PeaceCast: Recent Episodes
Americans for Peace Now
PeaceCast is a podcast produced in Washington by Americans for Peace Now, the sister-organization of Israel’s preeminent peace movement. We engage in nuanced conversations with people working towards peace and progress in Israel and Palestine. Episodes feature experts, activists, advocates and scholars whose work or passion is Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Learn more about APN: https://peacenow.org/
This is a recording of a New Jewish Narrative webinar from June 5th, 2025.
We are living through a moment in the United States when we see both that antisemitism is rising and that the Trump administration is weaponizing antisemitism to silence its critics and to attack academia. For years, NJN has been a leader in making sure that efforts to counter antisemitism are not exploited to violate civil liberties. For this conversation, NJN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind was joined by two leaders who we frequently partner with for a discussion on antisemitism and its weaponization.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs (she/her) is the CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, an organization that trains and mobilizes more than 2,300 rabbis and cantors and their communities to bring a moral voice to protecting and advancing human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories. She is the author of Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community and There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition, both published by Jewish Lights.
Kevin Rachlin (he/him) serves as the inaugural Washington Director at the Nexus Project. He has over a decade of experience in U.S.-focused advocacy and non-profit leadership. Kevin previously served as the Vice President of Public Affairs at J Street and as the U.S. Director for the Alliance for Middle East Peace, a coalition of 150+ Israeli and Palestinian peacebuilding organizations. He is currently a Senior Fellow for Israel and Palestine Policy at the Alliance of Peacebuilding.
This is a recording of a New Jewish Narrative webinar from June 4th, 2025.
"The perimeter" is the term used to describe the ever-expanding buffer zone on the Gaza side of the entire Israel-Gaza border from which Palestinians have been forcibly removed since the beginning of the war. As Breaking the Silence's recent report demonstrates, the area has over time been completely decimated and razed to the ground, at the expense of Palestinian residential homes and neighbourhoods, industrial areas, greenhouses, agricultural land and much more. To discuss this report and recent stories from Gaza and the West Bank, we spoke with Breaking the Silence's Luiz Aberbuj and Shay Daniely. This conversation was hosted by New Jewish Narrative's Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino.
Read the report: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/inside/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Perimeter_English-2.pdf
Learn more about NJN- https://www.newjewishnarrative.org/
Learn more about Breaking the Silence- https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/
Brian K Barber's new book, No Way But Forward: Life Stories of Three Families in the Gaza Strip, is a heart-wrenching piece of nonfiction. Barber, a psychologist and researcher, has cultivated real relationships with three families in Gaza since 1995, allowing him to tell their stories with rare depth and authenticity.
Read the book: https://www.amazon.com/No-Way-but-Forward-Families-ebook/dp/B0DMCV9BRB
Learn more: https://bkbarber.com/
This is a recording of an NJN webinar on April 24th, 2025
Drs. Shibley Telhami and Marc Lynch, co-chairs of the Middle East Scholar Barometer, say that they have seen a “chilling effect" on the working atmosphere for Middle East scholars. Many US-based academics and scholars already felt an increasing need to self-censor when addressing the Israeli-Palestinian issue professionally. The Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on higher education. Now, scholars face an environment in which the intensity and pace of campus protests have subsided, but the overall environment has remained oppressive and uncertain as political pressure from above has increased. Self-censorship remains rampant while actual censorship appears to be increasing.
To talk about and make sense of this frightening scenario, Dr. Telhami sat down with our President and CEO Hadar Susskind for a conversation.
Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, the Director of the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll, and a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. He has authored and edited numerous books, including one forthcoming book: Peace Derailed: Obama, Trump, Biden, and the Decline of Diplomacy on Israel/Palestine, 2011-2022 (co-authored). His most recent book is a co-edited volume with contributions, The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine?, which was published in March 2023 with Cornell University Press. He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama. Washingtonian Magazine listed him as one of the “Most Influential People on Foreign Affairs” in both 2022 and 2023.
Recording of a NJN webinar on April 16, 2025
Yair Golan is the leader of The Democrats, a political party formed last year when the Labor and Meretz parties merged. Before entering politics, he had a distinguished military career, retiring as a Major General and serving as Deputy Chief of Staff of the IDF.
His actions on the morning of October 7th – in which he rushed on his own accord to the area around Gaza and rescued people from Hamas attacks – have earned him a special status in Israel.
This conversation, hosted by NJN President and CEO Hadar Susskind and NJN Co-Chair Nomi Colton-Max, covers the political situation in Israel, the developments in the war, and the World Zionist Congress.
Cast a vote in the WZC elections here: https://azm.castiron.votem.net/election/037548cb-4cbb-4a94-aa9a-8aef017d4ddf
Learn more about the Hatikvah Slate: https://www.hatikvahslate.net/
Give to NJN: https://www.newjewishnarrative.org/give
Recording of an NJN webinar on April 3, 2025.
The conversation, anchored by NJN President & CEO Hadar Susskind, features Hagit Ofran and Lior Amihai from Peace Now. Our guests are on the ground, leading the push against settlements and the fight for for peace.
Lior Amihai is the current Executive Director of Peace Now as well as a previous Executive Director of Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. He also previously served as co-director of Settlement Watch.
Hagit Ofran is the co-director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch program. With two decades of experience tracking developments in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, she is widely recognized as Israel’s foremost expert on Israeli settlements.
Hadar Susskind is New Jewish Narrative’s President and CEO. He is one of the American Jewish community’s leading progressive advocacy voices with more than 25 years of experience working in Washington DC on both foreign and domestic policy.
To make a (matched!!) donation to Peace Now, click here: https://www.newjewishnarrative.org/give?comments=2025%20Donor%20Match
In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch is joined by NJN Board members and Habonim Dror leaders Shaina Wasserman and Judah Altman. The conversation delves into the details of how Habonim Dror and New Jewish Narrative are connected, as well as how dialogue, discussion, and youth involvement help shape our broader community. This episode also includes some details about the World Zionist Congress elections and the shifting nature of progressive Zionism across generational lines.
More info about Habonim Dror North America- https://www.habonimdror.org/
Learn more about the Hatikvah Slate- https://www.hatikvahslate.net/
Vote in the 2025 WZC elections- https://azm.castiron.votem.net/election/037548cb-4cbb-4a94-aa9a-8aef017d4ddf
Shaina Wasserman (she/her) is a proud second generation Habo and a staunch progressive Zionist. Shaina has served as a Jewish professional for over 20 years, including at J Street and Jewish education settings. She currently serves as the Senior Director of Strategic Operations for SRE Network. Shaina is a board member of New Jewish Narrative, Habonim Dror Foundation, American Zionist Movement, and Chair of the HUC School of Education Alumni Association.
Judah Altman is the new Mazkirol or Executive Director of Habonim Dror North America. He grew up in Calgary going to Habonim Dror Camp Miriam in British Columbia and spent a year in Israel on Kibbutz as a participant in Habonim Dror’s gap year program Workshop. As a staff member, they were a counselor for three years, led the leadership training program for Camp Miriam in 2021, and served as Education Director of Camp Miriam in 2022.
In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch is joined by NJN's Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino, for a discussion of President Trump's "flood the zone" tactics, and staying sane in the age of information overload. This episode also covers recent events at USAID and other federal agencies as well as at Columbia University.
NJN Deputy Communications Director Maxxe Albert-Deitch and Director of Development Karen Paul spoke with Dr. Elana Sztokman about her new book, In My Jewish State. In this book, Dr. Sztokman uses her professional skills of rhetorical analysis cultivated from years of anthropological research, and unpacks the language and ideas that drive the pro-Israel advocacy movement and are used to justify cruel actions and attitudes. In the process, she makes some drastic personal changes, shifts her own Jewish identity, and advocates for a different vision of what it means to live in a Jewish state.
Dr. Elana Sztokman is an anthropologist, educator, feminist, peace activist, speaker, consultant, podcaster, and two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Council Award. She has spent 25 years writing about issues of gender, language, power, politics, education, and society, especially around Israel and Jewish culture. Her previous book, When Rabbis Abuse, won the Best Jewish Non-Fiction of the Year from Hey Alma.
Between March 10 and May 4, 2025, American Jews will vote for their delegates to the 39th World Zionist Congress, the “parliament of the Jewish people,” which will convene in Jerusalem in October 2025. Every vote determines how money is spent, how resources are allocated, and contributes to policies in Israeli society and in Jewish communities around the globe. New Jewish Narrative proudly co-leads the Hatikvah Slate, working towards progressive change within the Jewish community here in the U.S.
This discussion answered questions ranging from "what is the World Zionist Congress in the first place?" to "what is the Hatikvah platform and why should my vote go there instead of somewhere else?"
In addition to our President and CEO Hadar Susskind, our panel featured Nomi Colton-Max, co-chair of NJN and Vice President for Programming of the American Zionist Movement, and Kenneth Bob, board member of NJN and chair of Rozana USA.
Recording of a New Jewish Narrative webinar with NJN President and CEO Hadar Susskind, Director of Government Relations Madeleine Cereghino, and Hassan El-Tayyab of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL).
We dug into what the new Congress and administration will mean for New Jewish Narrative, our community, and our work. We spoke about initial signals from incoming government officials, what projects we’re already gearing up for, and generally put together a picture of what to expect from both Congress and the incoming administration.
