Recent violence in Jerusalem triggered a war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and widespread Jewish-Arab inter-communal hostilities throughout Israel. This episode is an audio recording of a webinar sponsored by a broad coalition of American Jewish organizations to discuss the current escalation.
This episode is a recording of an APN webinar with Omar Shakir and Eric Goldstein of Human Rights Watch, discussing HRW's new report on Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.
Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, and the chief author of the report. He is a graduate of Stanford and Georgetown. Prior to his work documenting human rights violations by Israel, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, he worked on documenting human rights violations by the Egyptian government and by the US government in Guantanamo Bay.
Eric Goldstein is the Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division. He has been working on human rights in the Middle East since the 1980s. Eric’s chief expertise in recent years has been human rights violations in the Magreb. He is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia University, and has taught human rights in Princeton and Georgetown.
A link to the report: https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
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What are the theological motives and political manifestations of American Evangelicals' support of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem? Rev. Dr. Mae Cannon, the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), an expert on the topic, analyzes it.
CMEP's web site: https://cmep.org/ About Mae: https://cmep.org/about/staff/
Daniel Seidemann is an Israeli attorney specializing in Israeli-Palestinian relations in Jerusalem. He is widely considered as the leading expert on Jerusalem-related matters as they pertain to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this episode, he is analyzing the background causes of the current violent deterioration in East Jerusalem.
The dynamics and politics of working on Israeli-Palestinian affairs on Capitol Hill have changed over time, as have the dynamics of advancing progressive sensibilities in Congress.
This episode is a recording of a special APN webinar with Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Mark Pocan, one of the House leading progressives, focusing on these topics. APN's President Hadar Susskind engaged Rep. Pocan in a conversation.
The upcoming May 22nd Palestinian parliamentary elections are a landmark event, which both indicates and enhances the vitality of Palestinian public life. This episode is an edited version of an April 16th 2021 webinar in which veteran Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab comments on the preparations for the elections - the first Palestinian national in 15 years.
The co-director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch Project commenting on Do Not Settle, a new report that urges policy makers not to settle for a differentiation between "more damaging" and "less damaging" settlements in the West Bank.
For more, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGX21PU8R0k&ab_channel=JStreet
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
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The definition of antisemitism, which many consider to be intuitive, has recently become controversial. Now, there are three definitions trending. In addition to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) “working definition of antisemitism,” there is the new Nexus definition, and the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA), which offer different perspectives and help generate a deeper, more complex discussion on the nature of antisemitism and proper ways of confronting it.
This is a recording of webinar, jointly sponsored by Americans for Peace Now and T’ruah, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, to discuss the topic. The April 9th 2021 webinar featured Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the Executive Director of T’ruah, and Lara Friedman, the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), and was moderated by Hadar Susskind, the president and CEO of Americans for Peace Now.
When you listen to Maxwell (Max) Hyman, you have to remind yourself that he is only 16. This talented teen started an initiative, Teens for Peace in the Middle East, to bridge the gap of alienation, animosity, and ignorance between Israelis and Palestinian teens, and to get American teens to care about the conflict. This episode features a conversation with Max and his friend Aryeh Levy, as well as snippets from interviews that Max conducted with Israeli and Palestinian teens.
Teens for Peace in the Middle East's web site
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A recording or a March 25th 2021 webinar with Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, one of Israel's leading pollsters and political analysts on the general elections of March 23rd.
This episode is a recording of an APN webinar with Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour, the co-authors of a recent New York Times article laying out the benefits of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation, as a possible version of a two-state solution.
Bernard Avishai is an American-Israeli writer and professor living in Jerusalem. Sam Bahour is an American-Palestinian writer and management consultant living in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Bahour and Avishai's New York Times op-ed
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This episode is a recording of a February 25th 2021 APN webinar with Knesset Member Merav Michaeli, the new leader of Israel's Labor Party.
The international Criminal Court (ICC) recently ruled that it has jurisdiction over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — territories under Israeli occupation since 1967. This opens the path for the ICC to launch formal investigations against war crimes suspects, whether Israelis or Palestinians.
In this recording of an APN February 23rd 2021, Israeli human rights lawyer and activist Michael Sfard analyzes the significance of the development.
Michael Sfard is an Israeli attorney who represents various Israeli and Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, movements, and activists, including Israel’s Peace Now movement. He is an expert in international humanitarian law and international human rights law. He was educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at University College in London.
