.

Peace Now: “The government is building new settlement areas under the guise of “insignificant” plans that will not include housing units. This is an old trick used to establish new settlements without calling them that by name. All of these plans—the construction of a hotel and tourist complex in the Jordan Valley, an educational campus in an illegal outpost, and even a cemetery as the first stage in the construction of a new industrial zone—in actuality create new settlements. The Netanyahu government has lost all the brakes on the road to de facto annexation of the West Bank, and it continues to distance Israel from the prospects for peace and the two-state solution.”
 
Details:
Some of the programs that appear on the committee’s agenda are plans for small changes in old plans without the addition of housing units; however, there are other politically significant plans that will create new settlement areas, as enumerated below. These additional plans blatantly contradict the declared policy of the Netanyahu government itself, which committed to limiting construction to the “built-up area” within settlements, and to holding hearings on plans for new housing units only four times per year (the previous hearing was just last month, on 10 January 2018):
 
1. Plan No. 404/1/6/5 (approved for validation) – a plan for the construction of 68 new housing units in the Elazar settlement near Bethlehem. The plan was approved for deposit on 17 January and was today approved for validation. It should be noted that the land concerning this plan was once privately owned by Palestinians but was seized for military use in the 1970s and now is being used for civilian settlement.
 
2. Plan No. 405/11 (Part 91) (approved for validation) – the establishment of a new, “temporary” settlement for the families whose homes are slated to be demolished in the Nativ Ha’Avot outpost according to the High Court of Justice’s 2016 ruling. The plan was approved for deposit on 17 October 2017 and was deposited for objections one month later. Last week, the subcommittee for objections within the Higher Planning Committee discussed the objections that had been submitted by Palestinian landowners from Al-Khader and Peace Now. Following these objections, the subcommittee decided to reduce the number of housing units from 17 to 15, but chose to reject the objections and to recommend approval of the plan. In the hearing today, the committee approved the establishment of the settlement, even though the subcommittee for objections admits that the plan is not appropriate, as it explains: “Although the professional authorities do not dispute that from a planning point of view, this is an unusual plan.”

To read the Peace Now objection, click here.