Hassan El-Tayyab is an author, songwriter, and the legislative director for Middle East policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL) Hassan leads FCNL’s work to end U.S. military involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, advocate for Palestinian human rights, and advance diplomacy with Iran. Hassan was honored by Arab America Foundation as an awardee of its 2022 “40 under 40” initiative, for his policy work on Capitol Hill.
Recording of our November 20, 2024 webinar with Yonatan Mizrachi from Shalom Achshav's Settlement Watch team. This webinar was co-produced with our colleagues at Shalom Achshav, Canadian Friends of Peace Now, and La Paix Maintenant. The conversation was anchored by Hadar Susskind.
Yonatan Mizrachi, a leading expert from the Settlement Watch team, presents new insights from Shalom Achshav's latest annual report, "War and Annexation: How the Israeli Government Changed the West Bank During the First Year of War."
In the wake of a year-long war in Gaza and nearly two years under a far-right, pro-settler government, the Israeli government's agenda in the occupied West Bank is clearer than ever: to advance annexation policies and further reduce Palestinian presence in Area C.
Yonatan (“Yoni”) Mizrachi, who joined Shalom Achshav two years ago, co-leads the Settlement Watch team. He is also a co-founder and the former executive director of Emek Shaveh, an organization dedicated to protecting archaeology from misuse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
View the report HERE- https://peacenow.org.il/en/war-and-annexation-how-the-israeli-government-changed-the-west-bank-during-the-first-year-of-war
Recording of our November 14, 2024 webinar. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind.
Along with special guest Allison McManus, we discussed what a second Trump administration may hold for Israel-Palestine peacebuilding work. We covered Trump's recent appointee nominations, the effects of potential policies on our agenda, as well as how the US-Israel relationship could shift with Trump back in the White House.
Allison McManus is a managing director for the National Security and International Policy department at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, she was the managing director at the Freedom Initiative, where she advocated for political prisoners in the Middle East and North Africa. She also served as the research director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy from 2014 to 2019.
Recording of our October 29th, 2024 webinar with Joshua Leifer. This conversation was hosted by Maxxe Albert-Deitch and Karen Paul.
We spoke with Joshua Leifer about Tablets Shattered, his lively and personal history of the fractured American Jewish present. Formed in the middle decades of the twentieth century, the settled-upon pillars of American Jewish self-definition (Americanism, Zionism, and liberalism) have begun to collapse. The binding trauma of Holocaust memory grows ever-more attenuated; soon there will be no living survivors. After two millennia of Jewish life defined by diasporic existence, the majority of the world’s Jews will live in a sovereign Jewish state by 2050. Against the backdrop of national political crises, resurgent global antisemitism, and the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Leifer provides an illuminating and meticulously reported map of contemporary Jewish life and a sober conjecture about its future.
Joshua Leifer is a journalist whose essays and reporting have appeared widely in international publications, including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Haaretz, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing a PhD in history at Yale University.
In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch is joined by APN's President and CEO, Hadar Susskind, for a discussion about recent events in the Middle East, the October 7th anniversary, and the past year of conflict. The discussion covers Israel's recent military incursion into southern Lebanon as well as Iran's bombing attack in Israel.
Recording of our September 24th, 2024 webinar with Sarit Michaeli. This conversation was hosted by Madeleine Cereghino.
Gaza and the Occupied Territories in general are at the forefront of conversations around the world– horrific medical scenarios, inhumane treatment of Palestinian civilians, and utterly abhorrent forms of abuse taking place in Israeli prisons and on the ground in Occupied land. B’Tselem is among the leading organizations serving as a resource for facts, figures, and personal stories and putting together the picture of just how dire the circumstances have become. To discuss the “humanitarian disaster zone” of the current Israel-Gaza war, we spoke with Sarit Michaeli, the International advocacy lead for B'Tselem.
Sarit has been at B’Tselem since 2004 and coordinates the organization’s work with international policymakers, diplomats, and civil society. Prior to her current role, Sarit was B’Tselem’s media spokesperson and director of public outreach. Sarit documents demonstrations in the West Bank, with a focus on Israeli security forces and misuse of crowd control weapons, and is active in Israel’s anti-Occupation movement. Sarit has an MA (Distinction) in Gender Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a BA in graphic design from Camberwell College of Art, the London Institute. Prior to joining B’Tselem, Sarit worked as a journalist, graphic designer, and translator in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, London, and New York.
Recording of our September 16, 2024 webinar with Amir Tibon. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind and Maxxe Albert-Deitch.
We spoke with author Amir Tibon about his new book, The Gates of Gaza, as well as his experience as a journalist in Israel over the last 11 months. This webinar was coordinated in partnership with our colleagues at Canadian Friends of Peace Now.
About the book: In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells the harrowing story of his family’s survival on October 7th at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades. Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, Occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.
More about the book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amir-tibon/the-gates-of-gaza/9780316580960/?lens=little-brown
Recording of our August 21, 2024 webinar with Dr. Gershon Baskin. This conversation was hosted by Madeleine Cereghino.
It is clear that people around the world– and the mediators sent to the table in Doha– want an agreement to stop the violence in Gaza and to bring the Israeli hostages home. But the general understanding of how to get from point A (calling for a deal) to point B (getting the Israeli government and Hamas to agree to a deal) remains murky. To shed some light on the circumstances surrounding this round of negotiations, we sat down with Dr. Gershon Baskin, a veteran peace activist and longtime researcher of the Israel/Palestine conflict and peace process.
Recording of our August 7, 2024 webinar with Lior Amihai. This conversation was hosted by Madeleine Cereghino.
Our Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino, sat down with Lior Amihai, the executive director of our sister organization, Shalom Achshav. Our colleagues there recently released a report detailing what they call the Israeli government’s “Annexation Revolution.”
Since October 7th, the Israeli government has launched a massive annexation effort– displacing Palestinians, expanding existing settlements, and doubling the resources available to settlements– “legalizing” more than 70 illegal outposts along the way. Under Netanyahu and Smotrich’s governance, emboldened settlers have essentially been granted carte blanche for land seizure, crop and livestock destruction, and violent altercations with Palestinians– all with minimal consequences.
Lior Amihai is the executive director of Peace Now. Before taking on this position, he was Executive Director of Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that focuses on violations of Palestinians’ human rights in the West Bank. Prior to that, he was the co-director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project.
In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch is joined by APN's Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino, for a discussion of PM Netanyahu's DC visit. The discussion covers PM Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress, that speech's implications, and the general optics of the PM's DC visit.
Recording of our July 25, 2024 webinar with Rebecca Abou-Chedid. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind.
Hadar Susskind and Rebecca Abou-Chedid analyze Netanyahu’s visit to DC (and his address to Congress on July 24th). They delve into the impact on American and international politics, the American Jewish community, and the Arab American community.
Rebecca Abou-Chedid serves on the board of directors of the IMEU Policy Project, Anera, the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and SEED for Change. Rebecca also served for five years as co-chair of the board of directors of Just Vision. She is a partner in the Projects group at Norton Rose Fulbright and previously served as a law clerk in the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the US Department of Justice, as National Political Director at the Arab American Institute, and the Director of Outreach at the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force.
Ten brave New Story Leadership alumni - Muslim, Jewish, and Christian - from Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, decided to move forward together in the aftermath of October 7th. First, the group negotiated and crafted a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire and hostage release. But they also realized that this was not nearly enough.
After months of research, discussion and an intense week together in Geneva, these alumni-- the Phoenix Ten-- negotiated and drafted the Phoenix Plan. In this episode of PeaceCast, we spoke with some of these peacebuilders about what the plan is and what their vision for a peaceful future looks like.
Learn more about NSL and the Phoenix Plan: https://www.newstoryleadership.org/
Make a contribution to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Recording of our June 20, 2024 webinar with Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind and Maxxe Albert-Deitch.
Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon feel the loss and pain of October 7th and the carnage in Gaza that has followed especially keenly: both have lost family to the conflict.
Since October 7th, the two have appeared on various international forums regarding their partnership in establishing peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Most recently, they traveled together to Verona, Italy to meet Pope Francis and share their vision for the future: one where Israelis and Palestinians can move forward and live side by side.
Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian peacebuilder, entrepreneur, and international speaker. He is the co-founder of InterAct International and MEJDI Tours, and the former executive director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.
Maoz Inon is an Israeli social entrepreneur and peace activist. He has founded several tourism initiatives in Israel and in the Middle East, including the Fauzi Azar Inn and Abraham Hostel and Tour brands.
Harvey Price is the founder of the Peace Drums Project, an organization that connects children of multiple faiths by having them play together in a steel drum band. In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch speaks with Harvey about steel drums as an instrument of peace and the logistics of running a people-to-people music-oriented peacebuilding program in Israel and Palestine in the current challenging times.
Recording of our May 22, 2024 webinar, with Anat Saragusti. This conversation was hosted by Naomi Paiss.
“The media” has come to mean many different things– broadcasters, social media, a euphemistic descriptor for spreaders of misinformation, or simply the news. But in the haze of war in Gaza and protests in the U.S., the media has itself become a source of polarization and debate. To analyze why coverage seems to slant one way or another politically, how nationalism and government disinformation find their way into the newsroom, and how journalists source their reports, we spoke with one of Israel’s foremost media experts.
