Americans for Peace Now joins its Israeli sister organization Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) in strongly condemning the Israeli government's decision to advance plans for more settlement construction in the West Bank.

APN believes that any settlement construction in the occupied territories is unacceptable. Today's announcement by Prime Minister Netanyahu is particularly offensive and deserves strong condemnation by anyone who cares about a future negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

What we saw on Capitol Hill yesterday was horrific: both the violent actions of the hooligan mob, and Donald Trump’s incitement to take such actions.  

As an organization that advocates Israeli-Palestinian peace, the US sister-organization of Israel’s peace movement, we at Americans for Peace Now are well acquainted with political violence and with the incitement that irresponsible politicians use to fuel it.

Americans for Peace Now congratulates Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the incoming Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

When progressive American Jews, including our organization, protested the anti-democratic, discriminatory Nation State Law passed by the Knesset two years ago, Israeli officials and members of their US echo-chamber said we were overreacting to legislation that merely stated the obvious.

When we warned that this law would serve as a platform for deeper discrimination of non-Jewish Israelis and for further anti-peace policies, they reassured us that the law is declarative in nature, that it merely reiterates Israel’s being the national homeland of the Jewish people.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) strongly condemns an initiative by four Republican Senators to label products made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as being “Made in Israel.” 

The four, Tom Cotton (AR), Kelly Loeffler (GA), Marco Rubio (FL), and Ted Cruz (TX), sent a letter Monday to outgoing President Trump, with copies to the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, and Homeland Security, urging Trump to allow “Israeli goods produced in Judea and Samaria to be labeled as ‘Made in Israel.’” Judea and Samaria is the biblical term used by Israeli religious nationalists and their supporters to refer to the West Bank.

The resumption of security and civilian cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and the government of Israel is good news for Israel, the Palestinians, and all stakeholders in the conflict.

Following media reports that outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intends to visit an Israeli settlement on an upcoming trip to the region this week, APN urges Sec. Pompeo to cancel this detrimental gesture.

The seventy-day transition period to a new administration is not the time to break with decades of bipartisan American policy and set diplomatically consequential precedents. An official visit by a US secretary of State to a West Bank settlement – the first ever – is damaging in several ways.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) sends its deepest sympathy to the Erekat family and to the Palestinian people as they mourn the death of Dr. Saeb Erekat, the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, and the former chief Palestinian negotiator in peace talks with Israel.

A proud Palestinian patriot, Erekat was one of the leading voices in support of a diplomatically negotiated peace agreement with Israel. He often noted that no other Palestinian diplomat had spent more hours negotiating the terms of Israeli-Palestinian political relations and the terms of a future Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace accord.

Donald Trump's administration greenlighted a surge in settlement construction and planning and attempted to set in motion Israel's formal annexation of the West Bank by Israel.

Trump's unprecedented departure from decades-long US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has made the two-state solution more difficult to attain and has significantly complicated the efforts of future U.S. administrations to help broker peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors.

Americans for Peace Now (APN) congratulates Joseph Biden on his election as the 46th President of the United States, and Kamala Harris, our nation's next Vice President, and wishes them success in their pursuit of a more just and responsible foreign policy.