Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem
Sunday, March 29 at 2:00 PM
Rabbi Alana Suskin spoke about the prospects for peace following Israel's elections, the work of Peace Now in Israel and what the challenges are at this time, and what, as American Jews, our role can be in helping Israel achieve peace and security with her neighbors
APN's Ori Nir will be speaking on a panel discussion with Gabriel Scheinmann at Goucher Hillel, 7pm on March 25th
There were only a handful of Israeli settlers beyond the Green Line in 1968, when Lyndon Johnson
became the first American president to express opposition to settlements in the West Bank. Now, despite protest
from every subsequent administration, there are more than 350,000 Israelis living in the West Bank and 200,000
in East Jerusalem. President Johnson’s prediction that settlements would “prejudice a peace settlement” has come
true, as the dramatic rise of the settler movement—in both numbers and political power—has complicated repeated
efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
In this panel at J Street's 2015 conference, APN's Lara Friedman, together with other experts on American and European policy explored what steps can be taken to halt further settlement growth and entrenchment, and discuss the political and policy implications of American and European initiatives—from discouragement of Israeli settlement subsidies to the labeling or boycott of settlement goods.
Watch to see Lara Friedman, together with Michael Cohen of the Boston Globe and Alon Sachar of the US State Department, with Steve Krubiner, J Street's Chief of staff, moderating. Aviva Meyer, Deputy Chair of APN, introduces the participants. Session begins at 10:35.
This week, Alpher discusses lessons learned by Israel's center-left following its defeat to Netanyahu; Low likelihood of a Netanyahu-Herzog unity government; The state of US-Israel relations following Netanyahu's statements on the two-state solution and on Arab citizens' voting.
Update: this action, now closed, ran in March 2015.
The recent Israeli elections definitively unmasked the real Benjamin Netanyahu.
On March 18, 2015, the day after Israel's general elections, Israeli political expert Yossi Alpher
was APN's guest on a briefing call analyzing the election results.
Washington, DC – Israel’s general election results are
a disappointment for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans. They will undoubtedly make our objective even harder to
attain.
Pre-election polls and the overall atmosphere in Israel preceding the
elections provided us with hope for a government that would embrace the policies and values that we support.
It now seems like Israel’s next government will provide us with more of the same, if
not worse.
Moments like this are not new to us. Yes, they disappoint us, but we do not succumb to the disappointment. We know
that our fight to secure peace for Israel and its neighbors is a long-term fight. We care too deeply about
Israel’s future as a democracy and a Jewish state to cede the struggle over Israel’s future character to the
bullies and the bigots, the racists and the ultra-nationalists. We know that the only way for Israel to be loyal to
the vision of its founders, to be both a secure, morally sound Jewish state and a democracy, is to end the
occupation and reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians and the Arab world. Together with our Israeli sister
organization, Peace Now, we will therefore redouble our efforts to advance this objective, serving as a bulwark
against the rejectionists and the zealots, true to our core values.
This week, Alpher discusses what happened in these elections*; what the next government is likely to look like; how Netanyahu engineered such a dramatic come-from-behind victory, despite the polls giving Labor (Zionist Camp) an advantage almost until election day; whether there are winners here, besides Netanyahu; how Herzog and Lapid are likely to respond to their setbacks, and what “losers” on the right who are nevertheless likely to join the coalition are going to do; how to explain the phenomenon of Israel's seeming to be set on a right-wing course, with no end in sight; and assuming Netanyahu now forms a fairly cohesive right-wing coalition, what are the main challenges it will face.
On March 13, 2015, APN's Ori Nir was interviewed on Warren Olney's NPR nationally syndicated show,
To the Point, to discuss Israel's upcoming elections.