Anat Saragusti is perhaps best-known for her work as a print and broadcast journalist and her documentary photography. She worked as a reporter for Channel 2, the first and leading commercial TV station in Israel, and is among the founders of Ta Ha'Itonaiyot (a group of leading Israeli women with media orientation) and Merkaz Media Nashim (Gender Media Center). She is also a dedicated advocate for peacebuilding work and human rights activism.
Recording of an APN webinar from May 2, 2024.
A conversation between APN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind and Senator Chris Van Hollen. We discussed the role of Congress in shaping US-Middle East policy and how conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have changed on Capitol Hill. Senator Van Hollen is a Congressional champion for peace and justice.
Sandy Tolan is the author of The Lemon Tree, which is a widely known microhistory of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Children of the Stone, which focuses on one Palestinian’s dream to build a music school in the midst of the Occupation. He’s also a journalism professor and an award-winning radio and print journalist. We spoke with Sandy about his books, the protests currently springing up at college campuses across the country, and generally, what it's like to be a journalist with a strong background on Israel/Palestine issues in the current climate.
Make a contribution to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Recording of an APN webinar, April 17th 2024.
Over the last few weeks, the subject of humanitarian aid has dominated conversations about the Gaza War. Headlines depict aid trucks being stopped or blocked altogether from entering Gaza and global experts warning that Gaza is on the verge of famine with Northern Gaza likely already experiencing famine. Some individuals and organizations are still managing to offer food and support, providing some measure of relief. To discuss the situation on the ground and the logistics of providing aid, we spoke with Shachar Zahavi, the founder of SmartAid: an international aid agency that leverages technologies to enhance humanitarian efforts worldwide.
In addition to his role at SmartAid, Shachar Zahavi was the founder and Chairperson at IsraAID, where he served as Executive Director for 16 years. There, he spearheaded the organization's global strategy, overseeing its expansion and operations in over 50 countries for both disaster relief and long-term sustainable programs. Shachar is also credited with co-authoring in-depth research on Israel's foreign aid and its impact in the context of foreign government relationships.
Make a contribution to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
After 18 years at APN, our VP for Public Affairs Ori Nir has retired. He is widely known as a go-to expert on issues of Middle East peace and conflict, as well as for his voice and empathetic perspective. In this episode, hosted by Maxxe Albert-Deitch, Ori looks back on his career and the general state and trajectory of the peace movement.
We’re sending Ori off b'hatzlacha, bil tawfiq, and good luck for the next stage of his journey.
Make a contribution to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Recording of a February 22nd APN webinar.
Recently, Shalom Achshav released their 2023 settlement report. Their findings were disturbing even by the standards of the actions of Netanyahu’s far-right extremist government. Under the cover of the Gaza war, conditions in the West Bank have quietly but dramatically shifted for the worse. We have seen a record number of plans for new construction, minimal law enforcement against illegal settler activity, substantial budgets for expanding settlements and outposts, and, most significantly, almost unconditional political support from the government for settlers, even in cases involving violence against Palestinians.
To discuss these alarming updates, we spoke with someone on the front lines of observing and analyzing settlement activity. Hagit Ofran is the co-director of Shalom Achshav’s Settlement Watch program, and is widely recognized as Israel’s foremost expert on Israeli settlements.
On February 26th, we met with Dr. Khalil Shikaki to discuss current events in Israel and Palestine.
John Lyndon is the Executive Director of ALLMEP the Alliance for Middle East Peace, the largest network of Israeli and Palestinian peace-building organizations. ALLMEP brings together 170 organizations, both groups that advance a shared society inside Israel and cross-border Israeli and Palestinian groups that work to resolve the conflict between the two peoples.
Yonatan Zeigen is the son of Vivian Silver, the iconic Isreali peace activist, who was murdered on October 7th in her kibbutz, Be'eri. After his mother's death, Yonatan quit his job to (again) become a peace activist. His headshot was taken by Sandra Mehl.
Impressions from a Peace Now volunteering action at the Gaza border community that suffered the heaviest toll on October 7th.
Dave Harden and Larry Garber are former directors of the West Bank and Gaza office of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In this episode, they discuss the challenges of addressing the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the rebuilding of Gaza after the war ends.
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Ideological settlers are seriously talking about plans to resettle the Gaza Strip, to re-establish Gush Katif and turn back the clock on the 2005 disengagement, which they perceive as a national trauma. Eyal Lurie Pardes, a visiting fellow at Washington's Middle East Institute, discusses this matter.
Eyal's article on this topic in the Forward: https://forward.com/opinion/568553/israel-settler-movement-gaza-reoccupy/
Eyal's article on the Israeli government's curtailing the freedom of expresion during the Gaza war: https://www.mei.edu/publications/amid-gaza-war-palestinian-citizens-israel-feel-target-witch-hunt
Contact Ori: oir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of an APN November 9th webinar with Hagit Ofran and Yonatan Mizrachi, the co-directors of Peace Now's Settlement Watch Project.
Arnon Avni, an Israeli cartoonist and graphic designer, is a member of kibbutz Nirim, near the Gaza border. He is a longtime peace activist with Peace Now, Israel’s preeminent peace movement. On October 7th 2023, he hid in his home’s bomb shelter with his wife and two grandchildren, escaping the terrorist attack. Five people were killed in Nirim that day. Others were kidnapped to Gaza. Despite the shock and the pain and the grief, Avni still believes in peace and is determined to pursue it.
Support APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
This episode’s guest is Dr. Michael Robbins of Princeton University. He is the co-author of an article that was published on October 26th 2023 in Foreign Affairs, titled What Palestinians really think of Hamas.
Dr. Robbins is the director and co-principal investigator of the Arab Barometer.
Link to the article: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas
Link to the Arab Barometer: https://www.arabbarometer.org/
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Recording of a September 28th 2023 APN webinar with Haaretz's diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon.
Dr. Arnon Degani, a scholar who focuses on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the producer of a Hebrew language podcast on the Oslo process, comes back to PeaceCast for a deeper dive into the topic on the 30th anniversary of the Oslo agreements. Arnon was our guest a year ago on episode # 255. contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Recording of an August 31rd APN webinar with Letty Cottin Pogrebin, discussing her new book.
Amos Guiora is a professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, the University of Utah. He is a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, and in the past few months has become very active in Israel’s pro-democracy protest movement, both in the US and Israel.
Here are links to the two articles he mentions in this episode, published in The Hill:
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4095672-us-must-respond-to-israels-toleration-of-west-bank-settlers-pogroms-terrorism/
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4142038-biden-needs-to-have-a-tough-talk-with-israels-netanyahu/
And here is a link to the University of Utah College of Law’s Bystander Initiative, which Prof. Guiora founded and runs: https://sjquinney.utah.edu/news-articles/new-initiative-studies-ecosystem-of-abuse/
Recording of an August 14th APN webinar.
Shahira Shalabi is the Co-Deputy CEO for Programs of the Abraham Initiatives, where she runs the mixed cities program. Before joining the Abraham Initiatives, she served as the Deputy Mayor of Haifa, was a member of the Haifa city council, and was among the founders of the Palestinian feminist movement in Israel.
Adam Rasgon, a journalist specializing in covering Palestinian affairs, is the co-author of a recent Foreign Policy profile of Hussein Al-Sheikh, the chief assistant of the Palestinian Authority's President Mahoud Abbas. He is also the chief PA's liaison to Israel. In this episode he discusses the story he co-authored with the New York Times' Aaron Boxerman.
Link to the Foreign Policy story: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/31/palestine-hussein-al-sheikh-nationalism-fatah-west-bank-palestinian-authority-israel/
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Recording of a July 31st APN webinar with Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
Albanese's new report is available here: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session53/advance-versions/A_HRC_53_59_AdvanceUneditedVersion.pdf
A recording of a July 24th APN webinar to discuss the repercussions of the Isaeli government's assault on democracy.
Sally Abed, a social activist, and Dina Kraft, a journalist and author, are the anchors of Groundwork, a successful podcast co-sponsored by the New Israel Fund and the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP). In this episode they talk about the second season of their podcast.
Link to Groundwork: https://groundworkpodcast.com/
Links to past PeaceCast episodes that featured Salli and Dina:
- https://peacenow.libsyn.com/2001-introducing-groundwork
- https://peacenow.libsyn.com/100-accentuating-the-positive-with-dina-kraft
- https://peacenow.libsyn.com/232-standing-together
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
A recording of a July 10th 2023 webinar with Peace Now's Executive Director Lior Amihai.
APN intern Rochelle Berman spent her gap years in the West Bank, observing occupation friction points. In this episode, she reflects on this unique experience.
A recording of a June 29th 2023 APN webinar with Hady Amr, the US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs.
Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal is one of the world's leading experts on intractable condlicts. In his new book, Sinking into the Honey Trap - The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Bar-Tal lays out his analysis of Israeli society's attitude toward its conflict with the Palestinians. The book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Sinking-into-Honey-Trap-Israeli-Palestinian/dp/1637237162.
