Annual Report of Activities 2011
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The Lost Decade of the Israeli Peace Camp
The Lost Decade of the Israeli Peace Camp By Ksenia Svetlova Now that Israeli annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is a commonplace notion, it seems almost impossible that just twelve years ago, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were making significant progress in the US-sponsored bilateral peace negotiations. Since then, the stalemate in the talks has become the new normal, under three consecutive governments headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas and his government, have been cast as “diplomatic terrorists” for asking the international community for help. The Israeli peace camp has been subjected to a vicious smear campaign that has shaken its self-esteem and ruined its chances of winning over the public. This systematic smearing of Israeli and Palestinian two-staters has paid off. In the April 2019 elections, Israel’s progressive Meretz party teetered on the edge of the electoral barrier while Labor, once the ruling party, gained only six mandates (5% of the votes). The centrist Blue and White, a party led by ex-army chief Benny Gantz, carefully avoided any mention of loaded terms such as “the two-state solution” or “evacuation of settlements”, only calling vaguely to “advance peace” – as part of Israel’s new political vocabulary, which no longer includes “occupation” or even “the West Bank”. Despite offering no clear alternative to the peace option it managed to successfully derail, the Israeli right under Netanyahu has been in power for over a decade in a row, since 2009. Israel’s left-wing parties are fighting to survive; the Palestinians are continuing their fruitless efforts to engage the international community; and the horrid reality of a single state, in which different groups have different political and civil rights, seems just around the corner. -
How Palestinians Can Burst Israel's Political Bubble
Al-Shabaka Policy Brief Policy Al-Shabaka March 2018 WHEN LEFT IS RIGHT: HOW PALESTINIANS CAN BURST ISRAEL’S POLITICAL BUBBLE By Amjad Iraqi Overview the allies holding up his fragile rule, from the ultra- orthodox Jewish parties to his personal rivals within Although no indictments have been issued yet, Israelis Likud. “King Bibi,” however, survived them all. A are speculating whether the latest developments in skilled politician, he has been adept at managing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption Israel’s notoriously volatile coalition system, and [email protected] scandals finally mark the beginning of his political has remained in power with three consecutive demise. The second-longest serving prime minister governments over nine years – each more right wing after David Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu has had a than the last.2 profound impact on Israel’s political scene since the 1990s. It is therefore troubling, especially to Netanyahu directly influenced the country’s media Palestinians, that if these corruption cases are the landscape by shaping the editorial stance of Israel harbinger of Netanyahu’s downfall, they will have Hayom (the nation’s gratis, most-read newspaper, had nothing to do with the more egregious crimes for funded by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson), which he is responsible, and for which he – and future and used the Communications Ministry to threaten Israeli leaders – have yet to be held accountable. and harass media outlets that were critical of him. Despite crises and condemnations throughout This policy brief analyzes Israel’s political his career – including mass Israeli protests for transformations under Netanyahu and maps out the socioeconomic justice in 2011 and, more recently, current leadership contenders from a Palestinian weekly protests against widespread government perspective.1 It argues that Israel’s insular political corruption – Netanyahu withstood public pressures discourse, and the increasing alignment of Israeli to step down. -
Israel: Background and U.S
Israel: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief Updated September 20, 2019 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R44245 SUMMARY R44245 Israel: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief September 20, 2019 The following matters are of particular significance to U.S.-Israel relations: Jim Zanotti Israel’s ability to address threats. Israel relies on a number of strengths—including Specialist in Middle regional conventional military superiority—to manage potential threats to its security, Eastern Affairs including evolving asymmetric threats such as rockets and missiles, cross-border tunneling, drones, and cyberattacks. Additionally, Israel has an undeclared but presumed nuclear weapons capability. Against a backdrop of strong bilateral cooperation, Israel’s leaders and supporters routinely make the case that Israel’s security and the broader stability of the region remain critically important for U.S. interests. A 10-year bilateral military aid memorandum of understanding (MOU)— signed in 2016—commits the United States to provide Israel $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing annually from FY2019 to FY2028, along with additional amounts from Defense Department accounts for missile defense. All of these amounts remain subject to congressional appropriations. Some Members of Congress criticize various Israeli actions and U.S. policies regarding Israel. In recent months, U.S. officials have expressed some security- related concerns about China-Israel commercial activity. Iran and the region. Israeli officials seek to counter Iranian regional influence and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In April 2018, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu presented historical information about Iran’s nuclear program that Israeli intelligence apparently seized from an Iranian archive. -
