Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu condemned the UN Security Council Resolution introduced late Wednesday by Jordan as a unilateral move that would result in “a Hamas takeover of Judea and Samaria.”  Foreign Minister Leiberman blasted the resolution as an act of aggression against Israel.  Strategic Affairs and Intelligence Minister Steinitz branded it an “act of war.”

What can one conclude except that this resolution is manifestly anti-Israel?  It must, for example, reject Israel’s right to exist and endorse a full Palestinian “right of return.”  It must deny any Israeli or Jewish claims to Jerusalem and require Israel to leave its security in the hands of its erstwhile enemies.  And no doubt it includes text justifying violence and terror against Israel.  More broadly, this resolution must seek to impose on Israel a “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along lines defined unilaterally by the Palestinians.  How could Israel respond to such a text with anything less than outrage?   

Netanyahu, Leiberman, Steinitz, and others critics of the effort must be hoping that people won’t bother to actually read the text of the resolution, because, in fact, it is nothing of the sort. 

APN today called on the Obama Administration to support action in the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel-Palestine that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  APN president and CEO Debra DeLee commented:

This week, Alpher discusses how the momentum for recognition of a Palestinian state is building up in Europe and at the United Nations and how this affects Israel, particularly at election time; emerging political dynamics as regards Israel's elections; the role of violence in Israeli and American security tactics; whether Palestinian Authority threats to sever security coordination with Israel over the Abu Ein incident are credible.

Ahead of the 2015 elections, American Jews should influence Israel's future character – not through their pocketbooks, but by asserting their vision of how a Jewish, democratic state should look.

For American Jews who care about Israel’s future as a democracy, as a Jewish nation-state that champions Jewish values, as a Jewish homeland they can be proud of, Israel’s early elections are a call for action.

The next 96 days leading up to the March 17 elections offer American Jews a rare opportunity to influence Israel's future character – not through their pocketbooks, but by asserting their vision of what a Jewish, democratic state should look like.

On December 7, 2014 the High Court ruled on Peace Now’s petition number 7891/07 which demanded to carry out Central Command’s delimitation orders and evacuate six West Bank outposts. High Court President, Asher Grunis, ruled that the state must evacuate structures in the outposts located on private Palestinian land, but that there is no place for the court to intervene in the state's prioritization of delimitation orders enforcement and did not oblige the state to evacuate structures located on state lands or survey lands, in light of the state's intention to legalize them.

I know that the headlines are terrible, and that people are throwing up their hands and feeling defeated. "The two-state solution is hopeless," they say. "We will never have peace."

But... consider:

On December 8, 2014, APN hosted Akiva Eldar of al-Monitor.com, the former chief political writer of Israel's Haaretz, for a briefing call on the Israeli political scene following the decision taken by Israel's political leaders to hold early elections in March 2015.

Israeli elections

This week, Alpher discusses why the new Knesset elections have been set so soon; who Netanyahu's rivals on the right are; whether the left-center is incapable of mounting a challenge; what is happening with Yesh Atid; what will happen to the Arab parties, with a new threshold law that requires a party to gain a minimum of four mandates; and whether the bombings of Damascus airport and a second site at Dimas near Damascus that Syria accused Israel of on Sunday have any connection to Israel's elections.

Watch "After Gaza: Getting Back to the Peace Process,"  moderated by APN's Director of Policy and Government Relations, Lara Friedman. The panel  features  Shlomo Ben-Ami, Amb. Daniel Kurtzer, Khalil Shikaki, and Khaled Elgindy at MEI's 68th Annual Conference, "Navigating the Storm: The Middle East in 2015."