Write to Ori onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
On the 56th anniversary of the Six Day War, which marks the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, this episode features a small story that may inspire some hope for ending the occupation, for Isreali-Palestinian peace and reconciliation. This episode's guest is Yair Barak, who at the time of the war was a reserves soldier in the IDF and participated in the fighting in Jerusalem. He recently returned to the Muslim Waqf in Jerusalem's Old City a key to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which he took during the war, 56 years ago. His story was recently featured in a Haaretz magazine piece by Nir Hasson.
This episode is a recording of an APN May 15th 2023 webinar with Ori Givati of Breaking the Silence on the high tech programs the Isreali military uses to surveille Palestinians.
This episode is a recording of a May 3rd 2023 APN webinar with Dr. Shikma Bressler, one of the chief leaders of Israel's protest movement.
Dr. Rob Geist Pinfold is a Lecturer at Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs in the United Kingdom. His new book is titled Understanding Territorial Withdrawal - Israeli Occupations and Exits. It analyzes Israel’s withdrawals from occupied land, as well as its non-withdrawals. The book is available on Amazon here and on Oxford University Press here.
This episode is a recording of an April 17th APN webinar with Palestinian political scientist and pollster Khalil Shikaki.
Ali Abu Awwad is the Co-founder & General Manager of Taghyeer (Change), a Palestinian organization that leads a national nonviolence grassroots movement in the West Bank. It strives to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on freedom, dignity, and security for all. Abu Awwad is one of Palestine’s most prominent nonviolence activists. This episode is an edited version of a talk he gave at Washington DC’s Busboys and Poets’ Peace Café on April 4th 2023. It was produced in cooperation with the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), of which Taghyeer is a member organization.
Taghyeer’s website: https://www.taghyeerpal.ps/
ALLMEP’s website: https://www.allmep.org/
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Assaf Adiv is a longtime activist in the field of Palestinian labor rights. He is the Executive Director of MAAN Workers Association, a nonprofit that functions as a labor union. It works to advocate for and safeguard the rights of Palestinians who work in Israel and in Israeli West Bank settlements. Maan's website: https://eng.wac-maan.org.il/ Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Palestine 1936 The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict is the newly published book by Oren Kessler, an Israel-based author and journalist. In this conversation, Oren discusses his book, the Revolt, and their relevance today. The book is available here on Amazon.
This episode is a recording of a March 29th 2023 webinar with the executive director of Israel’s Peace Now movement, Lior Amihai. Before becoming Peace Now’s executive director last month, Lior served as the executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din. Prior to his five years there, Lior co-headed Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project for almost six years. He holds a master’s degree in human rights studies from London’s University College. The webinar recording started a bit late, so a couple of minutes at the very beginning of the webinar were cut off. Peace Now’s web site: https://peacenow.org.il/en/ Donate: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of APN's March 1st webinar with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on the political crisis in Israel.
Newly released in English, Shuli Dichter's book Sharing the Promised Land: In Pursuit of Equality Between Jewish and Arab Citizens in Israel combines personal stories with a blueprint for true equal relations between Israeli Jews and Arabs. In this conversation he talks about his vision for Jewish-Arab realtions in Israel and explains the concept of "civic Zionism."
Shuli's book on Amazon.
Contact Ori
This episode is a recording of a Februry 14th 2023 APN webinar with three of the organizers of the pro-democracy Israeli protest movement: Limor Moyal, Nery Life-Choma and Offir Gutelzon.
Janet Aviad was aming the founders of Isreal's Peace Now movement. 40 years ago, she was near Emil Grunzweig, a leading Peace Now activist, when he was killed by a right wing Israeli at the end of a peace demonstraton. In this episode, she talks about the event and the long shadow it cast on Israeli public life. Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Yara Amayra is a young Palestinian civil society activist and opinion leader.
This episode features her conversation with APN's strategic communications maven Maxxe Albert-Deitch and APN intern Eliza Schloss.
Noa Shusterman is the Israel-Palestinian Research Program Coordinator at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Israel's leading think tank. In this episode, she talks about the memorandum she co-authored with Udi Dekel, proposing a path for the government of Israel to address the transition in Palestinisn leadership.
The report, The Day After Abbas: Strategic Implications for Israel, is available here: https://www.inss.org.il/publication/the-day-after-abu-mazen/
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Recording of a January 9th 2023 webinar with Noa Sattath, the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). Sponsored jointly by APN and the New Israel Fund.
Said Arikat, the Washington correspondent of the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Quds, recently learned that his Twitter account has been suspended. In this episode, Ori discusses this odd experience with Said and explores with him what it’s like to be a correspondent for a Palestinian news organization in Washington.
Listen to our 2019 conversation with Said Arikat and Amir Tibon: https://peacenow.libsyn.com/73-covering-the-conflict-from-dc
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of a Decenber 22nd 2022 webinar with the leaders of three Israeli anti-occupation organizations: Shaqued Morag of Peace Now, Jessica Montell of Hamoked, and Avner Gvaryahu of Breaking the Silence.
Alon Schwarz is the director of the newly released documentary film Tantura. In this episode he discussess his film and what he hopes it will accomplish.
Tantura's web site: https://www.tantura-film.com/
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of a November 22 webinar with Eric Alterman on his new book, We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel.
Recording of a webinar analyzing of Israel’s November 1st Knesset elections. The webinar took place on Friday, November 4th. It featured pollster and political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin In a conversation with Libby Lenkinsky, Vice President for Public Engagement at the New Israel Fund, J Street’s President Jeremy Ben-Ami, and Americans for Peace Now President and CEO Hadar Susskind.
Isaac Zablocki is the director of the Other Film Festival, which will be launched on November 3rd 2022 in New York. In this episode, he talks about several of the films that evolve around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which are featured in this year's festival.
For more information and registration: https://www.otherisrael.org/
A recording of an APN October 26th 2022 webinar with Haaretz journalist Allison Kaplan Sommer, less than a week before Israel's general elections.
Eric Axelman is a film director and producer. His new documentary, Israelism, features young American Jews who were raised to defend the state of Israel, but when they went there, what they saw on the ground shocks and deeply disturbed them, and motivated them to become activists against Israel’s occupation and in support of Palestinian rights. Through their stories, the film examines the deepening divide over Israel within the American Jewish community.
Israelism's web site: https://www.israelismfilm.com/
Contac Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode is a recording of an October 19th 2022 webinar with the founder and president of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), Avi Meyerstein on the special congressional initiaive to fund Israeli-Palestinian people-to-people programs.
For the Mitvim report that Avi authored on the subject, click here
Micah Hendler is the founder and artistic director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus. In this episode, he talks about the choir and about the power of music to bring people together. On the JYC’s web site, you can find more details and videos.
Dr. Arnon Degani is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Avraham Harman Research Center for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Research fellow at the Israeli think tank MOLAD. He is also the creator of an 8-part Hebrew language podcast on the Oslo Accords. The podcast dispells some of the chief misconceptions about the Oalo Accords, their background and their impact.
In thus episode, Dr. Degani discusses the objective of the podcast, which will hopefully be re-produced for the English speaking audience.
For the Oslo Podcast (Hebrew) click here.
To contact Ori write to: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of a September 21st 2022 webinar with Israeli journalist and political analyst Tal Schneider.
Chen Arieli is the Deputy Mayor of Tel Aviv. This episode is an audio recording of a September 8th 2022 webinar, in which Arieli spoke about her initiative of producing new maps for Tel Aviv public schools, which clearly delineate Israel's borders, including the Green Line that separates sovereign Israel from the occupied West Bank.
Click here for a transcript of this episode.
Click here to donate to APN.
Dr. Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian-American scholar, journalist and actiivist, is the author of a recent Haaretz arrticle titled "What Palestinians Really Think About the Holocaust." In this episode, Dr. Bahbah discusses his article and why he decided to publicly address such a sensitive topic.
A recording of a September 1, 2022 webinar with Dr. Yasser Abu Jamei and Dr. Suad Lubbad, mental health practitioners in the Gaza Strip.
Suad Lubbad is Project Officer at the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) in the Gaza Strip. The projects she leads mainly handle early childhood development, child health, nutrition, education, protection and hygiene. She holds a PhD in human development.
Yasser Abu Jamei is the director general of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, a leading mental health services provider, and the cofounder of the Palestine Global Mental Health Network. His recent focus is an approach that integrates public health and human rights into mental health in the Gazan context.
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
This episode is an audio recording of an August 25 APN webinar with Ruth Messinger and Mik Moore to discuss their jointly authored article recently published by The Nation.
The article is available here: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democracy-middle-east-israel-palestinians/
A recording of an August 11th 2022 APN webinar featuring Joel Carmel of Breaking the Silence (BtS).
Link to BtS's report: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/inside/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Military_rule_testimony_booklet.pdf
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episoed is a rcording of an August 4th APN webinar with Israeli political analyst Chemi Shalev.
The Dove is an annual storytelling event that features young Israeli and Palestinian leaders, in Washington DC for the summer program of New Story Leadership.
This July, The APN-NSL Dove is back after a 2-year COVID hiatus, with inspiring storytellers.
The event took place on July 26th, 2022.
