Americans for Peace Now welcomes the statement issued by the European Union's foreign ministers, which states that no European agreements with Israel would be applicable in the Occupied Territories and reiterating the EU's policy of labeling products made in West Bank Israeli settlements.
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
Last week the High Court rejected a petition submitted by landowners of the village of Nahla, located south of
Bethlehem, and approved the declaration of 1,341 of their lands as state land. This petition was the last legal
obstacle that stood in the way of the government's plan to establish a new settlement with thousands of housing
units east of the separation barrier in Givat Eitam. The plan, known as "E2," has disastrous consequences on the
two state solution as it blocs Bethlehem from the south and cuts the southern part of the West Bank in half, quite
similarly to the plan known as E1.
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
Two important settlement developments in this update:
1. Appointed Attorney General proposes to confiscate private Palestinian lands for
settlements
2. A new settlement established south of Bethlehem
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
94% of the donations of 9 well-known right-wing NGOs are nontransparent
In light of the NGO bill, a Peace Now study examining the funding sources and transparency of 9 right-wing pro-settler NGOs finds that 94% of the donations to these organizations in the years 2006-2013 were nontransparent, meaning that there is no possibility to identify their original donor. The study also finds that the majority of the funding to the organizations examined originated from private individuals abroad, arriving mainly through U.S. organizations with a tax-deductible donations status. Many other millions of shekels originated from Israeli taxpayers' money through government ministries and an local municipalities.
Washington, DC – Americans for Peace Now (APN) is alarmed by new evidence, exposed today by our Israeli sister organization Peace Now, indicating that the Israeli government is planning massive new settlement construction in the West Bank, including in an area known as “E-1” adjacent to East Jerusalem. Settlement construction in E-1 would likely be a death blow to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has therefore been consistently and vehemently opposed by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and by the international community.
The new evidence, some 200 pages Peace Now obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that for the past year, Israel’s Ministry of Housing has been actively working outside of the public's eye to advance plans for 55,548 new homes in West Bank settlements.
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
A Settlement Watch Report
Americans for Peace Now (APN) is alarmed and appalled by the Israeli Cabinet's approval today of a bill aimed at intimidating and silencing progressive Israeli non-profit organizations such as our sister-organization Peace Now (Shalom Achshav), Israel's preeminent peace movement.
The bill, introduced by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the far-right Jewish Home party compels representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs, or non-profit organizations), which receive funding from foreign governments, to wear special tags on their clothing whenever visiting the Knesset, and to provide details about their foreign funding in any communication with elected officials.
Americans for Peace Now (APN) joins its Israeli sister organization Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) in condemning the current wave of vicious right-wing attacks on leaders of Israeli progressive nonprofits, on peace and human rights organizations, and even on Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin.
This week, the incitement against Israeli progressives reached new heights, with the launch of a new campaign by Im Tirtzu, an extremist, McCarthyite Israeli group. This campaign also marks a new low in Im Tirtu’s campaign of incitement against the Left – a remarkable feat given that Im Tirtzu has for some time been plumbing the depths of incitement, including with a vile campaign targeting the New Israel Fund, featuring Der Sturmer-style images of a veteran Israeli Knesset member on whose head they had drawn horns. Im Tirtzu’s new campaign – which includes a video, an ad running in Israeli media, and a website – targets our colleagues in the Israeli human rights and civil society movement, labeling them foreign “plants” and suggesting that they support terror against Israel. The imagery of the campaign calls to mind militant anti-abortion websites in the United States that, until blocked by U.S. courts, included details and photos of targeted individuals and then placed an “X” over the faces of the targets that had been killed.
News from Peace Now's (Israel) Settlement Watch:
The main purpose of this declaration is to retroactively legalize construction in the settlement of Karnei Shomron, and to allow it to expand (see photos). Palestinians landowners have already submitted an appeal to the Civil Administration against the declaration. Although the declaration is small in size and is adjacent to an already built area of a settlement, it is still a clear step taken by the Israeli Government which is taking over land and handing it over to the settlers.
Americans for Peace Now (APN) applauds Secretary of State John Kerry for his courageous speech Saturday in which he urged the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians to act now to prevent the collapse of the two-state option and to prevent the emergence of a bi-national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.