Americans for Peace Now

We are horrified by this ugly wave of fanaticism, zealotry and intolerance directed at Israel’s peace and democracy community. We are witnessing a systematic attempt, by the hard-line Israeli right, to delegitimize dissenting voices. Almost every day we see more expressions of hatred and intolerance directed at peace activists, human rights organizations, and pro-democracy forces in Israel.

In recent months, we have seen:

• An attempt to murder prominent Peace Now activist, Prof. Zeev Sternhell at his Jerusalem home. Pamphlets left at the site offered a bounty of a million shekels "to anyone who will kill a member of Peace Now."
• Murder threats against Peace Now’s Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer.
• Threats to murder or physically harm Israeli elected officials and IDF officers involved with the moratorium on West Bank settlement activity, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
• Militant settlers, on the hilltops of the West Bank, waging a systematic series of attacks against Palestinians and against Israeli law-enforcement officials in order to foil and avenge efforts to reign-in illegal settlement activity.
• Israel’s Vice Premier, Moshe Yaalon, referring to Peace Now as a “virus” that must be dealt with.
• A new book by prominent opinion leaders among extremist West Bank settlers providing a Jewish-law rationale for killing non-Jewish innocent civilians.
• Aggressive tactics by Israel’s police to quash peaceful demonstrations in East Jerusalem, which Israeli courts have deemed legal.
• A vicious attack on the New Israel Fund and its grantees, as well as on its Chair, Naomi Chazan, because NIF grantees cooperated with the Goldstone Commission.

The list goes on. It includes increasing attempts to muzzle leaders of Israel’s Arab community. It includes initiatives that garner strong support in the Knesset to outlaw dissent and to criminalize funding for dissenting organizations.

In light of this recent ugly wave, we are calling on those who hold dearly the vision of a democratic Israel to raise their voice, with us.

We call on them – we call on YOU – to speak up in support of our Israel, YOUR Israel, and to reject the extremists’ anti-Israel, anti-democratic attacks.