This episode is a recording of a July 14th 2022 webinar, sponsored by organizations that comprise the Progressive Israel Network (PIN), focusing on the ongoing crisis at the South Hebron Hills Palestinian villages of Masafer Yatta. Disussants are Israeli human rights activists.
Alexander (Alex) Winder, is a professor at Brown University focusing on Palestinian history, and the co-editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly, published by the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS). Prof. Winder is one of the editors of the new Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question. In this episode, he introduces the project and explains its significance.
The encyclopedia is here: https://www.palquest.org/ and the Institute of Palestine Studies is here: https://www.palestine-studies.org/
This is an audio recording of a July 6th 2022 webinar with Dana Mills, the acting executive director of Israel's Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) movement.
A transcript of this webinar: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39760#.YsbzpHbML84
Peace Now's report about the record of the first year of the Bennett-Lapid government in relation to settlement construction can be found here: https://peacenow.org.il/en/the-first-year-of-the-bennett-lapid-government
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This is a recording of a June 23rd 2022 webinar with the young members of APN's team to explore the ways in which young progressive American Jews are thinking, talking, and acting about Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians. Participating are APN's new Communications and Development Associate Maxxe Albert-Deitch, her predecessor Claire Davidson Miller, and our intern Eliana Blumberg, in conversation with APN’s Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino.
This is a recording of a June 15th, 2022 webinar featuring Jessica Montell, the executive director of the Israel human rights organization Hamoked to discuss the new set of regulations issued by Israel's Ministry of Defense, governing the entry of foreign nationals into the West Bank and their residence in it.
The compendium of new regulations is available here. Hamoked's analysis of the new regulations available here. Hamoked's website is here.
For a transcript of this episode click here.
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode is a recording of a June 7th 2022 in-person event in Washington DC with strategic affairs analyst Yossi Alpher regarding Israel’s existential challenges.
Yossi's new book is availablel here.
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN
The Israeli progressive organization Mehazkim put up billboards throughout Israel showing the Israeli and Palestinian flags and saying, "We were Meant to Live Together." One of them, near Tel Aviv, was ordered taken down by local authorities because it was deemed too offensive.
Eran Nissan is with Mehazkim. In this conversation, he lays out the rationale behind the billboard campaign and addresses the reaction to it as a metaphor to current Israeli attitudes to the conflict with the Palestinians.
For a transcript of this episode click here.
Recording of a webinar with veteran Palestinian journalists Daoud Kuttab and Mohammed Daraghmeh on the challenges of covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a Palestinian journalist.
This episode is a recoring of a May 19th 2022 webinar with Dr. Dana Mills, the acting director of Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) on the Israeli peace movement currenrt efforts to curtail Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
Larry Garber is back from the West Bank, where he spent a month documenting the second round of the Palestinian municipal elections as a member of a Carter Center expert team.
The team’s report is here.
Contat Ori.
Donate to APN.
Recording of an April 21st APN webinar with Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann on the tension in Jerusalem and beyond.
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode is a tribute to longtime APN Board member Sidney (Sid) Topol, who passed away on March 30th, 2022. Sid was an icon of the US pro-Israel pro-peace movement.
The recordings of Sid, from September 2013 and April 2014, which served to edit this episode, were made by Aliza Becker for the American Jewish Peace Archive: An Oral History of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Activists, which she directs.
Recording of an April 5th, 2022 webinar with Stacy Burdett and Dan Kalik. Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode discusses the dramatic events of March 2002 and the violence of March 2022 and the twenty years that separate them. Our guest is Yossi Alpher, the Israeli strategic affairs expert, a prolific author and analyst, who has for many years been writing APN’s weekly analysis Hard Questions Tough Answers. The conversation evolves around Yossi's new book, Death Tango: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat and Three Fateful Days in March.
Yossi's new book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Tango-Sharon-Yasser-Fateful/dp/1538162075/ref=sr_1_1?crid=9ZHTQCPV3Q8V&keywords=Death+Tango&qid=1648755342&s=books&sprefix=death+tango%2Cstripbooks%2C48&sr=1-1
Yossi's column discussing the book on APN's website: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39288#.YkX2wyjMJD8
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
An in-person conversation with Alon-Lee Green and Sally Abed of the progressive Israeli Jewish-Arab movement Standing Together.
Standing Together's website: https://www.standing-together.org/en
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
A recording of a March 29th 2022 webinar with activists Mark Zivin and Aviv Tatarsky to discuss their efforts to stop the mass demolition of Palestinian homes in the village of Al-Walaja, East Jerusalem.
Recording of an APN March 21 2022 webinar with Dr. Hiba Husseini and Dr. Yossi Beilin, the co-authors of a new plan for a Palestinian-Israeli confederation, titled the Holy Land Confederation Plan.
Link to the plan: https://ecf.org.il/media_items/1538
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
This episode is a recording of a March 15th 2022 webinar with the US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, co-moderated by APN Board member and the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, and APN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind.
Palestinian flags are not outlawed in Israel. So why do Israeli police officers in East Jerusalem and elsewhere systematically confiscate Palestinian flags, and why does the police go to such great lengths to remove Palestinian flags from the public domain?
This question is the focus of a new petition to Israel's Supreme Court, submitted by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). Eyal Lurie-Pardes, who co-wrote the petition with ACRI's Tal Hassin is the guest on this episode.
To review the petition (Hebrew): https://01368b10-57e4-4138-acc3-01373134d221.usrfiles.com/ugd/01368b_a54922e33dd94c7eaba0f7d53958ed98.pdf
To read Ori's Haaretz article on this topic: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-why-are-israelis-so-frightened-by-the-palestinian-flag-1.10260854
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode is an edited version of a conversation Ori had on February 21st 2022 with Andrew Hirsh and Ezzeldeen Masri of OneVoice, for their podcast, Everyday Voices.
We discussed West Bank settler violence.
For more on OneVoice: https://www.onevoicemovement.org/
For the Everyday Voices podcast: https://www.onevoicemovement.org/everydayvoices
Ori’s Haaretz article on this subject: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-for-israel-s-settlers-it-s-war-their-target-palestinian-land-and-bodies-1.10559557
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of a February 24th 2022 webinar to discuss a new publication by Truah, A Very Brief Guide to Antisemitism. A conversation on this topic between the CEOs of T’ruah and APN, Rabbi Jill Jacobs and Hadar Susskind.
A transcript of this episode: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39211#.Yhjr8O7MIq0
A link to T'ruah's booklet: https://truah.org/antisemitism/
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
This episode is an edited version of an APN webinar with Maya Rosen and Daniel Roth, the co-authors of a new report on the ways in which the work of a huge organization that owns large portions of Israel's land reserves dispossesses Palestinians, both in the West Bank and inside Israel.
Find the report here.
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
This episode of PeaceCast features Professor Hillel Cohen, an exceptionally creative Hebrew University scholar studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His current article in Israel Studies Magazine is titled: Marketing the Occupation to the Palestinians of the West Bank: Shabak Facebook Pages in Historical Context.
Link to the article: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/842361
Hillel Cohen’s web site: https://pluto.huji.ac.il/~hilcoh/
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Rabbi Dr. Michael Marmur is the Chair of the Board of the Israeli human rights organization Rabbis for Human Rights. He is also an Associate Professor of Jewish Theology at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. In this episode, he talks about the organization he leads and about the impressive show of support for its activists who were attacked by settlers as they helped Palestinian villagers plant olive trees in the northern West Bank.
A transcript of this episode:
https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39160#.YgPkLu7MIq0
Rabbis for Human Rights’ web site: https://www.rhr.org.il/eng
Rabbi Michael Marmur’s bio: http://huc.edu/directory/michael-marmur
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
A recording of a January 27th 2022 webinar with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid on his new book.
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate: https://peacenow.org/donate
The governments of the US and Israel are negotiating terms for including Israel in the US Visa Waiver Program. Will these terms address Israel's restrictions on travel into and through Israel for Palestinian Americans, and Israel's harsh treatment of Palestinian and other Arab Americans who enter Israel?
Discussing these restrictions are two prominent Palestinian Americans, performing artist Maysoon Zayid and Hanna Hanania, a dentist and Palestinian rights activist.
Contact us: onir@peacenow.org
Donate: https://peacenow.org/donate
Dana Mills is the acting Executive Director of Israel's peace movement Shalom Achshav, Peace Now. She is also a scholar, a professor, an author and a dancer, and a longtime peace activist.
A transcript of this episode: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39106#.YebbtP7MJD8
Peace Now on the web: https://peacenow.org.il/en
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Uri Ashi is the author of a newly published Hebrew book, The Hope, an Illustrated Guide to Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
In this episode, he discusses his book and the impact he hopes it will have on Israeli society.
Link to Uri’s website (Hebrew): https://hatikvah.co.il/
Write to Ori Nir: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Ori Givati is the advocacy director of Breaking the Silence. He is discussing a new BTS report, a collection of IDF soldiers' testimonies on settler violence.
A link to the transcript of this episode: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39080#.YdXi0mjML85
A link to the report: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/inside/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/OnDuty-Testimonies-En.pdf
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Vera Baboun is the former mayor of Bethlehem. She was mayor between 2012 and 2017, the first woman elected for mayor in Bethlehem, and throughout her adult life has been a peace advocate.
