For many of my American friends and former colleagues in the media, I am the Israeli they know and therefore a go-to person on Israeli affairs. They contact me with questions on Israeli politics, Jerusalem restaurants, Hebrew slang and Israeli popular culture.

Recently, their curiosity is turning into bewilderment and astonishment. Their lovingly inquisitive approach toward Israel is turning into exasperation. Their focus now is on trying to decipher Israel’s shifting character, on its changing face, on the fading vision of the Israel they grew up loving and hoped to see thriving — a state that embodies progressive, democratic, pluralistic, tolerant values.
“What the hell is going on there,” I’m often asked, “have they totally lost it?”

Oded Adomi Leshem, a doctoral student at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution is an expert on hope. One of his areas of expertise is strategies for impacting Israeli public opinion to be more supportive of peace. A new study that he recently published shows that messages of hope from Palestinians can go a long way in  fostering and enhancing hope among Jewish Israelis. Listen to our February 16^th 2016 conversation with Leshem.

Yesterday, Israeli media reported on a blockbuster report alleging that the Obama Administration is lying when it says U.S. policy regarding the labeling of products from West Bank settlements hasn't changed since 1995, and alleging that the policy reiterated last month in a statement issued by the U.S. Customs Service (CBP), in fact, represents a change in U.S. policy.

These allegations rest on a “smoking gun,” unearthed by the intrepid researchers at a right-wing Israeli non-governmental organization called the Legal Forum for Israel, in the form of a 1995 document issued by CBP.  The Legal Forum for Israel alleges that the document proves that U.S. labeling policy since 1995, according to which exports from the West Bank cannot be labeled as made in Israel, applied only to those areas of the West Bank under Palestinian self-rule in 1995. The NGO insists that the “reminder” of the policy issued by CBP in January 2016, which stated that labeling rules apply to the entire West Bank, thus clearly represents a (stealth) shift in U.S. policy.

Is this document, in fact, a smoking gun? Not in the slightest.

On January 11th, my mother, Ruth Epstein, died at the age of 100.  She was born in 1915: World War I was raging, Woodrow Wilson was president, the typhoid epidemic was spreading and Congress rejected giving women the right to vote.

Her mother spent her early years in County Cork Ireland, being part of a large group of Lithuanian Jews who hired 3 boats to take to them to America, only to learn that the "goniffs" had dropped them in English-speaking Ireland instead. Her father came from Russia, and shared numerous stories with us - none of which were ever confirmed - of his exploits with the Czar. She was engaged in the world, offended by injustice and devoted to the state of Israel until her last breath.

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

Over the weekend, Israel’s Peace Now movement published its annual report on West Bank settlement planning and construction in the past year. Following is the executive summary of Peace Now’s report, followed by a link to the full report, as well as links to several news articles about the report.

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 recent poll revealing that fully two-thirds of Israeli Jews believe it is possible to continue to occupy the West Bank yet remain truly democratic and how this finding meshes with emerging developments inside Israel; what has changed in Israel and the Middle East over the last 20 years; Is the Levant conflict and the agreement, reached last week in Munich, for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Syria the beginning of the end of ISIS; and whether there is a broader global strategic meaning to these developments.

Update: this action, now closed, ran in February 2016. 

There are bills pending in both the House and Senate that seek to reverse almost 5 decades of U.S. policy with respect to Israeli settlements.

Contact your House member tell her/him: pro-settlements is NOT pro-Israel!

All three of these bills – H. Res. 567, S. Res. 346, and S. 2474 – purport to be about countering BDS against Israel. In reality, all three are really about erasing the distinction between Israel and the occupied territories and legislate U.S. protection and support for Israeli settlements.

Your Senators need to hear from you today! Tell them: Conflating Israel with settlements is reckless and dangerous, for both the U.S. and Israel.

These bills did not emerge from a vacuum. They are part of a broader effort – supported by AIPAC and other groups – to exploit legitimate concerns about growing grassroots support for the BDS movement in order to change U.S. policy on settlements.

For more info on H. Res. 567 and S. Res. 346, see here and here.
For more info on S. 2474, see here.

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 Labor party leader Isaac “Bougie” Herzog's partial measure for the Palestinian issue and whether it is any more feasible than the two-state solution; is it better than nothing; if a possible Hamas initiative to start another Gaza war is a possibility; and where he envisages regional conflict escalation and how relevant this is for Israel and the US.

"Cotton’s bill aimed at settlements policy"

This week, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced S. 2474, purportedly in order to ensure “fair” treatment by the United States of Israel and Israeli products. In truth, this bill has nothing to do with Israel or products made in Israel. It is about one thing only: reversing nearly five decades of unbroken U.S. policy opposing settlements built by Israel in territories it occupied in the 1967 war.  

Cotton’s bill is just the latest salvo in a broader campaign, taking place both in Washington and in state capitals, to exploit concerns about BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel), in order to legitimize settlements.

Op-ed: As Im Tirtzu's supporters saw last week, the fervent quest to implicate others as traitors can quickly go too far. Israel's witch hunters need to stop now, before it's too late.

"Let there be no hope for informers", says the Shemoneh Esrei prayer. That harsh saying has many different and interesting religious interpretations, but when I was young, me and the other kids at a secular school in Tel Aviv took it literally: Bad things are in order for people who inform on their buddies. We wrote the words on a large piece of cardboard paper, and hung it on the wall next to the principal's office.

Since his office was near the restrooms, one child made a slight change to the sign, switching the Hebrew words to mean "Let there be no hope for those who pee." It created a small controversy, one of many. The school itself closed down years ago. Its restrooms now service the coffee shop that has since opened nearby. Whenever I schedule a meeting there, I make sure to give that wall a respectful visit. Not because of the restroom: Because of the informers.

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