PeaceCast

On June 14th 2009, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a major policy speech at Bar Ilan University, in which he endorsed the two-state solution. 

On its face, it was a revolutionary statement. Until then, Netanyahu was the most visibly identified Israeli politician with opposition to Palestinian statehood.

Today, ten years later, it is clear that Netanyahu’s political worldview did not undergo a metamorphosis. Rather, it was a rhetorical ploy to deflect US pressure under President Obama. 

A new article by Dr. Guy Ziv of American University documents and analyzes what led up to the landmark Bar Ilan Speech, and what happened in the past decade to Netanyahu’s stated endorsement of an idea that has always been anathema to him.

Guy Ziv's article in Political Science Quarterly 

This episode features our annual The Dove event, an evening of stories that inspire hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Americans for Peace Now partners with New Story Leadership to produce the Dove. NSL is a Washington-based organization that brings to DC a small group of young Israelis and Palestinians to provide them with leadership tools needed to create social, economic and political transformation toward peace between the two peoples.

Write to Ori Nir with feedback or ideas: [email protected]

To support The Dove go here: https://www.classy.org/give/238969/#!/donation/checkout

To support Americans for Peace Now: https://peacenow.org/donate

What are the settlers doing in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan? How do their actions and the policy of the Netanyahu government impact the Palestinians living there? What is the impact of the Trump administration’s collusion with the settlers and with Netanyahu’s government regarding East Jerusalem impact prospect for peace? More broadly, what are current trends in East Jerusalem, and how do they effect a possible two-state solution? On July 11th 2019, APN hosted Hagit Ofran and Daniel Seidemann for a briefing call to explore these questions. 

Hagit Ofran is the co-director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project. Widely-recognized as Israel’s foremost expert on a full range of issues related to West Bank settlements and settlement-related developments in East Jerusalem, Hagit’s work includes traveling daily throughout the West Bank, examining aerial photos and browsing official Israeli documents. The “Settlement Watch” project serves as a resource for Israeli politicians, diplomats, international media organizations, and first and foremost – for the Israeli public. Ofran has been chosen by Haaretz newspaper as one of “66 Israeli women you should know,” women “breaking barriers, defying stereotypes and wielding influence.”

Daniel Seidemann has been a practicing attorney specializing in legal and public issues in East Jerusalem for over three decades. He has also worked on issues and cases related to government and municipal policies and practices in Jerusalem, representing Israeli and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem before the statutory Planning Boards regarding development issues. Danny is the founder and director of Terrestrial Jerusalem an Israeli NGO that works to identify and track the full spectrum of developments in Jerusalem that could impact either the political process or permanent status options, destabilize the city or spark violence, or create humanitarian crises.

Eran Nissan is the Project Coordinator at Israel's Peace Now movement, the Israeli sister-organization of Americans for Peace Now. This summer, he is one of eight fellows participating in the annual summer program of Washington's New Story Leadership (NSL), and interning at APN. 

In this conversation, Eran tells the story of his becoming a political activist, following his service as a combat soldier at the Israel Defense Force.  

Eran and his fellow NSL scholars will be featured in a subsequent episode of PeaceCast next month, when we live-record this year's edition of The Dove, our annual storytelling event. Stay tuned. 

This special episode features a visit to the newly launched Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington DC.

I was joined by my daughter Noa Nir, who participated in interviewing Nizar Farsakh, the chair of the Board of the museum.

A link to the museum’s web site: https://mpp-dc.org/

With any questions, comments or ideas, please write to me at [email protected]

Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate

Ameer Fakhouri, a Palestinian citizen of Israel is active in efforts to generate a closer Jewish-Arab political partnership in Israel going into the September elections and beyond.

A lawyer by trade and a scholar specializing in conflict resolution, he is the director of the Research Center at Neve Shalom, Wahat al-Salam, the cooperative Jewish-Arab community halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which recently published a new book titled “Attainable Alliances,” edited by Fakhouri.

This episode features the most significant trend among the progressive camp in Israel today: Examining the potential for political cooperation between Jewish and Arab citizens of the state to generate change.

This special episode of PeaceCast is produced in partnership with T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

It features six stories told by rabbinical students at a recent story telling evening in Israel, at the end of their one-year T’ruah program there.

With any feedback, comments or ideas, please email Ori Nir at [email protected]

Non-Israelis often find it surprising or counter-intuitive that Israel’s top brass, its senior security officials are consistently more dovish than its political leadership. For years, Israeli security officials – retired officials publicly and serving ones privately -- have been the most solid proponents of the two-state solution. Anecdotally, this was a well-known fact.

Now there is a scientific study that shows just how true this truism is. This episode features Dr. Guy Ziv of the School of International Service at American University, and Benjamin L. Shaver, a master’s student at the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations. Their new study shows that some 85% of Israel’s leading retired generals, spymasters and other senior security officials support a peace agreement based on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security.

A link to the study (behind a paywall): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2019.1614790

A link to a Q&A with Dr. Ziv about the study: https://www.american.edu/sis/news/20190524-a-near-consensus-israels-security-establishment-and-the-two-state-solution.cfm

Write to me at [email protected]

A speech I gave at the Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony in Washington on May 7th. 

Dov Waxman is a Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Israel Studies and the Director of the Middle East Studies program at Northeastern University. 

On the day of its official release, we spoke with Dov about his new book The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know. 

Find the book here on Google and here on Amazon