Israel: Growing Pains at 60
Viewpoints Special Edition Israel: Growing Pains at 60 The Middle East Institute Washington, DC Middle East Institute The mission of the Middle East Institute is to promote knowledge of the Middle East in Amer- ica and strengthen understanding of the United States by the people and governments of the region. For more than 60 years, MEI has dealt with the momentous events in the Middle East — from the birth of the state of Israel to the invasion of Iraq. Today, MEI is a foremost authority on contemporary Middle East issues. It pro- vides a vital forum for honest and open debate that attracts politicians, scholars, government officials, and policy experts from the US, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. MEI enjoys wide access to political and business leaders in countries throughout the region. Along with information exchanges, facilities for research, objective analysis, and thoughtful commentary, MEI’s programs and publications help counter simplistic notions about the Middle East and America. We are at the forefront of private sector public diplomacy. Viewpoints are another MEI service to audiences interested in learning more about the complexities of issues affecting the Middle East and US rela- tions with the region. To learn more about the Middle East Institute, visit our website at http://www.mideasti.org The maps on pages 96-103 are copyright The Foundation for Middle East Peace. Our thanks to the Foundation for graciously allowing the inclusion of the maps in this publication. Cover photo in the top row, middle is © Tom Spender/IRIN, as is the photo in the bottom row, extreme left. -
Annual Report 2020
Neve Shalom -Wahat al Salam ANNUAL REPORT 2020 A Message from the Director Dear Friends, As a graduate of the School for Peace and staff member for the last fourteen years, I was honored to have received the support and confidence of the staff and board of the NSWAS educational institutions in being chosen as the new director of the School for Peace. I began in October 2020 with the challenge of filling Nava's 'big shoes' and building the direction for the future. I'm happy to say that I feel very much at home and look forward to carrying the organization forward. The arson attack at the SFP this September left us with the big challenge of rebuilding the school and raising the necessary funds. I am happy to say that after the fire we were able to quickly organize and find additional space in the village to continue our important work. The support we received from all of our friends in the region and abroad helped us once again realize how significant the School for Peace is to all of us. The political situation in the country reminds us on a daily basis that there are few places where Jews and Palestinians can meet and work together as equals and the uniqueness of our work and methodology has become much more apparent and indispensable. In the coming years, the SFP will work to help our graduates become more active and influential in peace activities. Based on our unique voice, we will strengthen our connections with peace activists nationally and internationally as we continue operating our important programs. -
The Arab Bedouin Indigenous People of the Negev/Nagab
The Arab Bedouin indigenous people of the Negev/Nagab – A Short Background In 1948, on the eve of the establishment of the State of Israel, about 65,000 to 100,000 Arab Bedouin lived in the Negev/Naqab region, currently the southern part of Israel. Following the 1948 war, the state began an ongoing process of eviction of the Arab Bedouin from their dwellings. At the end of the '48 war, only 11,000 Arab Bedouin people remained in the Negev/Naqab, most of the community fled or was expelled to Jordan and Egypt, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. During the early 1950s and until 1966, the State of Israel concentrated the Arab Bedouin people in a under military administration. In this (سياج) ’closed zone known by the name ‘al-Siyāj period, entire villages were displaced from their locations in the western and northern Negev/Naqab and were transferred to the Siyāj area. Under the Planning and Construction Law, legislated in 1965, most of the lands in the Siyāj area were zoned as agricultural land whereby ensuring that any construction of housing would be deemed illegal, including all those houses already built which were subsequently labeled “illegal”. Thus, with a single sweeping political decision, the State of Israel transformed almost the entire Arab Bedouin collective into a population of whereas the Arab Bedouins’ only crime was exercising their basic ,״lawbreakers״ human right for adequate housing. In addition, the state of Israel denies any Arab Bedouin ownership over lands in the Negev/Naqab. It does not recognize the indigenous Arab Bedouin law or any other proof of Bedouin ownership over lands. -
