In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with human rights attorney Sari Bashi and policy expert Bushra Khalidi about the current state of humanitarian aid in Gaza, the bureaucracy of restrictions — including the stated purpose of restricting aid — and whether international law continues to carry meaning after two years of genocide.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University.
Sari Bashi is a human rights lawyer, writer, analyst, senior leader and public speaker with 20 years of experience advocating for human rights, litigating international humanitarian duties, leading multidisciplinary teams in complex and dynamic situations, creating systems to enhance organizational effectiveness, forging strategic partnerships based on shared values, fundraising and managing risk. She is the co-founder and former executive director of Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement (www.gisha.org), the Israeli human rights organization promoting the right to freedom of movement for Palestinians, especially residents of the Gaza Strip. She served as Program Director for Human Rights Watch and as a member of its Executive Committee, leading the organization’s global research and supervising a staff of 270 people in 80 countries working on 16 regional and thematic human rights issues. She is an award-winning author of Maqluba: Upside-Down Love, a memoir-love story published in Hebrew, Italian and Dutch (forthcoming). She has also served as the Israel/Palestine country director at Human Rights Watch and research director at Democracy for the Arab World Now. She is currently working as an independent consultant and human rights lawyer, writing expert legal opinions, conducting mapping, research and analysis for international organizations, lecturing publicly and writing short and long form narrative pieces.
Bushra Khalidi is the Policy Lead for the Occupied Territories at Oxfam, where she leads advocacy, campaigns, and humanitarian policy to address pressing global challenges. At Oxfam, Bushra prioritizes collaborative efforts to influence policy reforms and drive impactful campaigns that support vulnerable communities worldwide. Her work reflects a deep commitment to advancing equitable policies and fostering sustainable development.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Matt Duss, Executive Vice-President at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. They discuss the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the new ceasefire; changes in public assessments of Israel’s standing in the U.S. and political relationships with Israel, including changing relationships with Israel among prominent Trump supporters as well as Bernie Sanders’s late recognition of genocide; and what accountability looks like for the genocide, including for members of the Biden administration.
Matthew Duss is Executive Vice-President at the Center for International Policy. Before joining CIP, Duss was a visiting scholar in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 2017-22, Duss was foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt). From 2014-17, Duss was the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. From 2008-14 Duss was a National Security and International Policy analyst at the Center for American Progress.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with journalist Mari Cohen and researcher Emmaia Gelman about the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), including the history and current activities of the ADL and the ADL’s approach to advocacy for Palestinian rights and criticism of the state of Israel. They also discuss the ADL’s relationship with the U.S. government, including including the ADL’s role in surveilling Americans and FBI Director Kash Patel’s recent decision to suspend the ADL’s longstanding partnership with the ADL.
Mari Cohen is an associate editor at Jewish Currents, a.magazine committed to the rich tradition of thought, activism, and culture of the Jewish left, where she reports, edits, and contributes to shaping the magazine’s editorial direction. See Mari’s reporting on the ADL in Jewish Currents:
- “Top Executive Leaves ADL Over CEO’s Praise of Elon Musk,” January 2024 (with Alex Kane);
- “The ADL’s Antisemitism Findings, Explained,” April 2023;
- “ADL Staffers Dissented After CEO Compared Palestinian Rights Groups to Right-Wing Extremists, Leaked Audio Reveals,” March 2023 (with Alex Kane);
- “The ADL Doubles Down on Opposing the Anti-Zionist Left,” May 2022 (with Isaac Scher);
- “The Numbers Game,” April 2022.
Emmaia Gelman is the founding Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, which examines the political and ideological work of Zionist institutions beyond their direct advocacy for Israel. Her research and writing investigate the history of ideas about race, queerness, safety, and rights, and their production as political levers in the realm of hate crimes policy, surveillance, anti-terror measures, and war. Her teaching has spanned NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, freedom schools, encampments, and many other community spaces. Emmaia is at work on a critical history of the Anti-Defamation League (1913-1990) as a Cold War neoconservative institution, as well as an edited volume of social justice movement writings and academic research on resistance to the ADL. She is the co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, and a longtime activist in New York City. See these publications by Emmaia Gelman:
- “It’s Time to Break With the ADL as a Source for News and Research on Extremism,” Truthout December 2023;
- “The Anti-Democratic Origins of the ADL and AJC,” Jewish Currents March 2021;
- “The Anti-Defamation League Is Not What It Seems,” Boston Review May 2019.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with analyst Mouin Rabbani about political and diplomatic developments relating to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. They discuss the “20 Point Plan” that President Donald Trump released today, as well as his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking about actual provisions to limit Israel’s genocidal behavior and noting the colonial structure of the internationally-headed “Board of Peace” that will rule Gaza, according to the proposal. They discuss the symbolic measure of many countries recognizing Palestinian statehood at the UN last week; Mouin notes that this recognition is the first time that Western governments have taken steps for Palestinians in response to pressure from their own constituencies, and suggests that this action demonstrates that popular pressure can affect policy. Finally, Hilary and Mouin look at current initiatives, including the “United for Peace” proposal and the Gaza Sumud Flotilla, that aim to intervene directly in the genocide, and talk about the importance of replacing impunity with accountability.
