Today is Giving Tuesday, and I am writing to ask you to consider donating to Americans for Peace Now and to Israel’s Peace Now movement, two organizations that work together to advance the liberal values championed by the founders of both the U.S. and Israel.

I just returned from Israel after an exciting week with APN’s annual Israel study tour.

During my stay there, I had dozens of conversations with progressive Israeli friends. All of them – in one way or another, sometimes basking in schadenfreude – welcomed me to their club.

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 what we have learned from Israel's recent emergence from a week of battling massive forest fires; climate change as a national security issue for Israel; "pyro-terrorism;" the state of Israel’s emergency services; the strategic significance of all this regional and international aid to Israel for the fires; and how significant is Sunday's IDF clash with an ISIS force on the Golan.

Jewish and Arab students celebrated “Tolerance Day” when we visited Bridge Over the Wadi, the bilingual elementary school in the Israeli Arab town of Kufr Kara. This extraordinary school is one of a handful statewide, in which Jewish and Arab kids study and socialize in Hebrew and Arabic, learn about each other’s culture and narrative, and build common ground.

“How is ‘Tolerance Day’ different from any other day here,” I asked the school’s principal, Dr. Hassan Aghbaria. “That’s a good point,” he laughed, “we teach and experience tolerance every day, year round.”

Dr. Aghbaria’s school is one of six bilingual schools throughout Israel, run by Hand in Hand, the Center for Jewish-Arab education in Israel. The one in Kufr Kara is the only place in Israel where Jewish parents take their children, every day, to a school in an Arab community.

To understand how unusual these schools are, one must realize how segregated Israel’s school system is, and how segregated Israeli society is. Jewish and Arab students attend separate schools, where separate curricula are taught. Jewish and Arab citizens hardly socialize. They hardly get together. “What we have in this school is a virtual environment. Everything outside is segregated, while everything inside our school is integrated,” Principal Aghbaria told participants in APN’s Israel study tour who visited his school mid-November. The challenge, he said, is to extend this environment beyond the school, beyond Kufr Kara, and beyond the five elementary school years that students attend.

With the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, speculation is running high in regard to Washington’s policy on Israeli settlement construction and the future of the Middle East peace process.

While many unpredictable variables are in place, one thing is certain—the viability of the two-state solution is at stake. After 50 years of occupation and as the point of no return grows closer, Trump’s administration is set to carry an even heavier responsibility on its shoulders than previous U.S. administrations.

When it comes to Trump’s settlement policy, I argue that instinctual assumptions of reckless Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank during his presidency may be misleading. Unfortunately, the likely alternative also contains substantial risks for the two-state solution.

Celebrating Trump’s election, the Israeli right-wing was single-minded. It was not worried about democratic values, nor was it concerned with pluralism or for the American Jewish community. Rather, it expected that starting from January 20, all restraints on settlement construction would be removed. Without restraints from either Trump or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continued settlement developments will create irreversible damage to the two-state solution.

These days you may be feeling shell-shocked, angry, and depressed. We certainly are: As we observe Washington’s new political landscape, we acknowledge that advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agenda, based on a two-state solution, will be difficult. We have long said that supporting Israel means supporting peace. This was never merely a slogan. Compromising core Jewish values in order to avoid criticizing Israel comes at a high price – both for Israel and for Jews in America. Jewish values are incompatible with occupation. We will not give up – and you must not give up, either.

Israeli superstar and peace activist David Broza has never given up. He has performed in anti-war demonstrations despite warnings that political activity would destroy his career. He has fought with all the tools he had - his music, his songs, his voice. And he is still fighting. His album, East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem, is a collaborative project with Palestinian musicians focusing on hope and peace. Active in Peace Now for decades, he is proud to partner with Americans for Peace Now, to offer you the album and the film — a CD and DVD set — for a donation of $36 or more. All but $15 of your donation is tax-deductible. This #BlackFriday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, support our work in this critical moment - and get a little hope for a friend (or yourself). Hope is not just something you have, it’s something you make.

APN's Lara Friedman spoke on November 23rd  on the Churches for Middle East Peace Panel: Prospects for Peace: Obama's Last Stand and Opportunities in the New Administration

The panel was moderated by CMEP Executive Director Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, on the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace in President Obama's remaining months in office and the opportunities and challenges moving forward in the next administration. The panel will include Lara Friedman (Americans for Peace Now), Matthew Duss (Foundation for Middle East Peace) and Dr. James Zogby (Arab American Institute).

Watch the video here.

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has set off reverberations around the world. For many, the alarm bells could not be ringing any louder. A campaign that featured anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment, and was supported by a legion of online anti-Semites, is now transitioning to an administration that makes many Americans justifiably fearful.

Steve Bannon, the former editor of the right-wing Breitbart News who has trafficked in conspiracy theories, race-baiting, and anti-Semitism, has been appointed as President-elect Trump’s chief strategist and counselor. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, an avowed Islamophobe, has been appointed as national security advisor. Senator Jeff Sessions, an anti-immigrant crusader who has made numerous racially insensitive and derogatory remarks, will become Trump’s attorney general. And Trump is considering the appointment of secretaries of defense and state who would seek to destroy the Iran deal, jeopardizing U.S. and Israeli security in the process.

Help APN fight back against right-wing extremists in the U.S. and Israel – and keep hope for peace alive

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 how the Levant is reacting as President-elect Trump announces key appointments; the reaction in Israel to Trump’s indication of the far-right direction he plans to follow; the striking exception to the pro-settler sentiments and atmosphere encouraged by the Trump victory; whether the Trump victory atmosphere will affect the upcoming Elor Azaria verdict; a seeming fixation with the Mediterranean and what can be learned from it.

(published 10/21/16 at Haaretz - here)

Last Friday, the UN Security Council held a meeting organized under the title “Illegal Israeli Settlements: A Threat to Peace and the Two-State Solution.” Americans for Peace Now proudly took part in that event, offering testimony grounded in love for Israel and expressing an unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and its survival as a democracy and a state rooted in the Jewish values expressed in its Declaration of Independence. Of course, that testimony also dealt with the settlements, explaining why they are detrimental to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace and therefore to Israel’s national security interests.

Many people, both inside and outside Israel, were happy to see a pro-Israel, pro-two-state organization delivering a nuanced, fact-based presentation at this event. Others were less enthused, most notably Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, who accused APN of participating in “diplomatic terror” against Israel. Likewise, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to call APN’s arguments “deluded.” And now, in this newspaper, the former head of the Union of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, criticized APN’s testimony as a “mistake” – not for the facts it conveyed or its tone, but for the timing and location of its delivery.