Meretz USA for Israeli Civil Rights and Peace is a US non-profit organization that supports a genuine peace between the State of Israel and its neighbors (including the Palestinian people) based on a negotiated land-for-peace solution.

Meretz in Israel

Meretz chair calls for release of East Jerusalem protesters

Meretz chair, MK Haim Oron, has called on Israel's Minister of Public Security to release from jail the protesters who demonstrated against Israeli settlement activity in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

Asking the Public Security Minister to defend their freedom of expression, Oron complained that, "each and every week, demonstrators from the Left are prevented from expressing a legitimate protest, while demonstrators from the Right, who are crassly and wildly violating government decisions, are being indulged."

Click here to read more about the issue in YNet.
Click here to see this item on the Meretz party website.

Meretz declares no-confidence after Netanyahu government ups incentives for settlements

The Meretz party has submitted a motion of no-confidence in the Binyamin Netanyahu government.  This came after his Cabinet revised Israel’s list of “national priority zones” on Sunday to include more West Bank settlements.  Inclusion within a ‘priority zone’ guarantees preferential governmental treatment and tax incentives for education, housing, infrastructure and employment. Over ¾ of all West Bank settlements will now be eligible for this treatment.

Meretz chair: Netanyahu’s settlement moratorium “too little and too late”

In a recent op-ed, Meretz party chair, MK Haim Oron, termed the Israeli government's 10-month freeze of new West Bank construction (excluding East Jerusalem and construction already underway) a "minor" development that was "too little and too late" and apparently born of Netanyahu's tactic of "playing for time".

IDF: Gazan student may not study in Bethlehem

Bertlanty AzzamCiting a complete ban on residents of Gaza studying in the West Bank, "due to security concerns", the IDF has expelled Bethlehem University student, Berlanty Azzam, to Gaza after soldiers at a checkpoint discovered that she was listed as a Gazan resident. Azzam had been living in the West Bank under an expired temporary permit and was to complete her BA this January.

Gisha, an Israeli NGO that works to protect freedom of movement for Palestinians, took Azzam's case to Israel's High Court of Justice. The Court yesterday ordered the IDF to hold an administrative hearing next week at which Azzam could challenge her removal from the West Bank. The Court also rejected the State's request that Azzam not be allowed legal counsel at the hearing.

To read Gisha's full press release, click here.

Meretz calls for inquiry into Gaza War events

The Meretz party has called on the Israeli government to set up an independent commission of inquiry that would investigate possible human rights violations committed during "Operation Cast Lead" - the Gaza War.


The chair of Meretz's board, former MK Mossi Raz, explained: "The government needs to correct its mistake and swiftly establish an independent inquiry commission, in accordance with the timetable laid out in the Goldstone Report. It is entirely in Israel's interests to investigate the events of ‘Cast Lead'."

Meretz USA Publications

Preview new issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS magazine!

For an online sampling of Autumn 2009 issue of ISRAEL HORIZONS, click here

Meretz USA Weblog

New at the Meretz USA Weblog
  • J Street's Ben-Ami meets with Meretz USA
  • Success of a 'dancing Arab'
  • A Response to Thomas Friedman
  • Are West Bank settlements actually waning?
  • South African lessons for Labor & Meretz?
  • Peace process stalled, but US can't walk away
  • Reflections on conflict and intolerance
  • In memory of Art D'Lugoff
  • Goldstone: Flawed but correct in call for investigation
  • The case for Israel as a 'Jewish state'