“‘It is not new that AIPAC is giving a stage to voices that are far to the right of U.S. policy or of the mainstream U.S. Jewish community,’ said Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. The conference has repeatedly hosted Pastor John Hagee, who has said Hitler was fulfilling God’s will by pushing Jews to move to Israel and called Hurricane Katrina a punishment for a gay pride rally, Friedman pointed out. Hagee founded an influential pro-Israel network called Christians United for Israel… ‘AIPAC has behaved for the entire life of the peace process in a manner that suggests that the current policies of the Israeli government and the Trump administration are in no way problematic for its worldview,’ Friedman said.”

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week. To subscribe to this report, please click here.…

1. Bills, Resolutions, & Letters 2. The 2020 AIPAC Policy Conference 3. Hearings 4. On the Record *Brought to you in cooperation with Americans for…

“AJC’s polls ‘reveal that the majority of US Jews either disapprove or strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of US-Israel relations,’ according to a report by Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.”

I often get questions about U.S. policy on settlements (pre-Trump), and specifically, whether any U.S. president  ever referred to settlements as “illegal.” This Q&A summarizes…

“For decades, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid the I-word, fearing it would needlessly antagonize Israel. Even President Jimmy Carter—perhaps the most pro-Palestinian occupant of the White House in 50 years—steered clear of using the word, though he did make it clear that Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements on land inhabited by Arabs before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War was ‘contrary to the Geneva Convention, that occupied territories should not be changed by the establishment of permanent settlements by the occupying power.’ ‘The use of ‘illegal’ was clearly an official expression of Carter administration policy, even if Carter didn’t shout out the word in a speech,’ according to Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. But Carter’s administration likely went further than any other U.S. administration in asserting the illegality of settlements. Friedman, who compiled a detailed modern history of presidential positions on settlements, said it was President Ronald Reagan who first proposed a freeze on new settlements in an effort to promote peace. Reagan, however, never characterized them as illegal. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama issued calls for an end to Israel’s occupation of Arab lands seized since 1967—but didn’t call them illegal.”