Alarmed by reports that the Trump Administration is considering immediate action to move the US
Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Americans for Peace Now is calling on President Trump to eschew this
dangerous action.
From Peace Now's Settlement Watch:
The past few months have seen unprecedented developments in the settlements, causing severe damage to the
chances of a two-state solution. Accelerated population growth, approvals of housing units in the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, promotion of bypass roads, advancements of Knesset bills, home demolitions and changes in legal
interpretations - all lead to a situation of de-facto annexation of area C. Without any official
declarations, the Israeli government is preventing the viability and contiguity of a future Palestinian state,
while treating lands in area C as its own. The implications of the abovementioned developments are far-reaching for
Israel, the Palestinians and the region as a whole.
Peace Now's new report summarizes key developments of the last several months and analyzes their impact,
individually and together, on the viability of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and the possibility for a two
state solution.
Even with the lack of a final status agreement in sight, it is our duty today to struggle in order to prevent
silent annexation efforts and to assure the possibility of a two state solution on the ground.
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 Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely's disparaging remarks about American Jews; pessimism regarding the likelihood that the Trump administration’s anticipated Israeli-Palestinian peace plan will succeed; and the international legal backdrop to the Netanyahu government's refusal to negotiate with a Palestinian unity government and Russian FM Lavrov's declaration that Iranian forces are in Syria legally.
Americans for Peace Now is shocked and deeply saddened by the mass-casualty attack on worshipers at a mosque in Sinai, Egypt. Our condolences to the families and the people of Egypt, and wishes of full recovery to those injured.
Alarmed by the prospects of the Trump administration ordering the closure of the Palestinian mission in Washington, Americans for Peace Now (APN) is calling on the administration and Congress to allow the Palestine Liberation Organization to keep its office open.
2017
Like many activists in the peace camp, I’m occasionally afflicted with “hope fatigue” as I watch the Israeli government give up on the pursuit of peace.
When I think back to the high hopes we had for the Oslo Accords, the Camp David Summit, the Clinton Parameters, and
the Quartet’s Road Map, a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems more remote today than ever
before.
I can’t help feeling distressed that both the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have permitted the extremists on both sides to dominate the political agenda. My despair deepens as I watch Israelis gobble up land in the West Bank and take over Palestinian property in East Jerusalem that’s supposed to be subject to negotiation in a future peace agreement between the two parties.
But the staff and supporters of Americans for Peace Now—and the young leaders and volunteers at Shalom Achshav, our sister organization in Israel—refuse to succumb to hopelessness and fatigue. They just keep plugging away. And because of them and their work, I keep getting reenergized and recommitted to the struggle to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Daniel Seidemann, director of Terrestrial Jerusalem, is one
of the world’s leading experts on Jerusalem, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and Jerusalem-related requirements
for a future Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
On November 14th 2017, APN hosted Seidemann for a discussion about the current situation in Jerusalem and the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
In a speech at the Zionist Organization of America’s annual dinner, David Friedman showed, once again, why he should be removed from his post as US Ambassador to Israel.
The shamefulness of Friedman’s appearance stems in part from the despicable company with which he associated himself. Featured prominently at the ZOA gala were the likes of Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka. In his speech, Bannon proclaimed himself to be a “Christian Zionist” even as he employed common anti-Semitic dog whistles, like characterizing his opponents as the “permanent globalist class.” Bannon received enthusiastic cheers from the ZOA crowd, who represent the far-Right fringe of American Jewry, and was “proudly” welcomed by the organization’s president, Morton Klein. Sebastian Gorka, formerly a prominent Trump adviser who The Forward has identified as a member of extremist Right-wing Hungarian organization Vitezi Rend, was seated at the head table. Other notable attendees included Sean Spicer, who famously dubbed concentration camps “Holocaust centers” and claimed that Hitler did not use chemical weapons against his own people, conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, and alt-right gadfly Laura Loomer.
As contemptible as the company Ambassador Friedman kept at the ZOA fête was, it was his own remarks after receiving an award for “outstanding diplomacy” that illustrate – once again – why he should be fired.
Apparently, no one has told Friedman that ambassadors are diplomats who represent the interests of the countries they serve, rather than engage in partisan attacks. Friedman used his platform to attack former President Barack Obama, referring to “the dark days of last December” when Obama committed “perhaps the greatest betrayal of Israel by a sitting president in American history.” This is a patently false smear, as APN pointed out when President Obama took the courageous decision not to exercise the US veto against UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the status of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territory and urged countries to maintain a distinction in all their dealings between Israel within the Green Line and West Bank settlements. On the watch of every other American president since 1967, the US abstained on or even voted for multiple Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. In eight years, Obama did it once.
One would think no one should have to tell Ambassador Friedman that his job is to represent the United States. Yet, Friedman seems confused on this point. He had no trouble rehearsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top three foreign policy priorities (hint: Iran, Iran, and Iran). And Friedman took pains to brag that “there is no daylight between the United States and Israel” when it comes to Bibi’s anti-Iran agenda. By contrast, there was no discussion about an American foreign policy agenda or strategy, no indication of what a Trump peace plan might look like, and certainly no embrace of the two-state solution, to which Friedman has been doctrinally opposed.
Sign our petition calling on President Trump to endorse the two-state solution.
A long-term supporter of settlements, Friedman declined to utter this word in his remarks. Using the Biblical terminology of Judea and Samaria when referring to the West Bank, Friedman spoke of “building a house in the Samarian village of Halamish” as a quotidian act. In fact, this settlement deep in the occupied West Bank near Ramallah and others like it threaten the prospects of Palestinian statehood and thus a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At an event at which prominent figures with ties to the alt-right were well-represented, Friedman used the Holocaust to establish beyond question the pro-Israel bona fides of himself and others in the Trump Administration. Because Jared Kushner is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, “he doesn’t just understand the importance of the US-Israel relationship, he feels it profoundly within his heart,” said Friedman. And Friedman began his speech with the story of his 15-year-old daughter who had just sent the family a picture of herself on a class trip to Auschwitz, wrapped in an Israeli flag. Said Friedman, “No picture better represents who we are, what we are, and what we are fighting for.” Just who is the “we” to whom Friedman refers? Is it the American people, who are not only Jews, of course, but people of indigenous, Italian, Irish, German, and (dare we say) Arab heritage?
In focusing on the outrageous presence of Bannon and his cronies at the ZOA gala, it would be easy enough to miss the significance of Ambassador Friedman’s appearance and remarks there. That would be a mistake.
APN is proud to lead the way in calling on President Trump to fire him. Join us.
Click here to tell President Trump to fire Ambassador Friedman.
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 whether, with developments in Lebanon and Syria, the Middle East is about to boil over; the Syria agreement and the gap between what it offers Israel and what Israel wants; whether the Saudis are inciting Israel to attack Hezbollah; whether the Saudi-Iranian confrontation is spilling over into the Palestinian arena; IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Palestinian Territories Major General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai's warning to Islamic Jihad that it not attack Israel; and the bottom line.