In this episode, she describes the atmosphere in Bethlehem on the eve of Christmas 2021, and wishes us all a happy holiday.
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of a December 16th, 2021 webinar with Peace Now's Dana Mills on a new Peace Now report analyzing the relationship between West Bank illegal outposts and anti-Palestinian violent acts by extremist settlers.
For the report, click here
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
to donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Karnit Mandel, a documentarian who specializes in archival work, talks about her new film, “Shalal: A Reel War,” which was recently aired on aired on Israel’s Hot 8 cable TV channel which co-produced it with Israel's New Fund for Cinema and Television.
Mandel’s documentary examines the audiovisual material that was part of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s archive in Beirut and was confiscated by the Israeli military during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Haaretz ran this magazine piece about the documentary
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
The recording of a December 9th 2021 webinar with Sari Bashi, an Israeli human rights lawyer and the co-founder of Gisha. Bashi recently published a Hebrew-language book, “Maqluba: Upside-Down Love,” about her relationship with her partner, a Palestinian professor from Gaza.
Bashi, who writes the popular Umm Forat blog, has won critical acclaim for her book and is working on an English translation.
A transcript of this episode: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=39035#.YbNtRtDML85
Link to Bashi's blog: https://www.ummforat.com/en/
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Ali Awad is a Palestinian activist and resident of Tuba, a village in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. Maya Rosen is a Jerusalem-based activist with All That’s Left, an anti-Occupation collective. Together they discuss the challenges facing the Palestinian residents of this southern part of the West Bank.
For a transcript of this episode: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38978#.YaeV4fHMIq0
For more information and ways to support Masafer Yatta: www.savemasaferyatta.com
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Congressman Andy Levin recently (D-MI) introduced groundbreaking legislation intended to re-define the United States’ role as a catalyst for Israeli-Palestinian peace. By implementing tangible steps that would accelerate progress toward peace and discourage steps that push it further out of reach, Congressman Levin’s Two-State Solution Act injects new hope into the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
A transcript of this episode
The Two State Solution Act
Write to us: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Encountering Palestinians with Leah Solomon
Leah Solomon is the Chief Education Officer of Encounter, an organization that focuses on introducing US Jewish community leaders to West Bank Palestinians and their life under Israeli occupation.
In this episode, an in-person conversation in Jerusalem, where she lives, Leah talks about the organization, its mission and philosophy, and about the satisfaction of witnessing American Jewish leaders changing their attitude toward Palestinians and the conflict.
A transcript of this episode:
https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38936#.YY62K73MI6E
Encounter on the web: http://www.encounterprograms.org/
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode is a recording of an APN November 8th 2021 webinar with leading Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard on the Israeli government's designation of six West Bank-based Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations.
For a transcript of this episode: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38922#.YYmAvb3MI6E
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Hagit Ofran of Israel's Peace Now movement and Lior Amihai, the executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din analyze what is behind the current uptick in Wesst Bank settler violence.
This episode is a recording of an October 14 2021 APN webinar.
Transcript of this show: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38864#.YWmJ5dnMI6E
To contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
A tribute to Marcia Freedman, an American-Israeli social justice activist, a feminist, and a peace activist who passed away on September 21st. It is an edited down conversation between Freedman and Aliza Becker, the founder of the American Jewish Peace Archive.
A link to the Archive's web site: https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-american-jewish-peace-archive-2015-02-26
A link to Marcia's memoir: https://smile.amazon.com/Exile-Promised-Land-Marcia-Freedman/dp/093237977X/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=marcia+freedman&qid=1632346037&sr=8-3
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
This episode is the second in a two-part series, featuring past leaders of Americans for Peace Now as the organization marks its 40th anniversary. This conversation is with Debra DeLee and Gail Pressberg, who led APN through the better part of three decades. Debra was APN's President and CEO for 21 years, ending in 2018. Gail was the organization's Washington director in the 1990s.
Register for APN's October 7th gala: https://peacenow.salsalabs.org/GalaRegistration/index.html
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Americans for Peace Now is this year marking its 40th anniversary. The organization was founded in 1981, and its first director was Mark Rosenblum.
In this episode, Mark talks about the early days of APN.
This is the first in a two-part series of conversations with APN’s past CEO. The second will feature Gail Pressberg, who headed APN’s Washington office, and Debra DeLee, who led the organization for 21 years, from 1997 to 2018.
These past leaders of APN will be among many guests at our 40-year virtual Gala on October 7th 2021, in which we will honor our chair of the Board James (Jim) Klutznick and his family.
Register for the Gala: https://peacenow.salsalabs.org/GalaRegistration/index.html
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
MachsomWatch was founded in 2001, when three Jewish women from Jerusalem first saw a military checkpoint in the West Bank. Today, it is comprised of some 200 Israeli women, all volunteers, who have taken it upon themselves to bear witness to the occupation, and advocate for Palestinian human rights. We spoke with two of them, Aviva Hay and Anat Tueg.
For a transcript of this episode:
https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38714#.YTqWCp1Kj85
MachsomWatch's web site: https://machsomwatch.org/en
MachsomWatch's virtual photo exhibition: https://www.haaretz.com/haaretz-labels/INTERACTIVE-1.10140478
Write to us: onir@peacenow.org
American public attitudes toward Israel and Palestine have dramatically shifted in the past few years. In this webinar, Dr. Telhami analyzed the recent developments and the overarching trends on this matter. Shibley Telhami is a leading expert on US public opinion on Israel-Palestine. Dr. Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development and the Director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has advised in one form or another every administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama.
For a transcript of this podcast click here: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38695#.YTEvYY5Kj85
To view the webinar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isIPVa8EJfM&ab_channel=AmericansforPeaceNow
Write to us: onir@peacenow.org
Support PeaceCast: https://peacenow.org/donate
Sam Sussman is the co-founder and director of Extend, a nonprofit organization which seeks to introduce young American Jews to Palestinian and Israeli human rights, civil society, and political leaders.
In this episode, he talks about the program and its goals.
Extend's web site: https://www.extendprograms.org/
A transcript of this episode: http://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38619
Support PeaceCast: https://peacenow.org/donate
A recording of an August 16th 2021 APN webinar, in partnership with Just Vision and Jewish Currents, hosting Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen and the company's Chair of the Board Anuradha Mittal. Moderating the discussion are Jewish Currents Editor-at-Large Peter Beinart and Just Vision's Executive Director and President Suhad Babaa.
The Conversation evolved around Ben and Jerry's decision to stop selling its ice cream products in settlements in the occupied territories.
Write to us: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode features the hosts of Groundwork, a new podcast about Palestinian and Jewish Israelis refusing to accept the status quo and working together for change. Sally Abed is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and an elected member of the national leadership of Standing Together, a Jewish-Arab social movement in Israel. Dina Kraft is a Jewish-Israeli journalist based in Tel Aviv who reports for the Christian Science Monitor. She is the former Israel correspondent for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and was formerly an Associated Press correspondent based in Jerusalem and Johannesburg. Dina was also the producer and host of the podcast The Branch. She was our guest on our 100th episode, on December 2019, to talk about The Branch.
Links:
Groundwork: https://groundworkpodcast.com/
PeaceCast’s episode #100: https://peacenow.libsyn.com/100-accentuating-the-positive-with-dina-kraft
Standing Together: https://www.standing-together.org/english
Email Ori with ideas or feedback: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
More than four and a half years ago, we launched PeaceCast, Americans for Peace Now’s podcast. Since then, we recorded 200 episodes. This celebratory episode features a conversation between Ori Nir and PeaceCast’s new co-host, Claire Davidson Miller.
We have exciting plans for PeaceCast’s future, and would love your input.
With any feedback or ideas, please email Ori at onir@peacecast.org
To support PeaceCast, donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
After the Trump administration made a mockery of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, came the Biden administration with a policy that does not presume to relaunch a peace process but rather keep the path open to future negotiations. Two veterans of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts say Biden is missing an opportunity and must change course.
This episode is a recording of an APN July 20th webinar with Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli Director of EcoPeace Middle East. EcoPeace is a regional organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development and advance peace efforts in the Middle East. Bromberg spoke about his organization's new report, A Green New Deal for the Middle East.
Bromberg used a PowerPoint presentation to illustrate his talk. Please view the presentation here.
This episode is the audio of a July 8th 2021 APN Webinar. Leading Palestinian political pollster and political analyst Khalil Shikaki analyzes Palestinian public opinion as the events of this summer cause a major shift in the Palestinian public endorsing Hamas' leadership and turn away from the PLO, Fatah and President Abbas.
Dr. Khalil Shikaki heads the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. He has taught political science in the West Bank and at several American universities and is considered the most trusted pollster in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
His latest poll, referred to in the talk, can be found here.
Adi Granot is the research project manager of Zulat, an Israeli think tank that focuses on equality and human rights. Her recently published report addresses the status of Palestinian women in East Jerusalem.
To read the report: https://en.zulat.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Jerusalem-from-a-Gender-Perspective-ENG-June-2021.pdf
Anti-occupation protest song by Adi: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1947475238618169
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
A recording of a June 29th 2021 APN webinar with MK Mossi Raz, a former director of Peace Now and a longtime peace activist, who represents Meretz in the Knesset. Raz recognizes the limits of pushing a dovish agenda in the new Lapid-Bennett-headed coalition.