Mouin Rabbani is a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. He is a researcher, analyst, and commentator specializing in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and contemporary Middle East issues. Among other previous positions, Rabbani served as principal political affairs officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, head of the Middle East unit with the Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation, and senior Middle East analyst and special advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group. He was also a researcher with Al-Haq, the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. Rabbani is a co-editor of Jadaliyya, where he also hosts the Connections podcast and edits its Quick Thoughts feature. He is also the managing editor and associate editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development and a contributing editor of Middle East Report. In addition, Rabbani is a nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies (CHS) and at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).
Hilary Rantisi grew up in Palestine and has been involved with education and advocacy on the Middle East since her move to the US. She is a 2025 Fellow at FMEP and was most recently the Associate Director of the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative (RCPI) and co-instructor of Learning in Context: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine at Harvard Divinity School. She has over two decades of experience in institution building at Harvard, having been the Director of the Middle East Initiative (MEI) at Harvard Kennedy School of Government prior to her current role. She has a BA in Political Science/International Studies from Aurora University and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Before moving to the US, Hilary worked at Birzeit University and at the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. There, she co-edited a photo essay book Our Story: The Palestinians with the Rev. Naim Ateek.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with UC Berkeley Professor Ussama Makdisi, who was recently informed that UC Berkeley shared his name, along with those of 159 other Berkeley faculty & students, with the federal government for “alleged incidents of antisemitism.” Peter & Ussama discuss the absurdity of experience — the accused have not been informed of any details of the allegations against them — while looking at why UC Berkeley is not defending its faculty and students, how the Berkeley experience compares with how other universities have capitulated to the Trump administration, and whether academic freedom on campus will survive. Most urgently, they discuss how the attacks on universities are meant to distract from the genocide Israel is carrying out right now against Palestinians.
Resources on this topic include:
- “UC Berkeley shares 160 names with Trump administration in ‘McCarthy era’ move,” The Guardian 9/12/25;
- “UC Berkeley professor warns of ‘unprecedented crackdown’ on academic freedom.” NPR interview with Ussama Makdisi on 9/18/25
- “When Universities Become Informants,” by Judith Butler, 9/13/25
- “Kafka-land at UC Berkeley,” by Judith Butler, The Nation, 9/16/25
Dr. Ussama Makdisi is Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley. He was previously Professor of History and the first holder of the Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at Rice University in Houston. During AY 2019-2020, Professor Makdisi was a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of History. Makdisi was awarded the Berlin Prize and spent the Spring 2018 semester as a Fellow at the American Academy of Berlin. Professor Makdisi’s most recent book Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World was published in 2019 by the University of California Press. He is also the author of Faith Misplaced: the Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations, 1820-2001 (Public Affairs, 2010). His previous books include Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Cornell University Press, 2008), which was the winner of the 2008 Albert Hourani Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association, the 2009 John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, and a co-winner of the 2009 British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize given by the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Makdisi is also the author of The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (University of California Press, 2000) and co-editor of Memory and Violence in the Middle East and North Africa (Indiana University Press, 2006). He has published widely on Ottoman and Arab history as well as on U.S.-Arab relations and U.S. missionary work in the Middle East.
Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellows Ahmed Moor and Peter Beinart speak about the new developments with Palestinian statehood and their meaning and implications. They also discuss American politics and culture, discussing the shifts on the Right regarding Israel and the conspiracy theory that Israel was involved in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with David Adler, co-general coordinator of the Progressive International, who is currently on the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian convoy currently on its way to Gaza. They discuss the remarkable cross-section of people who have joined the flotilla and what they hope to achieve by it while also looking at different ways Israel works to discredit and undermine this effort. Because David joined the podcast from the boat in the Mediterranean and lost access to the internet while he and Peter were speaking, this conversation happens in two parts. You’ll hear the transition about halfway through the podcast.
David Adler is a political economist and the Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, founded in May 2020 to unite, organize, and mobilize progressive forces around the world. His research and writing have been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Foreign Affairs, among others. You can read more about him at https://davidrkadler.info/.
Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). They discuss Levy’s argument that the way that Israel withdrew Israeli settlements from Gaza in 2005 set the stage for today’s genocide; as Levy put it in a recent +972 Magazine piece, the current Israeli paradigm is “not just separating from the Palestinians, relegated to shrinking Bantustans, but annihilating and erasing them.” Moor and Levy also discuss the impact of Israel’s attacks in Qatar this week both in the near and longterm, the need for Netanyahu to formally deny Israeli involvement in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and shifting political approaches to Israel/Palestine.
Daniel Levy is the President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP), which emphasizes the Palestine-Israel issue alongside regional conflicts, trends and geopolitics. From 2012 to 2016, Levy was Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that he was a senior Fellow and Director of the New America Foundation’s Middle East Taskforce in Washington D.C. and a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation in New York. Levy was a Senior Advisor in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and to Justice Minister Yossi Beilin during the Government of Ehud Barak (1999-2001). He was a member of the official Israeli delegation to the Israel/Palestine peace talks at Taba under Barak and at Oslo B under Yitzhak Rabin (1994-95). Levy is a founder and Advisory Board member of Diaspora Alliance (combatting antisemitism and its conflation), a Council Member of the ECFR, and serves on the board of the European Middle East Project. He is a former Trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York and of the New Israel Fund, a co-founder of J Street, and a founding Editor of the Middle East Channel at foreignpolicy.com.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Marianne Hirsch, Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Professor Hirsch made news recently when she withdrew from classroom teaching because Columbia instituted the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, telling the Associated Press that “‘A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry…I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”’ In this podcast, Ahmed Moor and Professor Hirsch discuss the IHRA definition of antisemitism and its impact on teaching and learning as well as the changes in academia and the changing balance of influence and power between administrators and scholars. Digging into Prof. Hirsch’s areas of expertise, they discuss genocide scholarship and Germany, looking at the achievements and failures of German “memory culture” and comparing the Holocaust, the Nakba, and the genocide in Palestine today. Through a look at the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network, which Prof. Hirsch helped to found, they discuss how scholars are trying to use their expertise in fascism, mass atrocities, and political violence to name, explain, and counter the rise in authoritarianism and ethnonationalism around the world.
For more, see:
- “As scholars of genocide, we demand an end to Israel’s atrocities,” Taner Akçam, Marianne Hirsch and Michael Rothberg, The Guardian 7/29/25
- “Rethinking Holocaust Memory after October 7,” Marianne Hirsch, Public Books 7/15/24
- “In Israel, I protest my government. Can I do the same at Columbia?” Aharon Dardik, The Columbia Spectator 8/8/25
- Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network
- “I grew up under a terrifying authoritarian regime. Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is right out of their playbook,” Marianne Hirsch, The Forward 3/12/25
Marianne Hirsch is William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and Professor in the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former President of the Modern Language Association of America. She was born in Romania and educated at Brown University, where she received her BA/MA and Ph.D. degrees. Hirsch’s work combines feminist theory with memory studies, particularly the transmission of memories of violence across generations. Her recent books include School Photos in Liquid Time: Reframing Difference, co-authored with Leo Spitzer (University of Washington Press, 2020), and the co-edited volumes Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography (Steidl, 2020) and Women Mobilizing Memory (Columbia University Press, 2019).
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Laila Al-Arian, the executive producer for Fault Lines, an award-winning current affairs program on Al Jazeera English. They discuss what it’s like to be a journalist in Gaza and how Western journalists have failed their Palestinian colleagues. They also talk about remembering the journalists Israel has killed. On August 25, 2025, the day Peter & Laila spoke, Israel killed at least five Palestinian journalists in Gaza, including an Al Jazeera cameraman. Israel has killed nearly 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza since 10/7/23.
Laila Al-Arian is a Washington DC-based journalist, journalist, and executive producer for Fault Lines, an award-winning current affairs program on Al Jazeera English. She has produced documentaries on subjects ranging from the Trump administration’s Muslim ban to the impact of the heroin epidemic on children and an investigation into factory conditions in Bangladesh. For her work, she has been honored with a News and Documentary Emmy, Peabody Award, Robert F. Kennedy Award in journalism, National Headliner Award, and has been nominated for 15 News and Documentary Emmys. Prior to joining Fault Lines, Laila worked for Al Jazeera English for four years, covering everything from Guantanamo Bay’s youngest detainee to the re-settlement of Iraqi refugees in the U.S. She received a BA in English literature from Georgetown University and an M.S. from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, The Independent, and other publications, and she is co-author of the book Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.
Peter Beinart is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, a Contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, an Editor-at-Large at Jewish Currents, and an MSNBC Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is