Spousal Abuse Among Immigrants from Ethiopia in Israel
LEA KACEN Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Spousal Abuse Among Immigrants From Ethiopia in Israel This ethnographic study obtains first-hand infor- ‘‘domestic violence’’ in his native Amharic. My mation on spousal abuse from Ethiopian immi- informer replied that there is no such term in their grants in Israel. Data include 23 interviews with language. ‘‘Then how do you describe situations male and female immigrants of various ages and in which a husband beats or insult his wife’’? I 10 professionals who worked with this commu- asked. He answered, ‘‘There is no reason to speak nity as well as observations and documents. The about it.’’ The conversation aroused my curiosity, findings, verified by participants, show that dur- as language is a means used by cultural groups to ing cultural transition, the immigrants’ code of transmit knowledge and shape social norms honor, traditional conflict-solving institutions, (Green, 1995). I asked myself whether there and family role distribution disintegrate. This was no need for the concept because violence situation, exacerbated by economic distress, toward women was nonexistent in Ethiopia, or proved conducive to women’s abuse. Lack of perhaps because there is another term with a sim- cultural sensitivity displayed by social services ilar meaning, or was it that the phenomenon is an actually encouraged women to behave abusively accepted, self-evident norm that need not be dis- toward their husbands and destroy their fami- cussed judgmentally as it is in Western cultures. lies. Discussion focuses on communication fail- Something else troubled me as well. If there is ures in spousal-abuse discourse between no term for domestic violence in Amharic, how immigrants from Ethiopia and absorbing soci- do immigrants from Ethiopia understand this ety, originating in differences in values, behav- concept as used in Israeli society to describe neg- ior, social representations, and insensitive ative situations of violence between husbands culture theories. -
The Truth of the Capture of Adolf Eichmann (Pdf)
6/28/2020 The Truth of the Capture of Adolf Eichmann » Mosaic THE TRUTH OF THE CAPTURE OF ADOLF EICHMANN https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/history-ideas/2020/06/the-truth-of-the-capture-of-adolf-eichmann/ Sixty years ago, the infamous Nazi official was abducted in Argentina and brought to Israel. What really happened, what did Hollywood make up, and why? June 1, 2020 | Martin Kramer About the author: Martin Kramer teaches Middle Eastern history and served as founding president at Shalem College in Jerusalem, and is the Koret distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Listen to this essay: Adolf Eichmann’s Argentinian ID, under the alias Ricardo Klement, found on him the night of his abduction. Yad Vashem. THE MOSAIC MONTHLY ESSAY • EPISODE 2 June: The Truth of the Capture of Adolf Eichmann 1x 00:00|60:58 Sixty years ago last month, on the evening of May 23, 1960, the Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion made a brief but dramatic announcement to a hastily-summoned session of the Knesset in Jerusalem: A short time ago, Israeli security services found one of the greatest of the Nazi war criminals, Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible, together with the Nazi leaders, for what they called “the final solution” of the Jewish question, that is, the extermination of six million of the Jews of Europe. Eichmann is already under arrest in Israel and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel under the terms of the law for the trial of Nazis and their collaborators. In the cabinet meeting immediately preceding this announcement, Ben-Gurion’s ministers had expressed their astonishment and curiosity. -
English in Red Ink and Also Make a Note About It on the CD to Call Vienna Office’S Attention to the Special Close on the Contract
INTERVIEWERCENTROPA WITNESS TO A JEWISH CENTURY 3 . 0 THE DIGITAL MEMORY PROJECT ’ S WORKBOOK “ YOU ARE THE FOURTH GROUP WHO HAS COME TO OUR COMMUNITY TO INTERVIEW US . BUT YOU ARE THE FIRST TO ASK HOW WE LIVED , NOT JUST HOW WE DIED .” SUSANA HACKER , NOVI SAD . FAMILY NAME: LANDESMAN, CITY: VIENNA, COUNTRY: AUSTRIA WHO WE ARE VIENNA: Edward Serotta Director ([email protected]) Dejan Petrovic IT Director ([email protected]) BUDAPEST: Eszter Andor Co-director/Witness project ([email protected]) Dora Sardi Co-director/Witness project ([email protected]) WHERE WE ARE Pfeilgasse 8/15 Edison utca 10 A-1080 Vienna H-1142 Budapest Austria Hungary Tel. +431 409 0971 Tel. +361 215 3069 Fax +431 409 09714 Fax +361 215 3888 e-mail: e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] 4 OUR SUPPORTERS Founders’ Circle: the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Education and Culture, the National Fund for Victims of National Socialism, Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the Austrian National Bank’s Jubilee Fund, the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Rebecca Meyerhoff Memorial Trust. Patrons: the Endowment Fund of the Chicago Jewish Federation, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, the Postsparkasse Bank of Austria, the Lewis Norry Family Foundation, the Ira J. and Nicki Harris Foundation, the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation, Richard L. Shenk, Peter B. Lewis, Alexander M. and June L. Maisin Foundation, the San Francisco Jewish Federation Endowment Fund, the Hungarian Ministry of Culture, the Hungarian Ministry of Science, the Hungarian Ministry of Education, the Stanley Chais Family Foundation, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Hanadiv Foundation, the Goethe Institut. -
