Avner Gvaryahu is the executive director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.

APN’s Debra Shushan and Ori Nir spoke with Avner on October 30th, 2019.

Breaking the Silence’s web site: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

Avner’s Twitter handle: @AGvaryahu

This episode features the panel discussion that Americans for Peace Now sponsored at the J Street National conference in Washington DC on October 27th, 2019.

Included are the full presentations of the three panelists -- former Palestinian ambassador to Washington Maen Areikat, Peace Now's director Shaqued Morag, and Yesh Din director Lior Amihai --  well as the introduction by Debra Shushan, APN’s policy and government relations director.

An edited down recording of a panel that we held on Capitol Hill on October 26th 2019, featuring two representatives of our Israeli sister organization, Peace Now (Shalom Achshav), Israel’s peace movement.

Peace Now’s Shaqued Morag and Brian Reeves spoke about the danger to Israel that West Bank annexation poses – both the de-facto annexation that is being advanced every day on the ground in the West Bank and the de-jure annexation that Israel’s right-wing government is vowing to advance.

Their talk was a window into the current agenda and the emphases of Israel’s peace movement, as well as the challenges that the Israeli peace camp faces.

This episode features a conversation with Menachem Klein,  a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Bar Ilan University, who specializes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is the author of several books on the topic. His new books is Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed. 

When I heard Yuli Tamir, one of the icons and the leading intellectuals of Israel’s moderate left, expressing optimism at a panel discussion in Washington, I rushed to her with a recorder and cajoled her to elaborate about her optimism.

Yuli Tamir is one of the founders of Israel’s peace movement, Peace Now. She is a former minister in the Israeli government and a former Knesset member. She is a professor of philosophy and now the President of the Shenkar College near Tel Aviv.