Americans for Peace Now (APN) mourns the passing of Elaine Hoffman, a longtime senior member of its Board of Directors, a staunch advocate for peace for Israel, a devoted leader of Los Angeles' Jewish community, and a longtime political activist. (Picture: Elaine with Senator George Mitchell at the APN Yitzhak Rabin Peace Award Event).

APN's President and CEO Debra DeLee said: "The APN family lost an important member. We all admired Elaine and were inspired by her commitment to public life, to our community and to a peaceful, progressive Israel.

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 Minister of Defense Lieberman's response to last week's declaration by President Obama that the Israeli security establishment confirms that Iran is complying with the nuclear agreement, and why such needless confrontation over a done deal; how is Israel dealing with Hamas' announcement of two weeks ago that it would participate in West Bank and Gaza municipal elections scheduled for October 8, and how does Palestinian leader Abu Mazen hope to win the elections that he himself initiated; and the Hamas/World Vision story and why it is significant.

PRINCETON – Those who lead Israel’s defense establishment often come to consider peace with the Palestinians a necessary condition for the country’s security. Being tasked with maintaining the territories Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967 evidently causes the military and security brass to support political measures that would end the occupation. And yet the government shows no interest in pursuing a permanent settlement.

To appreciate this divide, consider the late Meir Dagan, who served as Major General of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and then as Director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Several years ago, I sat on a panel at a conference in Jerusalem convened by then-Israeli President Shimon Peres. To my right sat Dagan, who had just completed eight years as head of Mossad; to my left sat Dore Gold, a former academic and former Israeli ambassador.

The two men held very different views about how best to guarantee Israel’s security, and it is worth recapitulating their respective arguments.

Gold argued that returning to pre-1967 armistice lines would leave Israel without “defensible borders.” He insisted that Israel could guard against threats from the east only if it maintained a military presence in the West Bank and controlled the Jordan River – which runs along the border separating Jordan from Israel and the West Bank.

Dagan countered that the military’s role is to safeguard Israel’s borders, regardless of where those borders are drawn. While the IDF would certainly prefer to operate with the strategic advantages that holding more territory can confer, it would fulfill its mission under whatever conditions the Israeli government set for it.

But Dagan went further...
Read more...

For the sixth in a series of ads from APN, this week's message is from Tzipi Livni.

From her origins in a prominent right-wing Zionist family, Livni has become one of the most prominent political figures advocating for a two-state solution.

She is widely considered one of the most the most powerful women in Israeli politics, and has served in eight different cabinet positions throughout her career, setting the record for most government roles ever held by an Israeli woman. In 2011, she was named one of "150 Women Who Shake the World" by Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and for three years, Forbes magazine placed her on its "List of 100 Most Powerful Women."

You can support additional ads by donating here.

 News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:

This morning the Army Radio reported that the committee established by the government to find a solution of the illegal outposts issue recently submitted a legal opinion to the Attorney General according to which it is possible to use the absentees’ property in the case of the illegal outpost of Amona. The committee’s idea is to take private Palestinian lands in the nearby plot to where Amona is today, whose owners do not live in the West Bank, and lease them to the settlers of Amona through a lease that will be renewed every three years. This way, the settlers of the illegal outpost, which must be evacuated by the end of December due to a High Court ruling, will be able to live close by to where the outpost is located today. AG Avichai Mendelblit will soon announce whether he intends to accept or reject the legal opinion.
 
Peace Now: "Accepting the legal opinion of the committee and thereby violating private property rights in the Occupied Territories will constitute the crossing of a red line. The acceptance of the legal opinion would have dire consequences on a future peace agreement as it could lead to the establishment of dozens of new settlements and to the multiplying of the land taken up by settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli government cannot justify the stealing of private lands of absentees only to please the demands of settlers who themselves stole private lands against the law."

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 the Palestinian leadership's request to the Arab League to support its initiative to sue the British government is serious; whether minister for social equality Gila Gamliel's declaration that she is promoting a project to demand the restitution of property left behind in Arab countries by Jews who fled in the 1950s is an equally fruitless attempt to reverse the course of history; and why Netanyahu last week “apologized” to the Israeli Arab community and called upon it to “participate in Israeli society, en masse.”

The fifth in a series of security validators for APN is Condoleezza Rice, an American political scientist and diplomat. Rice served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the first female African-American to hold that position, as well as the second African American secretary of state, and the second female secretary of state. Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term, making her the first woman to serve in that position. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford University where she served as Provost from 1993 to 1999. Rice also served on the National Security Council as the Soviet and Eastern Europe Affairs Advisor to President George H.W. Bush during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification.

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 it will mean if Netanyahu’s ruling coalition's move in the Knesset to apply Israeli law to the settlement of Maaleh Adumim is approved; if last week's Saudi delegation visiting Israel, led by a retired general, was a breakthrough; whether, in the aftermath of the abortive military coup in Turkey, President Erdogan's purging of tens of thousands of ostensibly disloyal officers, educators and civil servants is an Islamist counter-revolution; how this development could affect Turkey domestically and how it could affect Israel and the region; and if Netanyahu, similar to what Erdogan is doing in Turkey, is attempting to clamp down on media.

Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub, LCSW serves as Rabbinic Director of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services in New York City, working with individuals who are ill,  bereaved, or survivors of trauma, through Jewish spiritual counseling, support groups, workshops and printed materials.  He has been deeply involved in human rights advocacy, Jewish-Muslim relations, interfaith exchanges, and the nexus of spiritual resources and mental health for over thirty years.

This week’s  Torah portion is named for a man –Pinhas-  who represents both heroism and horror in our tradition. It is, to say the least, complicated in terms of role models for leadership. In contrast, Moshe,  recognized as the greatest of the Jewish people’s leaders, and who in this week’s portion is engaged in the search for his impending replacement,  ‘advises’ the Almighty regarding his successor and in so doing, offers a prescription for a good leader. 

And Moshe spoke to God, saying, Let the God of the spirits of all flesh set a man over the congregation, who may go out before them, and who may go in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in; that the congregation of God be not as sheep that have no shepherd. (Numbers 27:15-17)

Moshe’s counsel as set out in these three verses and elucidated by a number of Torah commentaries, points to the leadership challenges the state of Israel faces at present, with a current leadership that has  failed to take the actions that would result in the much desired goal of security and peace for Israel, and for the Palestinians as well.