Dr. Norbert Goldfield is founder/ CEO of Healing Across the Divides (www.healingdivides.org ) focusing on peace-building through health in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The mission of this organization is to measurably improve the health of marginalized Israelis and Palestinians through community-based interventions.
Dr. Goldfield has published more than 100 books and articles. His latest book is Peace Building through Women’s Health: Psychoanalytic, Sociopsychological, and Community Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Routledge, Taylor Francis, 2021). The book is available on Amazon here.
APN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind and our Director of Government Relations Madeleine Cereghino explain the new policy that APN adopted in support of conditioning US aid to Israel. A recording of a June 17th 2021 APN Webinar.
Hadar Susskind's op-ed unveiling the new policy: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=38330#.YMtsa2hKj84
A recording of a June 10th 2021 APN webinar with Israeli political analyst Tal Schneider on Israel’s new “change coalition.”
Jawad Siam is a resident of East Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood. A settler organization pushed out his family members from a portion of his home by establishing ownership in court. Now the settlers are applying pressure on Siam to leave the rest of the house. Thier cruel, Kafkaesque ploy: forcing him to pay back rent for years of living in his own home.
More on Siam's case in this Haaretz story: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/palestinians-jerusalem-israel-silwan-brutal-reality-1.9701623
A link to Siam's legal defense fund: https://secure.nif.org/86OYO-rBsUCO_mAeztMCiQ2
A Peace Now report on Siam's court cases: https://peacenow.org.il/en/after-24-year-legal-battle-court-permits-settler-takeover-of-siyam-family-home-in-silwan
A conversation with two leading Israeli activists with many years of experience building bridges between Arabs and Jews.
Shalom (Shuli) Dichter is the author of Tensions and Good Intentions, a vision for shared society between Arabs and Jews in Israel. He is the former Executive Director of Hand in Hand, the Centers for Bilingual Education, and the former co-executive director of Sikkuy, The Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality, a Jewish-Arab advocacy organization.
Maisam Jaljuli is the co-chair of the board of directors of Sikkuy and a member of the secretariat of the Jewish Arab organization Standing Together, a Jewish Arab movement that mobilizes people for equality, social justice, and peace. She is active in a broad spectrum of a social, feminist, labor and political causes and a leading member of the political party Hadash
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
An edited version of an online event organized by American Friends of Combatants for Peace and co-sponsored by many pro-peace organizations, including APN.
The event featured Combatants for Peace co-founder Sulaiman (Suli) Khatib and Rabbi Sharon Brous.
AFCP: https://afcfp.org/
Suli's book: http://www.beacon.org/In-this-Place-Together-P1649.aspx
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Noa Landau is a senior writer and editor at Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. She manages a new Haaretz initiative to amplify and empower voices of Arab citizens of Israel.
Haaretz 21 (Hebrew): https://www.haaretz.co.il/haaretz21
Noa's bio: https://www.haaretz.com/misc/writers/WRITER-1.4969059
APN on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/americans_for_peace_now/
APN on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeaceNowUS
APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmericansforPeaceNow
In conversation with APN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind, one of Israel's leading strategic analysts and one of its leading peace activists analyze the recent hostilities and their impact.
Yossi Alpher, the author of APN’s weekly analysis Hard Questions Tough Answers, is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with Israel’s Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer.
Shaqued Morag is the executive director of Israel’s peace movement Shalom Achshav (Peace Now). A seasoned political and social activist, Shaqued served in senior positions at Israel’s Meretz party, including the party’s secretary-general.
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
The current flareup of violence between Israel and Hamas has exposed an unprecedented dynamic in Washington in relation to Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians.
In this episode, APN’s President and CEO Hadar Susskind, a longtime Washington advocate on Capitol Hill and beyond, gives a quick snapshot of this new dynamic and comments on its causes and possible repercussions.
Write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate: https://peacenow.org/donate
May 15th is the anniversary of the most traumatic experience that the Palestinian people suffered in its history, the devastation in the 1948 war, which Israeli Jews call the War of Independence, and the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba.
In this episode of PeaceCast, Dr. Carol Daniel Kasbari talks about the long shadow that the Nakba casts over the current collective experience and identity of Palestinians – both in Palestine and abroad.
Dr. Kasbari’s bio: https://www.mei.edu/profile/carol-daniel-kasbari
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate: https://peacenow.org/donate
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
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
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
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
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
Contact Ori
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.
Write to Ori
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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.
Write to Ori
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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
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
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.
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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
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
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
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
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
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Dr. Ashrawi discusses the Palestinian perspective on the transition and examined the state of US-Palestinian relations after Donald Trump’s four years in the White House. She commented on the Palestinian leadership’s efforts to push the reset button on the relationship with the US as President-elect Biden prepares to enter the Oval Office next month, and the Palestinian expectations from the Biden administration. Toward the end of the conversation, she shared some thoughts on what motivated her to resign from the Executive Committee of the PLO.
Hagit Ofran of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Project, is one of the world’s leading experts on the subject. In this webinar, she examined the Trump administration’s legacy regarding settlements and what the Biden administration will need to do to reverse Trump’s radical shift from America’s traditional policy on this issue.
This webinar is part of APN's series on the Israel-Palestine implications of the transition from the Trump administration to president-elect Biden’s administration.
A recording of a webinar with Yossi Alper, one of Israel’s leading strategic affairs analysts, addressing how the transition from Trump to Biden is viewed in Israel, how dealing with a Biden administration might alter Israeli government policies and priorities, and how Israel’s conservative government would adapt to a worldview diametrically opposed to Trump’s and very different from Netanyahu’s.
This webinar was a part of APN's series examining the Middle East policy impact of transitioning from the Trump administration to the Biden administration.
Contact Ori Nir: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Dahlia Scheindlin is an Israel-based public opinion expert and an international political and strategic consultant, as well as a scholar and a writer.
She is also a podcaster. Her latest project is a mini-series of podcast episodes on West Bank settlements, titled Israeli Settlements 360: What Everyone Needs to Know.
On this episode, Dahlia talks about her takeaways from producing the series.
Here is the link to the podcast series: https://open.spotify.com/show/4NG1pkSYlOWcrwaEbbHoOZ
To write to Ori: onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Palestinians don’t see Joe Biden as a savior. Far from it. But the end of the demise of the Trump administration, the worse period ever in US-Palestinian relations, is viewed by many Palestinians as an opportunity to push the reset button not only on their relations with Washington but also on intra-Palestinian politics. Discussing Palestinian policy and the Biden administration is Khaled Elgindy, formerly with the Brookings Institute and now the Director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute here in Washington. He is also the author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump. He has been a guest on episode #78 of PeaceCast in April 2019.
Elizabeth Campbell is director of UNRWA’s Representative Office in Washington, D.C.
Prior to joining UNRWA, Campbell was the senior humanitarian policy advisor in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where she worked on refugee and humanitarian issues in the United Nations system.
In this episode, Campbell discusses the reasons for UNRWA's current budgetary crisis, since the Trump administration defunded the agency, and expresses hope for re-funding UNRWA under the Biden administration.
Relevant links:
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The range of UNRWA services: https://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do
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A map of our where UNRWA operates in the region: https://www.unrwa.org/resources/about-unrwa/unrwa-fields-operations-map-2020
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Misconceptions about UNRWA: https://www.unrwa.org/who-we-are/frequently-asked-questions
https://www.unrwa.org/resources/strategy-policy/demystifying-unrwa-approach-curriculum
An APN webinar featuring Mira Resnick and Ilan Goldenberg to analyze the general election results and what they mean for America's Middle East policy.
Gadi Gvaryahu is the founder and Chairman of Tag Meir.
His organization's web site: https://www.tag-meir.org.il/en/
Shortly after the eruption of the second intifada, a veteran senior Israeli intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Ben-Ari, was appointed to examine whether PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had planned in advance to ignite the violent flames and actually did so.
His conclusions: Arafat did not. His report was never shared with Israeli decision makers, and the narrative regarding Arafat's role in "launching" the second intifada became a part of the fabric of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's set of conventional wisdoms.
A link to Ben-Ari's Haaretz article (Hebrew): https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/.premium-1.9184053
Contact Ori: onir@peacenow.org
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Rafi Nets-Zehngut’s new book (currently in Hebrew only) focuses on the collective memory among Israeli Jews of the question of the Palestinian exodus from Palestine during the 1948 war, the war that Israeli Jews refer to as the War of Independence and that the Palestinians refer to as the Naqba, the catastrophe.
One of his most intriguing and surprising findings is that the biased “official” Zionist narrative regarding this experience has been challenged in Israel and then lost its grounding much earlier than one may think.
How did this happen? Why is it important? How may it impact efforts to advance peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians?
Dr. Nets-Zehngut addresses these questions and others in this episode of PeaceCast.
Write to Ori Nir
Write to Dr. Nets-Zehngut
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Eran Singer covers Arab affairs for Israel Television Channel 11 and for Israel Radio Kan Reshet Bet, Israel’s public broadcast services.
His most recent project was a TV news series on the status of the Arabic language in Israel, among Israeli Jews, and the way in which Arabic is taught in Israeli schools.
