This photo of me at age seven, sitting on a Jeep taken by Israeli soldiers during the Six Day War, was taken in June 1967, just outside my home in Jerusalem, a couple of days after the war ended. During the weeks and months that followed, my family, like many Israelis, rushed to explore the liberated land of the Bible.

In our old Susita, an Israeli-manufactured clunker with a Ford engine and a fiberglass body, we traveled to Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, and the Judea desert. And through the torn-down wall that separated West Jerusalem from East Jerusalem, we walked to the Old City. We pressed prayers into the cracks of the Western Wall and climbed the Mount of Olives. My parents, who had both been Bible teachers, put the scenery in a historical context. We felt that our country was finally whole.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is grabbing positive headlines these days: first with reports that he wants to go back to negotiations with the Palestinians, and second with reports that he has expressed support for the Arab Peace Initiative (API). Or more accurately, he told EU Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini that he wants negotiations with the Palestinians over settlement blocs, and he told the press that he likes the "general idea" of better relations between Israel in the Arab world. Or, in essence, twice recently Netanyahu called the world stupid.

How stupid? Netanyahu's tactics are so shameless that they bring to mind a bit performed by Richard Pryor in his 1982 performance, "Live on the Sunset Strip." Pryor recounts how his wife caught him with another woman. He tells her: "I don't care what you think you saw... Are you gonna believe me or your lying eyes?"

On the 48th anniversary of the Six Day War, please join APN for a briefing call with journalist and historian Tom Segev, the author of 1967 – Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East. Segev will talk about his research concerning the war and its aftermath, and will discuss its lingering impact on Israel, almost half a century later.

Tom Segev is an Israeli journalist and historian, the award-winning author of seven books, and a longtime columnist with Israel’s leading newspaper, Haaretz. His comprehensive study of the circumstances that preceded the 1967 war and the reality that it had created was praised by reviewers and scholars worldwide.

Overcoming the Obstacles to a Two-State Solution

Ori Nir will be speaking at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at American University, on Thursday, June 4, 10am

Although the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is today a matter of consensus worldwide, it seems increasingly difficult to attain. What are the main obstacles for achieving it, and how can they be overcome?

Americans for Peace Now today called on the Obama Administration to reject Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's cynical call for negotiations over settlement blocs and to instead prepare itself to lead or co-lead a resolution in the United Nations Security Council laying out clear parameters for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, consistent with longstanding U.S. policy. APN President and CEO Debra DeLee issued the following statement:

This week, Alpher discusses what was the new Netanyahu government thinking, trying to introduce segregated buses in the West Bank; President Obama’s critical remarks to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and at a DC synagogue regarding Netanyahu’s attitude toward Israeli Arabs and his signaling that there would be no peace process initiative in the near future, as well as the US taking Israel’s side at a UN nuclear treaty review conference; whether we should categorize the Pope’s Middle East diplomacy as a form of Europe-based pressures; and US and UK proposals to deploy western ground forces to augment weak and fragmented Iraqi forces against IS - are there alternatives?

Americans for Peace Now (APN) commends President Obama for eloquently articulating the strong bond between core American values and progressive Jewish values, and for expressing his frustration with the growing gap between these values and those that are increasingly manifesting themselves in Israeli public life.

Israel’s new government should be seen as a call to action for anyone who cares about Israel’s future, about its character and about its wellbeing. This call applies not only to citizens of the state of Israel, but also – maybe even mainly – to those who are looking at Israel from outside, and, as outsiders, are best positioned to put a mirror before the Israeli public, to serve as a reality check.

The reality is that this government distinctly represents and expresses what the enlightened world, including progressive Americans who care deeply about Israel, have in recent years grown to resent about Israel’s conservative political elite.

The reality is that this political elite, characterized by a combination of jingoistic nationalism and religious conservatism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, intolerance of dissent and disrespect for basic democratic principles, represents a set of values that is diametrically opposed to the values that most Americans, particularly young Americans, hold dear. More to the point, the reality is that this combination of reactionary beliefs, often zealously proclaimed in the name of Judaism, is the very antithesis of what most American Jews define as “Jewish values.”

On Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah and the Ten Commandments.

In the spirit of this holiday, let us all remember that the two-state solution we seek is anchored in a two-slate imperative…

Americans for Peace Now wishes you a Hag Sameah, happy Shavuot.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to APN on this holiday, to help us work even harder to advance the two-state solution – the only way to achieve long-lasting peace, security, stability and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Thank you from all of us at APN.

Join APN's Ori Nir and Walid Issa - Israeli and Palestinian voices dedicated to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The event, hosted by J Street U Northwestern, is part of APN's "Peace Partners" series.