August 30th, 2018 was Debra DeLee’s last day as Americans for Peace Now’s President and CEO. As she was packing up her office, Debra sat down with PeaceCast’s host Ori Nir and with APN’s Director of Policy and Government Relations, Debra Shushan.

We talked about Debra’s frustration with America’s Jewish establishment’s inability to confront the moral challenges related to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. We talked about the leadership role of women in Jewish organizations. We talked the wonderful people that comprise the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement in the United States.  And we talked about hope.

Debra led APN for the past 21 years, through thick and thin, and has been one of the most influential figures in the movement. In addition to her professionalism and her leadership skills, Debra is a mensch. Her humanity and charm clearly shine in this conversation.

Read Debra’s farewell letter here: http://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=28808#.W4ihA-hKiUk

Read Debra’s tribute to her mother, Ruth Epstein, here: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=16950#.W4ihaOhKiUk

Israeli journalist and activist Anat Saragusti helps us remember and pay tribute to Uri Avneri, an icon of Israeli public life and of Israel’s peace movement.

Saragusti is a leading Israeli journalist and publicist. She was the CEO of Agenda, the Israeli Center for Strategic Communications. She was a news editor,  reporter and photo journalist for several Israeli news outlets, as well as a peace activist, an active feminist, and a human rights advocate. She is a founding member of Ta Ha'Itonayot (a group of leading Israeli women in the media) and of Merkaz Media Nashim (the Gender Media Center).

Saragusti was a protege and long-time friend of Avneri. 

Please send feedback to onir@peacenow.org

To explore Israel’s new Nation-State Law, we talked with Yasmeen abu-Fraiha, a young Israeli-Arab of Bedouin origin, a medical doctor and researcher, who is a glaring Israeli success story. Two years ago, at the age of 27, the Israeli financial newspaper Globes included her in a list of the 40 most promising young Israelis.

Abu-Fraiha is an “assimilated” Israeli-Arab, who grew up in a Jewish community in southern Israel and whose Hebrew is better than her Arabic. Most of her friends are Jewish Israeli. She knows the history of Zionism better than most Israeli Jews. Still, she feels like the state – her state – is trying to deny her Israeliness through the Knesset’s latest legislative action.

Abu-Fraiha is currently acting as the Executive Director of GENESIS, an NGO she founded that aims to prevent genetic diseases in the Middle East, especially in the Bedouin community, by spearheading premarital genetic testing and matching. She holds a BSc in Medical Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Yasmeen’s 972 article https://972mag.com/i-dont-need-a-law-to-remind-me-of-my-inequality/136874/

Yasmeen’s Forbes profile: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2017/08/10/a-young-bedouin-doctor-pioneering-genetic-testing-in-israels-negev-desert-30-under-30/#a7769f049d16