This episode discusses this topic.
Questions? Comments? Email onir@peacenow.org
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This is a slightly edited version of an August 27th 2020 APN webinar.
Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and a media activist, a leading independent analyst and commentator on current events, and an activist working to advance the freedom of the press in the Arab world. He is currently the director general of the Community Media Network (CMN), a nonprofit media organization dedicated to advancing independent media in the Arab world.
Yossi alpher is the author of Hard Questions, Tough Answers, APN’s weekly analysis of political and strategic affairs. Now an independent security analyst, Alpher is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer.
In this episode, he assesses the various aspects of the Israel-United Arab Emirates normalization deal.
Hard Questions, Tough Answers on APN's web site
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In a rare decision, Israel's Supreme Court accepted the petition of a Palestinian family against an IDF order to punitively demolish its West Bank home. Jessica Montell, the executive director of the Israeli human rights organization Hamoked, which helped file the petition, talks about the case and about the doctrine and practice of house demolitions in the West Bank.
Hamoked's web site: http://www.hamoked.org/home.aspx
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Michael Sfard is one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers and the legal counsel of Peace Now (Shalom Achshav) and of the organization Yesh Din.
Yesh Din recently commissioned Sfard to prepare a legal opinion on whether the current situation in the West Bank, the occupation -- regardless of Israel’s intention to de-jure annex parts of the West Bank -- can be defined as Apartheid. Michael issued a report titled “The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion."
In this episode, a version of an August 10th 2020 webinar, Sfard talks about his report and what it means.
A link to the report
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Eran Nissan is a key orgnizer and activist in the current Anti-Netanyahu, anti-corruption and pro-democracy protest movement in Isreal. He is a former staff member of Peace Now, and currently works for Mehazkim, a progressive Israeli activist nonprofit.
What is the role of the Israeli peace movement in the broader context of the protest movement? What opportunity does this mass protest movement grant to the Israeli peace camp to advance its advocacy? Does the protest movement open a door to highlight the relationship between the occupation and the erosion of democracy in Israel?
Eran addresses this and other questions.
Eran's story on a past PeaceCast episode
Mehazkim's web site
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David Pollock’s new book, A Nation Divided – Palestinian Views on War and Peace with Israel is an analysis of many years of surveying Palestinians' attitudes regarding their relationship with Israel.
Pollock's book on the web site of the Washington Institue for Near East Policy
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This episode is an edited version of a July 23rd 2020 webinar with Peace Now's Hagit Ofran, one of the leading authorities on West Bank settlements and on settlements in East Jerusalem.
Her recent report, Annex and Dispossess, documents the way in which Israeli authorities have been using the Absentee Property Law to transfer Palestinian real estate in East Jerusalem to settlers. The report points out ways in which Israel's government could emulate this method to dispossess Palestinians of their land and homes in the West Bank once parts of the West Bank are annexed to Israel.
New Story Leadership is a program that every summer brings to Washington five Israelis and five Palestinians for a program aimed at empowering young leaders who will advance mutual Israeli-Palestinian understanding, tolerance and peace.
Americans for Peace Now has partnered with NSL since its inception, more than ten years ago.
This year, due to COVID-19, the Israeli and Palestinians who were chosen for this summer’s program had to stay home and participate in the program virtually, online. They will travel to DC, COVID permitting, next summer.
In past years, we brough NSL delegates to PeaceCast. This episode is a COVID-era attempt to bring NSL’s voices to you, PeaceCast’s listeners. It’s an opportunity to listen to young Israelis and Palestinians who are acting, separately and together, to build bridges between their communities and to forge hope for a better future.
An APN July 10th 2020 webinar with Peter Beinart on his pivoting away from the two-state paradigm.
An edited version of a webinar with Lara Friedman and Danny Seidemann on West Bank annexation.
Lara Friedman is the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She joined FMEP in 2017 after a long career at APN as its director of policy and government relations.
Daniel Seidemannis an Israeli attorney specializing in Israeli-Palestinian relations, with an emphasis on Jerusalem. He is the founder and director of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an NGO that works towards a resolution to the question of Jerusalem that is consistent with the two-state solution.
After 16 years in the Knesset, including six years as chairperson of Israel’s Meretz party, Zehava Galon is back to human rights activism as the President of Zulat for Equality and Human Rights, a new Israeli activist think tank.
(Photo credit: Ronen Ackerman)
Zulat's web site
This webinar is one in a series of APN briefings on West Bank annexation. It features Ambassador Daniel Shapiro, the United States’ former ambassador to Israel and currently a distinguished visiting fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
Dan Shapiro served as US ambassador to Israel under President Obama between 2011 and 2017, one of the longest serving ambassadors to Israel. In that role, he participated in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in U.S.-Israeli discussions on the Iran nuclear deal, and in negotiations on U.S. military assistance to Israel. Prior to that he was Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Security Council at the White House.
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
To write to us: onir@peacenow.org
This is an edited version of an APN webinar, one in a series of briefings on West Bank annexation. It features Khalil Shikaki, the leading Palestinian pollster and political analyst. Shikaki accompanied his prepared remarks with a computerized presentation comprised of three slides. Here are the slides:
This story by Gideon Levy is part of APN’s Virtual Dove series, a collection of stories told by practitioners in the field of Israeli-Palestinian relations, stories that highlight the human and the humanity in this conflict.
The current batch of stories features Israeli journalists who covered or are covering Palestinian affairs for Israeli media organizations.
Gideon Levy has for the past 22 years been writing about Palestinian affairs for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
This story by Anat Saragusti is a part of APN’s Virtual Dove series, a collection of stories told by practitioners in the field of Israeli-Palestinian relations, stories that highlight the human and the humanity in this conflict.
The current batch of stories features Israeli journalists who covered or cover Palestinian affairs for Israeli media organizations.
This story by Oren Cohen, the former Palestinian affairs correspondent of the daily newspaper Hadashot, is a part of APN’s Virtual Dove series, a collection of stories told by practitioners in the field of Israeli-Palestinian relations, stories that highlight the human and the humanity in the conflict.
This conversation with award-winning Haaretz journalist Amira Hass serves as an introduction to the second installment of our Virtual Dove series of stories about Israeli-Palestinian relations told by practitioners in this field. The second part of the Virtual Dove features three Isralei correspondents who covered (or still cover) Palestinian affairs for Israeli news organizations.
For feedback, please email onir@peacenow.org
To donate to APN https://peacenow.org/donate
This episode is an edited version of an APN briefing call held on June 11th 2020 with Israeli Knesset Member Merav Michaeli of the Labor Party. The briefing call is one in a series on the Israeli government's planned annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin. Dahlia is a public opinion expert and an international political and strategic consultant, as well as a scholar and a writer. In this episode, she talks about Israeli public opinion regarding West Bank annexation and about a new study she authored which offers a set of recommendations for a practical solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, known as the Palestinian right of return.
Dahlia’s bio: https://tcf.org/experts/dahlia-scheindlin/
PeaceCast’s previous episode with Dahlia: https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=30761#.XtVaIjpKiUk
The Tel Aviv Review: https://tlv1.fm/podcasts/tel-aviv-review-show/
PeaceCast’s co-produced episode with the Tel Aviv Review: https://peacenow.libsyn.com/73-covering-the-conflict-from-dc
Dahlia’s study on the right of return: https://tcf.org/content/report/neither-intractable-unique-practical-solution-palestinian-right-return/
Donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
Write to Ori Nir: onir@peacenow.org
An edited version of a May 22, 2020 briefing call with Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the PLO’s Executive Committee, and one of the Palestinian leadership’s chief diplomats. For years, Dr. Erekat was the chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel, and in the eyes of many personifies the Palestinian commitment to a two-state peace accord with Israel.
To donate to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate
To contact Ori Nir: onir@peacenow.org
An edited version of a May 14, 2020 briefing call with John Lyndon, the Executive Director of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP).
Based in Paris, John is an expert on Europe's policy on Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
This episode is an edited version of a May 7th briefing call, the third in APN’s series of briefing calls focusing on the Israeli government’s intention to annex parts of the West Bank.
This briefing call examines how annexation could impact the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its relations with Israel.
Our guest was Dr. Marwan Muasher, the vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Muasher served as foreign minister (2002–2004) and deputy prime minister (2004–2005) of Jordan, as well as several other ministerial positions in Jordan. He was the Kingdom’s ambassador to Washington and its first ambassador to Israel (1995-1996). Muasher has been thoroughly involved in Arab-Israeli peace efforts in the past and has been an agent for reform in Jordan and the Arab world.
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Write to Ori Nir onir@peacenow.org
Arkady Mazin is an expert on the Russian-speaking public in Israel. He is currently working on a book that among other topics examines attitudes among Israeli Russian speaking Jews toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In this episode, Mazin talks about what he depicts as an anomaly or a paradox. The two predictors for holding dovish views on this issue in Israeli society are secularism and high level of education. Israeli Jews from the former Soviet Union are much more secular than the overall population, and, on the average much better educated. Yet their views on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians are more hawkish than those of the average Israeli.
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An edited version of a briefing call with Yossi Alpher on the coalition agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz. The focus is on the West Bank annexation provision in the agreement.
Yossi’s weekly analysis on this topic
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