A central question of the Middle East Peace Process remains: can the two-state solution be saved? On Sunday, a conference in Paris will try to relaunch the moribund peace process and the French Initiative has been warmly received by the Palestinian leadership as a final chance to save the two-state-solution: “Two states today is possible. Tomorrow, it might be too late” warned Muhammad Shtayyeh, Fatah Central Committee Member, who nevertheless remains optimistic. “The reality on the ground, the demography on the ground, the geography on the ground, shows that a two-state solution is still possible today”. However, Palestinian public opinion no longer reflects this official position. A recent poll shows that 65% of Palestinians no longer believe the two-state solution is viable due to ongoing settlement expansion. “The more people think the two-state solution is no longer viable, the more likely they it is that they will shift and support a one-state solution” explains Dr. Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Under a quarter of American Jews voted for Donald Trump, yet the Republican candidate received 49% of the Israeli-American vote. On Tuesday, November 22, Mondoweiss reporters asked Israelis in West Jerusalem’s Zion Square what they thought about the election of Donald Trump and found overwhelming support for the incoming U.S. president. “In this difficult time all over the world, it’s time for strong leaders,” says one Trump admirer.
Israeli rightwingers are enthused by Donald Trump’s victory, predicting that he will move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and abandon the peace process too.
On September 26th, 2016 Nobel Energy signed a deal with Jordan’s National Electric Power Company Ltd. (NEPCO) to import gas from the Leviathan field off the shores of Haifa. Jordan BDS categorically rejects the agreement for strategic, economic and moral reasons as it ties Jordan’s energy, economic and political security to Israel for the coming 15 years.
Thirteen women including several parliamentarians, an Olympic athlete, Nobel Laureate, Mairead Maguire and former US Diplomat, Ann Wright are days away from breaking the Israeli blockade by reaching Gaza shores. Sources indicate that the Israel navy has been given orders to intercept the boat.
Shimon Peres, a three-time prime minister and former president from Israel’s generation of founders has died at the age of 93. Although celebrated internationally as a humanitarian and peacemaker, Peres true legacy includes the ongoing colonization of Palestinian lands and creation of Israel’s nuclear weapon program.
A 1973 speech criticizing Israel’s militarism by the late Daniel Berrigan is as fresh today as it was 43 years ago, notably in its lament that Israel’s human rights abuses were transforming the formerly “peaceable” Jewish presence in the world.
The London Visual Activist Collective created “Empty Spaces”, a unique paper doll chain remembering all of the children that were killed by Israel during the 2014 massacre in Gaza. Measuring over 160 metres in length and made by people from the UK, it contains over 550+ cut outs of kids, signifying the empty spaces left in the world because those children were killed.
LA Jews for Peace does not believe that the Movement for Black Lives Platform’s incorrect use of the term “genocide” negates an otherwise powerful statement for social, racial, political, and economic justice enunciated in the Platform’s other 37,000 words. That is why LA Jews for Peace proudly endorses the Platform of the Movement for Black Lives.