PeaceCast

This episode’s guest is Khaled Elgindy, a scholar at the Brookings institution who specializes in Palestinian affairs. He is the author of a new book Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, which was published on April 4th, 2019.

Links:

• The book on Amazon
• Khaled’s profile on Brookings’ web site 
• Khaled’s National Interest article How the Peace Process (Probably) Killed the Two-State Solution 
• Khaled’s article with Lara Friedman on the need for new thinking regarding Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution 
• Chris Van Hollen and Gerald Connolly’s Washington Post article 

This episode features three speeches delivered at a March 31 commemorative event at Washington’s Temple Sinai, to honor Israeli novelist Amos Oz, an icon of Israel’s peace movement. Oz died last December at the age of 79. The event was organized by J Street. APN was among the co-sponsors.

The first speech is the keynote speech by Fania Oz Salzberger, Amos Oz’s daughter. The second is by J Street’s president Jeremy Ben Ami. The third is by Natalie Portman, who brought to the screen Amos Oz’s autobiographical novel, A Tale of Love and Darkness.

For a full video recording of the event click here. 

Write to me at: [email protected]

This episode was recorded at a live event that Americans for Peace Now co-sponsored with the New Israel Fund at our joint office in Washington on April 3rd, just six days before the Israeli elections. 

Our guest was Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, one of Israel’s leading public opinion analysts. 

The discussion was moderated by Naomi Paiss, the former Vice President of Public Affairs at the New Israel Fund for over a decade, and a longtime public affairs and communications professional.

Please send feedback, ideas, and questions to [email protected].

Also,  please go to www.PeaceNow.org and make a small donation.

Thank you for your support.

On the fortieth anniversary of the White House signing ceremony of Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt, Israel’s peace movement Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) launched a campaign to remind Israelis of this historic peace treaty and its strategic value for Israel, and to underscore the fact that peace with the Palestinians and the entire Arab world is within reach.

Peace Now’s executive director, Shaqued Morag, talks about the new campaign and about the centerpiece of the campaign, an evocative short film.

To watch the film click here.

For APN’s crowd sourcing campaign to fund the film click here.

Tania Hary is the Executive Director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially residents of the Gaza Strip.

APN's Debra Shushan and Ori Nir spoke with her on March 21st. 

This is a special episode of PeaceCast.

For the first time, we recorded PeaceCast before a live audience in Washington DC. We partnered with one of Israel’s most popular English language podcasts, the Tel Aviv Review.

We recorded it on March 7th 2019 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The event was organized in partnership with J Street.

We hosted two journalists, Israeli journalist Amir Tibon of Haaretz and Palestinian journalist Said Arikat of al-Quds. Haaretz is published in Tel Aviv and al-Quds is published in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Amir and Said are the Washington correspondents of their newspapers.

The idea of this conversation was to explore how Said and Amir both cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Washington.

This episode is released simultaneously on PeaceCast and on the Tel Aviv Review. Check out the Tel Aviv Review here: https://tlv1.fm/podcasts/tel-aviv-review-show/

Gilead (Gili) Sher is an Israeli lawyer, scholar, expert on, and practitioner of, Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians. He was Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s chief negotiator between 1999 and 2001. Now he directs the Center for Applied Negotiations at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.

APN’s acting CEO Aviva Meyer joined Ori Nir for a conversation with Sher on February 15th, 2019 at Georgetown University's government Department, where Sher is now the Goldman Visiting Professor.

We addressed the impact of the diplomatic impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, and what can be done to pave the road to a two-state solution in the absence of formal negotiations over a comprehensive peace accord.

With comments or feedback email Ori at [email protected]

Links:

Sher’s bio: https://www.inss.org.il/person/shergilead/

The INSS plan: http://www.inss.org.il/inss-plan-political-security-framework-israeli-palestinian-arena/

The Blue and White Future’s plan: http://www.bluewhitefuture.org/?page_id=560

A West Bank map showing possible land swaps: http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/12/opinion/mapping-mideast-peace.html?_r=1#nytg-optionsBox

This show features two experts on Washington Middle East policy and legislative affairs: Debra Shushan, APN’s Policy and Government Relations Director, and Lara Friedman, who preceded her in this position, and is now the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Together, they drill down on the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, better known by its acronym ATCA, a piece of legislation that tells a fascinating story of how policy on Israeli-Palestinian affairs is being made in Washington.

Links:

The text of ATCA: 

Debra Shushan’s op-ed in The Hill on ATCA 

Scott Anderson’s article on ATCA

Lara Friedman’s Forward article on efforts to use legal action in the US against Palestinians 

APN’s (Ambassador David) Friedman File 

Currently a professor of law at at the S. J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, Amos Guiora is the former Commander of the Israel Defense Forces' School of Military Law. Before retiring from the IDF as a Lieutenant Colonel, he was also the Judge Advocate for the Navy and Home Front Command, as well as the Legal Adviser to the IDF's commander of the Gaza Strip, a military court judge and a military prosecutor. 

In this episode -- a longer episode than the usual -- he talks about the interplay between law, ethics, and politics in the context of Israel's occupation of the West Bank. 

Brian Reeves, Director of External Relations at Shalom Achshav (Peace Now), APN’s Israeli sister-organization, talks about the new West Bank settlement scandal: a plan to build another settlement near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, which would complete a ring around Bethlehem and severely threaten a two-state solution. Brian also talks about broader trends in settlement activity in 2018 and about what Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Project is focusing on going into 2019.

Links:

• Haaretz’s story on the planned settlement near Bethlehem: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-pushing-to-expand-efrat-settlement-until-it-surrounds-bethlehem-1.6822476
• Peace Now’s chart documenting record settlement activity in 2017-2018: http://peacenow.org.il/en/tenders-for-641-units-published-in-record-year
• APN’s new map app: https://peacenow.org/page.php?name=facts-on-the-ground-the-apn-settlements-map-project#.XDULEFxKiUk
• APN’s resource page on “leaping” annexation: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=28660#.XDULcFxKiUl