Israel 2019 International Religious Freedom Report
ISRAEL 2019 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT Executive Summary This section covers Israel, including Jerusalem. In December 2017, the United States recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It is the position of the United States that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties. The Palestinian Authority (PA) exercises no authority over Jerusalem. In March 2019, the United States recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. A report on the West Bank and Gaza, including areas subject to the jurisdiction of the PA, is appended at the end of this report. The country’s laws and Supreme Court rulings protect the freedoms of conscience, faith, religion, and worship, regardless of an individual’s religious affiliation, and the 1992 “Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty” protects additional individual rights. In 2018, the Knesset passed the “Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People.” According to the government, that “law determines, among other things, that the Land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people; the State of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish People, in which it realizes its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination; and exercising the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.” The government continued to allow controlled access to religious sites, including the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif (the site containing the foundation of the first and second Jewish temple and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque). -
Republication, Copying Or Redistribution by Any Means Is
Republication, copying or redistribution by any means is expressly prohibited without the prior written permission of The Economist The Economist April 5th 2008 A special report on Israel 1 The next generation Also in this section Fenced in Short-term safety is not providing long-term security, and sometimes works against it. Page 4 To ght, perchance to die Policing the Palestinians has eroded the soul of Israel’s people’s army. Page 6 Miracles and mirages A strong economy built on weak fundamentals. Page 7 A house of many mansions Israeli Jews are becoming more disparate but also somewhat more tolerant of each other. Page 9 Israel at 60 is as prosperous and secure as it has ever been, but its Hanging on future looks increasingly uncertain, says Gideon Licheld. Can it The settlers are regrouping from their defeat resolve its problems in time? in Gaza. Page 11 HREE years ago, in a slim volume enti- abroad, for Israel to become a fully demo- Ttled Epistle to an Israeli Jewish-Zionist cratic, non-Zionist state and grant some How the other fth lives Leader, Yehezkel Dror, a veteran Israeli form of autonomy to Arab-Israelis. The Arab-Israelis are increasingly treated as the political scientist, set out two contrasting best and brightest have emigrated, leaving enemy within. Page 12 visions of how his country might look in a waning economy. Government coali- the year 2040. tions are fractious and short-lived. The dif- In the rst, it has some 50% more peo- ferent population groups are ghettoised; A systemic problem ple, is home to two-thirds of the world’s wealth gaps yawn. -
Israel and Overseas: Israeli Election Primer 2015 (As Of, January 27, 2015) Elections • in Israel, Elections for the Knesset A
Israel and Overseas: Israeli Election Primer 2015 (As of, January 27, 2015) Elections In Israel, elections for the Knesset are held at least every four years. As is frequently the case, the outgoing government coalition collapsed due to disagreements between the parties. As a result, the Knesset fell significantly short of seeing out its full four year term. Knesset elections in Israel will now be held on March 17, 2015, slightly over two years since the last time that this occurred. The Basics of the Israeli Electoral System All Israeli citizens above the age of 18 and currently in the country are eligible to vote. Voters simply select one political party. Votes are tallied and each party is then basically awarded the same percentage of Knesset seats as the percentage of votes that it received. So a party that wins 10% of total votes, receives 10% of the seats in the Knesset (In other words, they would win 12, out of a total of 120 seats). To discourage small parties, the law was recently amended and now the votes of any party that does not win at least 3.25% of the total (probably around 130,000 votes) are completely discarded and that party will not receive any seats. (Until recently, the “electoral threshold,” as it is known, was only 2%). For the upcoming elections, by January 29, each party must submit a numbered list of its candidates, which cannot later be altered. So a party that receives 10 seats will send to the Knesset the top 10 people listed on its pre-submitted list.