Hagai Elad, executive director of Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, on a short visit to Washington DC, was hosted Friday June 17th for a roundtable briefing by the New Israel Fund. NIF is one of B’Tselem’s chief funders.

 B’Tselem, one of the most prominent human rights organizations in Israel, works tirelessly to inform the Israeli public about human rights violations of Palestinian civilians under Israel’s occupation in the West Bank.

 Elad elaborated on B’Tselem’s recent decision to stop referring complaints to the Israeli military law enforcement system, whose role is to handle cases of mistreatment of Palestinians by Israeli Defence Force soldiers. Elad explained that the whitewashing employed by the military law enforcement system has made it extremely difficult for B’Tselem to follow through with investigations: only 3% of cases filed by B’Tselem go to trial. This percentage is so small that even the number of files misplaced and lost in the system is higher.

APN sent the following written testimony to the platform drafting committees of the Republican and Democratic parties for consideration as they draft the portion of their platforms that addresses Israel and the Middle East:  

The ongoing disagreement between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Obama Administration over the terms of a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding -- expected to commit the U.S. to annual financial assistance to Israel that will be far greater than that of the current MOU ($3.1 billion annually) -- is in the news this week, as Netanyahu and friends in Congress play hardball over demands for significantly increased funding for Israeli missile defense (over and above the funding in the current MOU).

Below are two articles from the Hebrew-language Israeli press, offering views that are somewhat different from those seen in English-language reports. [Translations by Israel News Today.]

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 analysis of the shared characteristics of the Sarona and Orlando terrorist attacks; the additional unique elements of the Sarona attack of June 8 that seem to have made it so traumatic; and what Netanyahu's fourth meeting in a year with President Putin, together with the fact that he met only once with President Obama during this time tells us about Netanyahu’s strategic world view.

Written by Rabbi Jonah Geffen for APN.

Rabbi Jonah Geffen serves as the spiritual leader of Congregation Shaare Zedek. A member of the New Shul's Rabbinic Havurah, Rabbi Geffen was the National Rabbinic Director for the J Street Education Fund and spent two years as a Marshal T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side.

The Torah instructs the Israelites how to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Shavuot:

In the book of Deuteronomy (ch. 26) we read that upon entering and dwelling in the Land of Israel, the people are to take the “first of all the fruit of the ground” (v. 2), bring it to a designated place, and give it to G-d. As the priest takes the produce, the person who has brought it is to state as follows:

(26:5) And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God: ‘Arami oved avi, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in number; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous…. (10) And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the land, which Thou, O LORD, hast given me…

Arami oved avi. A seemingly simple phrase can actually be understood in two very distinct ways. Rashi, the 11th century sage sees a past of survival and near genocide. He focuses on the narrowly escaped destruction of the Jewish people. Rashi explains that when the pilgrim brings first fruits “He mentions the loving kindness of the Omnipresent saying, arami oved avi - an Aramean destroyed my father, which means: “Laban wished to exterminate the whole nation” when he pursued Jacob” (Rashi on Devarim 26:5). He emphasizes that this fate is one of which we remain at risk: this (near destruction) happened to us. Genocide is in our immediate past, because this happened to my father.

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai was interviewed today by IDF Radio, following yesterday’s shooting attack in Tel Aviv. Huldai’s words, albeit not the most eloquent, were unusual in the environment of inflammatory rhetoric that typically characterizes Israeli politicians’ reactions to terrorism. Here are selected quotes, translated into English:

“This is the most central question that we face, the question that the state of Israel and the Israeli society has been facing throughout the years: Is this a matter of fate, are we destined (to live with terrorism)? Are there things that we can do to temper and minimize the motivations of enmity between the two peoples? The leader of Egypt, where there was immense enmity, understood, that it was imperative to arrive at a certain political settlement to reduce these motivations and to channel the energies for the benefit of other issues.”

On Tuesday, June 21st, from 12-2pm, APN and New Israel Fund are co-hosting a brown-bag lunch for Yossi Alpher, who will be in Washington DC promoting his new book, “No End of Conflict: Rethinking Israel-Palestine.”

Yossi is an extremely knowledgeable and perceptive commentator on Israel and the Middle East. His new book focuses on the disastrous impact of the peace impasse with the Palestinians and the dangerous slippery slope Israel and the Palestinians are on. It zeroes in on the need for all parties, including global think tanks and policy planners as well as Diaspora Jewish communities, to adopt a new agenda that recognizes the emerging reality and asks how to manage the slippery slope (rather than a non-existent peace process) and to at least delay Israel’s descent towards the status of ugly bi-national state and international pariah. It’s a sobering, pragmatic book, which very much reflects Yossi’s analytical style. It should be required reading for all candidates for national political office in the US this November.

Please join us from noon to 2pm at the Americans for Peace Now office at 2100 M Street NW, Suite 619.

Four people were shot dead and six badly injured when two young gunmen, Palestinian terrorists, opened fire at a Tel Aviv coffee shop. One of the suspects was shot dead and the other apprehended. 

On Sunday, June 5th, Americans for Peace Now joined the Progressive Coalition at this year's Celebrate Israel Parade. Although the weather was damp, spirits were not as we joined with T'ruah, Partners for Progressive Israel, and New Israel Fund to show the world that there is a strong and vibrant progressive community supporting Israel and thousands of Israelis working for a just and peaceful society.

Pictures below