Occupied Thoughts

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who recently returned from spending the month of March, 2025, in Gaza as a trauma and critical care surgeon. The March trip was Feroze's second medical mission to Gaza in the last year. Peter and Feroze discuss why children in Gaza are shot in the head, why Gaza's medical workers expect to die, and what...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Dr. Lara Jirmanus and Professor Atalia Omer about the Harvard University's two new reports, one on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias and the other on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. They discuss the quality of the reports, how the antisemitism report erases Jews who are critical of Israel, and what the potential im...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with analyst Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute about Iran and the U.S. Their conversation spans from exploring decision-making authority and processes in Iran to the impact that U.S. sanctions have on ordinary people in Iran, where poverty has risen dramatically. They speak in depth about the regional and economic dynamics that...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor and author Ben Ehrenreich cover a range topics reflecting Ben's reporting and analysis on Israel/Palestine and U.S. policy, including West Bank Palestinians' relationships to affecting change through nonviolent action, the Biden Administration and Democratic Party's approaches to Palestine and Israel's genocidal war in Gaza, Zionism, and...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with writer and activist Ali Awad about life in Masafer Yatta, the part of the West Bank where he lives, which is subject to ongoing and escalating state-backed Israeli settler attacks. Ali describes life in his rural village, Tuba, on "a good day," a day without settler attacks, and also looks at the history of Masafer Yatta un...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with German journalist Hanno Hauenstein about Germany's memory culture and the treatment of the Holocaust as a unique historical event, as compared to the genocide of the Herero and Nama people and others. They discuss the idea of Germany's Staatrason - or reason for being - which has been characterized as protecting Israel, right...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor about child amputees in Gaza, now estimated to number 3,000-4,000, the highest number of child amputees per inhabitant in the world. They discuss how Israel’s denial of medical supplies leads to amputation and what it's like to be a doctor in Gaza, and they analyze the effect these devastating injuri...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Josh Paul, former State Department official who resigned in October 2023 in protest against the Biden Administration's military support for Israel. They discuss Josh's decision to resign as well as how defense and foreign lobbying work in the United States. They also speak about US and European policy towards Palestine and wh...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with Gina Romero, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, about the many human rights - including freedom of expression, assembly, association, and the right to education - that have been both invoked and repressed as part of the protests against Israel's war in Gaza...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Tahani Mustafa, Senior Palestine Analyst for the International Crisis Group, about Palestinian politics and the challenging predicament of cooperation or confrontation with Israel. The two discuss the evolution of the Palestinian Authority and its legitimacy today, including the role of Mahmoud Abbas, as well as the growth of...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Naji Abbas, Director of the Prisoners and Detainees Department for Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), about Israel targeting medical workers in Gaza for arrest and detention inside of Israel, an effort that is part of the overall destruction of the infrastructure for community and life in Gaza. In Israeli detention...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with political strategist and former FMEP Fellow Rania Batrice together with Maya Berry, Executive Director of the Arab American Institute, and Margaret Zaknoen DeReus, Executive Director of the IMEU Policy Project. They discuss the role of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and the U.S.’s facilitation of it through weapons and political...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with  Dr. Assal Rad and Professor Marc Owen Jones -- two of the most prominent voices and most astute analysts of the role that media and disinformation have played post Oct 7, 2023 -- and continue to play through the present day, in manufacturing consent for Israel’s war on Gaza as well as its wider military campaigns and t...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with analyst Mouin Rabbani about the current state of affairs, including: the potential for Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Palestinian political dynamics and possibilities, Israeli aspirations and actions in Syria and the Syrian regime's response, and the Trump administration's "unpredictable and erratic" policymaking. Mouin Rabb...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP non-resident Fellow Peter Beinart talks with two Harvard professors - Dr. Eman Ansari & Dr. Aaron Shakow - about censorship on college/university campuses and how scholars can respond. For more information, please visit: https://fmep.org/resource/harvard-professors-on-censorship-repression-and-opportunities-for-speaking-up-on-palestine/

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with human rights attorney Professor Noura Erakat about her relationship to Palestine, the movement for Palestinian freedom, and the how she sees the ties among different and overlapping movements for justice and liberation. Drawing upon Noura's recent article in the Boston Review, "The Boomerang Comes Back," the two look at the w...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Dima Khalidi, the founder and director of Palestine Legal, the leading organization defending the civil and constitutional rights of people in the U.S. speaking out for Palestinian freedom. They discuss the different mechanisms that the Trump administration uses criminalize, censor, and repress people who speak out for Pal...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Jay Ulfelder, a political scientist and former Program Director of the Nonviolent Action Lab at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. The two discuss Jay's decision to resign from Harvard Kennedy School after the school adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which would cause Jay...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with Malu Halasa and Jordan Elgrably, editors of the new book Sumūd: A New Palestinian Reader. They discuss the meaning of sumūd to different people -- how it encompasses steadfastness, coping with ongoing oppression, as well as joy and celebration of Palestinian identity -- and the variety of voices and media they platform in...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with Hilary Rantisi, one of FMEP's 2025 non-resident Fellows. They discuss Hilary's work as a longtime educator seeking to teach the critique of power, her childhood and many years living in the West Bank, and how she understands the dynamics of the current moment in the context of Palestinian history and identity, highlighting...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Dr. Nour Joudah speaks with Ahmad Gharbieh, professor at the American University of Beirut and co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab, an interdisciplinary research space. They discuss the process and value of critical cartography, which analyzes maps as instruments of power, looking at who has the authority to create maps and what is included and repr...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor interviews Israeli author, academic, and political commentator Ori Goldberg about how Israeli society reckons - or not - with Palestinians, with committing this genocidal war in Gaza, and with the centrality of the military in Israeli society. The two discuss Ori's path to becoming a dissident, including how he navigates Zionism, anti-Zi...

In this episode of FMEP’s Occupied Thoughts, FMEP’s Lara Friedman speaks with preeminent journalist Dalia Hatuqa about the current realities of Israel violence carried out both by the Israeli military and Israeli civilians (settlers) against Palestinians in the West Bank -- including the situation in the months leading up to 10/7/23; the dangerous deterioration of conditions following 10/7/23, thr...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart interviews Professor Katherine Franke, former faculty at Columbia University’s law school, about student activism and escalating repression at Columbia since October 7th, 2023. Katherine Franke just retired from Columbia, saying “I have come to the view that the Columbia University administration has created such a toxic and hostile e...

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with writer Ahmed Moor, one of FMEP’s 2025 Palestinian Non-resident Fellows, about his family and background, the values that guide his writing, and how he understands and engages with Palestinian survival in this moment. They also discuss urgent questions around navigating activism, policy change, and fraught conversations in a...