The Trump administration yesterday dealt another blow to America’s leadership on the global stage and to the US commitment to multilateralism by withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).  

One of the chief reasons given for the US decision to withdraw is the UNHRC’s treatment of Israel. This is the second time the Trump Administration has announced it will pull the US out of a UN body over alleged anti-Israel bias. The first was the US withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), announced last year. The pullout fits a broader Trump administration pattern of abandoning multilateralism for an America First approach, evident also in its exit from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord.

Washington, DC - Touted as a means to stem the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college campuses, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA) would imperil free speech on American college campuses in order to quash constitutionally protected criticism of Israel. 

With white supremacists emboldened on campus and off, rising anti-Semitism in the United States is indeed a concern. The chief focus of the ASAA, however, is Israel-related criticism and activism on campuses – including but not limited to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The bill would cynically exploit claims of anti-Semitism to delegitimize and silence such Israel-related free speech.

Americans for Peace Now urges the Trump administration to demand that the government of Israel reverse its plan for a massive new wave of settlement construction in the West Bank.

Yesterday, Israel's Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman announced a new plan for massively expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including in areas that past Israeli governments and past US administrations agreed would become the future Palestinian state. Liberman announced plans to grant final construction approval for 2,500 new homes in settlements and preliminary approval for an additional 1,400 homes. Most of these housing units would be added to settlements that lie deep in the West Bank, in areas that according to any past peace plans would be a part of the future Palestinian state.

Americans for Peace Now calls on both Israelis and Palestinians to exercise responsibility and restraint tomorrow to avoid further bloodshed and deterioration toward another Israel-Hamas war.

Today's death toll on the Gaza border, 58 Palestinians killed and some 2,000 injured, of them eighty severely injured – seems to be the preamble for even heavier bloodshed tomorrow as Palestinians commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, which Palestinians observe as their national catastrophe.

Israel’s pre-eminent peace movement Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) and its American sister-organization Americans for Peace Now are alarmed by the negative impact of Donald Trump’s transferring of America’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem.

In a celebratory event attended by top American and Israeli officials, the Trump administration is today inaugurating its new embassy in Jerusalem.

Amid the pomp and circumstance, the destructive impact of this move appears to be lost on many in Israel and the United States.

With his decision today to place the United States in violation of the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump has taken one of the most dangerous actions of his presidency. By withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reimposing sanctions the US had waived in fulfillment of its obligations under the deal, Trump boosts hardliners in Iran who likely will push to exit the deal and restart Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Trump’s move has potentially disastrous ramifications for both America’s national security and Israel’s. It pushes the United States and its allies closer to a regional war in the Middle East and could result in Iran’s leaping toward a nuclear weapon.

Two leading U.S. human rights lawyers were denied entry into Israel Sunday, detained at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, and deported back to the United States.

The two are Columbia University’s Katherine Franke, who is the Chair of the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Center’s Executive Director Vincent Warren. The two reported that they were repeatedly questioned about their associations with groups supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. They were part of a delegation of American civil rights activists heading to Israel and the Occupied Territories to learn about human rights situation there and to meet with local activists.

Following claims by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran is violating the terms of the multilateral deal designed to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons, Americans for Peace Now insists that diplomacy, inspections, and verification are more vital now than ever. If anything, Netanyahu’s revelations regarding the history of Iran’s nuclear program highlight how essential the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is, providing the international community with a tool to curb Iran’s ambitions to build nuclear weapons.

Washington, DC – Americans for Peace Now is deeply disappointed in the decision of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to recommend favorably Mike Pompeo to become Secretary of State in a narrow party-line vote.

As organizations within the Jewish community, we stand together to reject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s baseless and ugly attack on the New Israel Fund (NIF).