Hagit Ofran, of Peace Now, an Israeli organisation which monitors settlement activity, said: "We hope the army is making clear that non-violent protest is legitimate and no settlers should use any violence against unarmed demonstrators."

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APN's new service to be launched on September 12 will feature American-born, Israeli journalist Orly Halpern, who has written extensively about Israel and the Arab world, including an upcoming book on her one-year experience in Baghdad. Subscribe to News Nosh

"This is a person who seems to support Israel, but he is a fanatic..." Etai Mizrav of Peace Now said.

Yariv Oppenheimer, Peace Now Secretary General: "We came to protest against this show of Glenn Beck, I think he tried to use the tension in this city for his career...We need friends who come from abroad to support the idea of two states, of sharing Jerusalem a capital for two states, for the Palestinians and the Israelis, and not people who come here just to provoke."

When Glenn Beck and his followers come to Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday for their provocative "Restore Courage" rally they will get an earful from Peace Now activists. They will demand that Beck and his supporters stay away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and from one of the most sensitive sites on earth. Peace Now supporters will meet on Wednesday at the Dung Gate in the Old City to tell him that he is no friend of Israel and is doing it a disservice by fanning the religious flames of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the building of 277 apartments the West Bank settlement of Ariel, defying U.S. criticism of continued settlement construction

By Chaim Levinson, Reuters and The Associated Press

Yariv Oppenheimer, a spokesman for Peace Now, an anti-settlement Israeli advocacy group, called the Ariel project "a very negative move that shows the Israeli government has no intention to speak to the Palestinians but wants to confront them and the international community."

Read the entire article: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-ariel-construction-destroys-remnants-of-peace-efforts-1.378762

Americans for Peace Now urged "all parties to the conflict to do their utmost to curb violence and to prevent further escalation."

By Douglas Bloomfield

Read the entire article: www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/political_insider/washington_reacts_sinai_terror

Barbara Green is an activist and volunteer with Americans for Peace Now out of the national office in Washington, D.C. Earlier in 2011, she coordinated APN's Study Tour to Israel.

"While no American government has ever recognized Israeli sovereignty over any part of the ancient capital, it is equally true never before had an American president made an issue of the building of homes in the existing Jewish neighborhoods begun in the immediate aftermath of the reunification of the city in 1967. Though settlement building in the West Bank has been a constant source of tension, and projects such as the one at Har Homa outside these Jewish sections of the city (although it was on vacant, Jewish-owned land) were disputed by Washington, housing in places like Ramat Sharon had never been a bone of contention."(emphasis added)

Washington, DC - Americans for Peace Now today joined Peace Now in criticizing the Netanyahu government for its cynical effort to use the ongoing protests in Israel as cover for expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. APN called on the Obama administration to strongly challenge this effort, recognizing it for what it is: further evidence that while Netanyahu talks about wanting peace and avoiding a confrontation at the UN next month, the actions of his government demonstrate the opposite.

Has enough happened in the last two months to warrant a new assessment regarding the Arab spring...? Where is Israel in all this? Where is money for the social and economic programs and incentives demanded by the (Israeli 'social justice') demonstrators likely to be taken from...?

By GIL HOFFMAN

Peace Now: MKs should boycott Beck's planned J'lem rally, condemn comments made on show entitled "Radical leftists protest in Israel."

Peace Now on Monday called upon Knesset members to boycott Glenn Beck's August 24 Jerusalem rally after Beck compared the reported 200,000 people who attended the August 6 housing rally in Tel Aviv to Communists.

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"This is a protest against what Israel has become, in the name of what it once was. It is an effort by the youngest Israelis to recapture an older, more egalitarian, more idealistic, country that their parents lost."

Michael Walzer is a contributing editor for The New Republic, professor emeritus of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, and a board member of Americans for Peace Now.

"...supporters of Peace Now understand all too well that resources have been invested in the settlement enterprise at the expense of providing housing in Israel proper. We understand that maintaining the settlement enterprise costs Israel civilians an estimated NIS 8 billion annually."

YNET: "930 Har Homa housing units okayed"
Interior Ministry authorizes major Jerusalem construction plan beyond Green Line on backdrop of housing protest

Jerusalem Post: "Interior Ministry approves 930 new units in Har Homa"

AFP: "Israel approves 900 E.Jerusalem settlement homes"

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Dear Friend,

I am writing to you from a tiny office on M and 21st Streets in Washington, DC--an office which I share with two interns here at Americans for Peace Now (APN). One of them comes from L.A. and goes to school at U.C.-Santa Cruz. The other hails from Gaza and has won a scholarship to Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. I'm probably 50 years older than either of the two interns but we gladly share this space once a week in order to promote the work of Peace Now. As a long-time volunteer here, I'm committed to the task until a peace agreement has been signed and we can close down the office.

In response to a petition filed by the Peace Now movement, Israel's Supreme Court issued an unprecedented ruling ordering the state to dismantle the largest illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank by April 2012.

See links to articles in the Israeli, U.S., and International press.

At least three liberal US Jewish groups have expressed support for burgeoning social justice protests in Israel. The New Israel Fund is helping to fund tent camp protests in major cities.

Ameinu, a progressive Zionist group, wrote an open letter to the various protest groups. "The nationwide protests in which you are engaging are an inspiration to those of us who strive for social justice and freedom of economic opportunity in the United States and around the world," the letter said.

In a front-page blog post on its website, Americans for Peace Now linked the housing protests to government subsidies for West Bank settlements.

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=232096

The resources required for establishing social justice in Israel are located in three places:

First, the billions Israel has invested in the settlements, which are the greatest mistake in the state's history, as well as its greatest injustice...

Read the entire article on the housing protests in Israel

The Oslo Accords were much in the news this past week - Israel has floated the notion that it might "cancel" the Accords if the Palestinians go to the UN to ask for state recognition in September, and it occurred to me: Who the heck remembers the Accords anymore?