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Shira Efron and Daniel Egel are co-authors of a unique Rand Corporation report analyzing the attitudes of Israelis and Palestinians toward five different possible outcomes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this episode they share somber insights from the data analysis.
Shira's bio is here, and Daniel's bio is here. The report is here.
Israelis are going to the polls. Again. For the fourth time in two years.
Political analyst and pollster Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin Analyzes Israel's political scene as the March 23rd elections approach.
Dr. Scheindlin is a public opinion expert and an international political and strategic consultant, as well as a scholar and a writer. She has advised and conducted research on seven national campaigns in Israel over the past twenty years, and has provided research and advising for elections, referendums, and civil society campaigns in fifteen different countries.
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A recording of a webinar on the current state of Palestinian politics with three rounds of elections on the horizon. Our guest was Zaha Hassan, a visiting fellow, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here in Washington, and an expert on Palestinian politics. She is a human rights lawyer, and in the past was the coordinator and senior legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during the PLO’s bid for United Nations membership. She was also a member of the Palestinian delegation to Quartet-sponsored exploratory talks between 2011 and 2012.
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
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This episode, in collaboration with the New Israel Fund, is a slightly edited recording of a January 28th 2021 panel discussion introducing a report by three Israeli organizations, Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), and Breaking the Silence.
The report documents the practice that is so associated with Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank: invasions of Palestinians' homes.
See the report here.
Dr. Zachary Foster is a scholar whose PhD dissertation analyzes and explains why people began to think of themselves as Palestinian in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He surveyed the history of the name "Palestine," combing books, documents, and maps.
Zachary's dissertation: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp01g732dc66g
Zach's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIo4D_bprrYYO8cWFP4odAg
Zach's video explaining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00-Wr-HxZk4&list=PLqo73VwqA14Q7X8wctxZ53eKeT7vwPaiV&index=7&ab_channel=ZacharyFoster
Support APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Tal Schneider is an award-winning Israeli political correspondent and analyst - one of Israel’s leading journalists. Currently with The Times of Israel – she just started there last week -- and formerly with Israel’s economic daily Globes, Schneider was also the Washington bureau chief of Maariv.
In this episode, a recording of an APN January 11th 2021 webinar, she takes a snapshot of the Israeli political sphere two months before the fourth round of elections in two years.
APN webinar with Daniel Levy -- another in a series on the impact on Israel-Palestine of the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden-Harris administration. Levy is the President of the U.S./ Middle East Project (USMEP).
Daniel Levy's bio: https://www.usmep.us/daniel-levy/
USMEP's report, co-authored with the ICG: https://www.usmep.us/media/filer_public/c4/5b/c45bb6dc-5073-4c4f-a920-cd865d6b93bd/icg-usmep-statement-15xii20_0.pdf
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Veteran Israeli journalist and social activist Eliezer (Gezer) Yaari talks about his efforts to Make East Jerusalem's Palestinian population accessible to Israeli Jews, and speculates that Israeli-Palestinian peacemakers may want to leverage Jerusalem's coexistence mechanisms as a launching point for future peace.
Yaari's book Beyond the Mountains of Darkness: https://smile.amazon.com/Beyond-Mountains-Darkness-Eliezer-Yaari-ebook/dp/B00ZUWYBRQ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=beyond+mountains+of+darkness+Yaari&qid=1609796766&sr=8-2
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Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
John Lyndon is the executive director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) and Kevin Rachlin is ALLMEP's US director.
In this episode they talk about ALLMEP’s recent success: passing the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, a law that provides a large infusion of funds for Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding organizations and initiatives.
ALLMEP's web site: https://www.allmep.org/
Tamara Cofman Wittes is a co-author of a new report, a blueprint for a new policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the Biden administration
To view and download the Center for a New American Security report: https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/a-new-u-s-strategy-for-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict
To make an end-of-year donation to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of a December 22nd 2020 webinar with Anders Persson, a professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden, an expert on the European Union's policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Persson has written four books on this topic. His fourth was just published. It’s titled EU Diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967–2019.
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A conversation with Vera Baboun, the former mayor of Bethlehem (2012-2017) about the challenges facing her town this Christmas season, and about peace: the yearning for peace, and the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Mayor Baboun's Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Baboun
Contact Ori Nir: onir@peacenow.org
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