Occupied Thoughts

In this episode of "Occupied Thoughts," Peter Beinart interviews Bahia Amawi and Gadeir Abbas about the fight for the right to boycott Israel in Texas. Bahia is a speech pathologist in Texas who sued the state after losing her school contract because she refused to sign an agreement promising not to boycott Israel. Bahia won her case - and in response, the Texas government amended their anti-BDS b...

In this episode of "Occupied Thoughts," Lara Friedman interviews Oriel Eisner and Maya Eshel, two activists who were detained by the Israeli police last week in separate but connected incidents. Their arrests are another piece in the puzzle of Palestinian dispossession and state-backed settler violence.  Oriel Eisner is an American-Israeli activist and organizer with the Center for Jewish Nonviole...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Kristin McCarthy speaks with Daniel Seidemann (Terrestrial Jerusalem) about a myriad of developments in Jerusalem - - and the political, diplomatic, and bureaucratic forces at play behind them. For more information including resources mentioned in this episode, please visit: https://fmep.org/resource/scorched-earth-settlements-in-jerusalem/

Featuring Palestinians who lived through the 1948 Nakba and their descendants: Nida El-Muti, Dina El-Muti, and Hasan Hammami The Nakba, the displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland from 1947-49, is among the root causes of the conflict in Palestine-Israel and critical to understanding the failure of the decades-long “peace-process,” and the level of justice and reparations req...

Three major stories broke over the past week about Israel’s cyber-surveillance of Palestinians, from hacking the phones of human rights defenders and officials, to increased monitoring of Jerusalemites, to the mass deployment of facial recognition software against Palestinians in the West Bank. To discuss these issues and their broader implications, FMEP is proud to host a conversation with four e...

In late October, the Israeli government declared six Palestinian human rights groups to be “terror organizations” – a designation that criminalizes their work under Israeli law and enables Israel to seize assets, arrest staff, prohibit funding, and punish public expressions of support and solidarity. With this terror designation, the Israeli government has escalated its longtime efforts to crush P...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Lara Friedman talks to Ubai Aboudi, director of Bisan Center for Research and Development - a Ramallah-based Palestinian human rights organizes established in 1989. Aboudi talks about Israel's move on October 19 to designate Bisan and five other Palestinian human rights organizations as "terrorist groups" under Israel's 2016 anti-terror law, and its fol...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with Israeli journalist Oren Ziv (Local Call, +972 Magazine) about the blockbuster article published today by +972 and the Intercept: "Secret Israeli dossier provides no proof for declaring Palestinian NGOs 'terrorists'." Together with journalists Yuval Avraham and Meron Rappaport, Oren combed through the classified dossier that...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with Michael Sfard, Israel's preeminent human rights lawyer. Michael offers his insights into the recent designations by Israel of 6 prominent Palestinian NGOs as terror organizations, including: the Israeli government efforts that led to it, why there is such deep skepticism about Israel's claims about evidence incriminating the gr...

In this episode of "Occupied Thoughts," FMEP non-resident fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Gaby Lasky, Member of the Israeli Knesset and human rights attorney with extensive experience defending Palestinians in Israeli military courts and working closely with Israeli human rights organizations. Background: In late December, the Israeli government declared six Palestinian human rights groups to be...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with award-winning Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab about the case of Mohamed Halabi -- a Palestinian employee of World Vision arrested by Israel in 2016 for alleged support for terrorism and held by Israel ever since. Among other things, they discuss: What does the Halabi case teach the world about Israel's politicization/weapon...

In this episode of FMEP's Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, about Israel's "appalling and unjust " designation of 6 leading Palestinian human rights NGOs as "terrorist organizations," including Israeli actions/policies targeting NGOs that preceded the decision, the implications of the designations for Pales...

FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with Sarit Michael (Btselem) and Ines Abdel Razek (PIPD) about the Israeli government's announcement that it has declared a list of Palestinian human rights groups to be “terror organization” -- and act that Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard called “a declaration of war on the entire human rights community.” For bios and more, please visit: https://fmep.org/resource/israel-d...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Lara Friedman and MEI's Khaled Elgindy speak to Danny Seideman (founder/director of Terrestrial Jerusalem) and Yehuda Shaul (founder of Breaking the Silence) -- two of Israel’s foremost experts on the Israeli policies that uphold and expand occupation and dispossession of Palestinians, both of whom are currently visting Washington, DC -- about the new I...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with Swedish political scientist Dr. Anders Persson about this week's International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism, held in Malmö, Sweden. They discuss what happened in Malmö and what this event means in the context of ongoing efforts to achieve the worldwide adoption and enforcement of the International H...

FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with journalist and activist Basil Adraa and activist and water management expert Natasha Westheimer about the increase in state-backed settler-violence in the South Hebron Hills. Over the last few weeks, both have witnessed and experienced settler and military attacks against Palestinians and solidarity activists. This week, Basil is being targeted by a smear campa...

After the Palestinian prisoner escape, Orly Noy - a journalist, translator of Farsi literature into Hebrew, and political and Mizrahi activist - wrote a post on Facebook in which she described the prisoners as freedom fighters and said that “every Palestinian who survives the occupation and persists in continuing to live is a hero. For that post, Orly was temporarily banned from Facebook. Peter Be...

FMEP's Lara Friedman and MEI's Khaled Elgindy speak with Tariq Kenney-Shawa about the Palestinian diaspora, the shifting narrative around Palestine in the U.S., the prospects for change in U.S. politics and policies, how all of this relates to the situation on the ground in Palestine today, and the hopes for achieving Palestinian rights and liberation. For full bios and additional resources, pleas...

This week marks the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords. In this podcast, FMEP’s Lara Friedman talks with the Quincy Institute’s Annelle Sheline about the impact of those accords so far, and where the region is headed in the coming period.

featuring Hana Amoury (Activist), Orwa Switat, PhD (Urban Planner), & Rami Younis (Director/Writer)with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP). This past May, Palestinian citizens of Israel took to the streets to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. As many Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line and in the diaspora spoke of a new Palestinian unity, Palesti...

Since the Palestinian Authority’s killing of political activist Nizar Banat in June, Palestinians have been holding protests in Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank. The PA has responded with tear gas, stun grenades, and harassment of human rights defenders and journalists, in what has been described as a “concerted crackdown on freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest.” In recent...

In this episode of "Occupied Thoughts," FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with Budour Hassan (JLAC) and Noura Erekat (Rutgers) about Israel’s policy of holding hostage the bodies of slain Palestinians – an issue that has broken through into the news a bit with the continued holding of the body of Ahmad Erekat, and last week with a US Congresswoman, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, tweeting about another case: “Meet...

FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks to Kerem Navot's Dror Etkes about the appointment of a prominent settler to the number 2 position in the Ministry of the Interior - the ministry that has authority over construction in Israel-controlled parts of the West Bank -- despite the fact that this person lives in an illegal outposts where he built his house illegally (under even Israel law) and despite the fact...

In this episode of "Occupied Thoughts," FMEP's Peter Beinart interviews Yousef Munayyer and Dahlia Scheindlin about the Israeli intelligence firm NSO Group, which leases military-grade surveillance tools to authoritarian regimes around the world. A new investigation revealed a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that had been targeted by NSO's spyware tools and included human rights advocates,...

Join FMEP and Palestinian analysts discussing the current state of Palestinian leadership and how Palestinians are contending with multiple layers of authoritarian rule (Israel, the PA, and Hamas). The discussion will address issues including: What are the challenges to Palestinian liberation? What roles - positive and negative - do the Palestinian Authority and Hamas play? What role does Palestin...