Meretz USA | For Israeli Civil Rights and Peace

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.

Featured Event

MARCH 13-20, 2010: The Israel Symposium

03/13/2010 - 9:00am

The 2010 Israel Symposium

March 13-20, 2010

Presented by Meretz USA and the World Union of Meretz

The Israel Symposium is an intense one-week trip to Israel that allows participants to meet, learn from and build bridges with progressive Israelis, Jewish and Arab.

It is a perfect experience for someone who cares not only about the security of Israel's people, but about the moral character of its society as well.

Israel faces complex challenges. The Israel Symposium won't dictate the solutions. But it will provide you with new perspectives - ones that you normally don't get in the mainstream media - and encourage you to pose the tough questions that need to be asked.

Clck to view/download the registration brochure

Featured

A time of challenge

Two weeks after the heinous attack on Naomi Chazan and the New Israel Fund, I find myself still jittery. About the resilience of Israel's democracy, of course. But, equally, I find myself fretting about the reaction of progressive Israelis and progressive American Jews to the latest developments.

Will they - will we - respond by redoubling our support for human rights and peace, social justice and pluralism in Israel? Or, perhaps, will the recent series of affronts to Israel's progressive camp cause many to throw up their hands in despair? Will some, will many, give up on their connection to Israel - unable to reconcile their liberal principles with its illiberal government?

Meretz USA: The “Im Tirtzu” attack on Prof. Naomi Chazan – an ominous hour for Israeli democracy

On February 2, Meretz USA President Lawrence Lerner and Chair Theodore Bikel issued the following statement to the press:

This is an ominous hour for Israeli democracy. The recent attack on the New Israel Fund and its President, Prof. Naomi Chazan, by the Im Tirtzu organization - base and reprehensible as it is - is just the most recent in a frighteningly consistent series of events in Israel that evokes the McCarthy period in America, and worse.

A Purim laugh: Bibi, Bar-Ilan and Beilin

Just in time for Purim, our friends at the Geneva Initiative in Israel have produced this very amusing one-minute clip for YouTube, " What Bibi Stole from Yossi”. Who knew that Yossi Beilin did comedy?

For a good Purim laugh, watch it here. To read more about the Geneva Initiative, please visit their website.

Hag Purim Sameach! A Freilihin Purim! Happy Purim!

Netanyahu, the Religious Zionist?

Last Sunday, a band of 60 Israeli irregulars launched a well-planned operation aimed at conquering Jericho – one of the West Bank towns under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Led by an Israeli Member of Knesset, breaching Israeli military checkpoints and violating Israeli law, the “Youth for the Land of Israel” group cited the presence of an ancient Jewish synagogue in Jericho to justify Israel’s title to the city. The operation, MK Michael Ben-Ari admitted, was part of a broader campaign to have Israel retake the entire West Bank.

Meretz in Israel

Only Meretz is united for Israeli democracy

The Meretz party's electronic bulletin this week boasted, sadly, that Meretz is the only party in Israel that has been united in defense of Israeli democracy, following the attack on the New Israel Fund and its President, Naomi Chazan. Here are sections of the bulletin:

This week, we mark a full year since the Knesset elections that dealt us a sharp blow. The McCarthyist campaign of lies and hatred of the last two weeks against the New Israel Fund and ... its President, Naomi Chazan, clarified the meaning of last year's election results: A dangerous and frightening erosion of democracy 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

Citing 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'."