In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Jaser Abu Mousa, a 2025 Yale Peace Fellow and past Program Officer working for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Gaza. The two discuss life and death in Gaza on personal and collective levels. They look at Hamas, which Jaser calls a “symptom” of the problem of occupation; at how the past two-plus years of war have destroyed not only all the infrastructure needed for life in Gaza but also the social fabric, as starvation and deprivation have broken human bonds and relationships; and the ways in which Israel works to make Gaza unlivable. On a personal level, Jaser speaks of his experiences in Gaza, from the violence he witnessed as a child during the second Intifada to the devastation he experienced on and since October 7, 2023: his wife, Heba, and two of his children were killed by Israeli missiles in mid-October 2023; after two years of starvation and deprivation, his mother, sister, and sister’s children were killed in the war in July 2025; and his family suffered other losses, including the killing of a nephew in the beginning of the war, injuring of his father, and arrest, detention, and violence against his brother along with other medical workers. Navigating these unfathomable losses, Jaser points to his faith in God and religion as guides as he seeks to protect his living children and look towards the future. Finally, Jaser reflects on how he relates to Israelis and declares that “if I strip him from his right to tell his story, that does not make me more just, but will make me less human.”
Jaser Abu Mousa is a Yale Peace Fellow examining how Gaza’s postwar reconstruction can reflect Palestinians’ priorities while repairing the social fabric of society. Most recently, he was a Program Officer working for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Gaza, Palestine until the breakout of the current war in October 2023. During the war, Jaser lost his wife, Heba, and two children, Hmaid (18) and Abdulrahman (8), and left Gaza with his remaining two children, Abdallah and Sham, for treatment in the United Arab Emirates.
Prior to his work with Swiss, Jaser served in the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), working under immense pressure during the 2014 war to report incidents, coordinated and communicate movements and follow intense political developments. Prior to that, Jaser worked as a social worker for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the aftermath of the 2009 war, including leading a team of 50 social workers to run the poverty survey for UNRWA in the area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. He also led a team of engineers to verify the work of a European contribution 30 million Euros known as the Private Sector Reconstruction in Gaza (PSRG). Between 2006-2009, he worked extensively as a political researcher in a Gaza-based think tank; during this period he reported on and analyzed Hamas’ rise to power in the Strip.
Jaser holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the Islamic University of Gaza and a Master of Science degree in Project Management. In addition to his work as an analyst and a development/humanitarian practitioner, he has worked as a civil engineer at private construction companies and UN agencies.
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, 2025 FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with filmmaker and activist Jen Marlowe about the film Severed, which Jen directed. The film, released in late 2025, tells the story of Mohamad Saleh, a teenager from Gaza who has endured five major Israeli assaults, lost his home, close family members, his best friends, and—at the age of 12—his leg. Hilary and Jen discuss disablement, disability justice, and Gaza, which now has the largest cohort of child amputees in the world.
Jen Marlowe is the founder of Donkeysaddle Projects and a Consulting Producer for Just Vision. She is an independent filmmaker, journalist, author, playwright and human rights activist. Her books include I Am Troy Davis (Haymarket Books, 2013), The Hour of Sunlight (2011, Bold Type Books) and Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival (2006, Bold Type Books). Her films include Severed, There Is A Field, and Remembering the Gaza War.
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.
- Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP)
- “Israeli ban on aid agencies in Gaza will have ‘catastrophic’ consequences, experts say,” The Guardian, 12/31/25
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with author Benjamin Moser about Jewish supremacy, diasporic Jewish life, and the life and legacy of the writer Susan Sontag. Moser recently published the article “We have Talked Enough About Ourselves: How the marriage of American exceptionalism and liberal Zionism led to genocide” in the magazine Equator. His next book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History, will be published by published in September 2026.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with analyst Yousef Munayyer about shifts in US public policy and public opinion over the past 20 years and especially the last 2.5 years, including an analysis of the Biden Administration’s support for Israeli genocide. They discuss the BDS movement and the impact of the Palestinian boycott of the New York Times in light of dispersed media access. Finally, drawing from the current landscape, they look ahead at coming threats and shifts.
Michael Omer-Man is Israel-Palestine Director at DAWN and former Editor in Chief of +972 Magazine.
Sarah Leah Whitson is Executive Director of DAWN and former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division.
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with Dr. Yousef Kamal AlKhouri, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Academic Dean at Bethlehem Bible College and a Christian Arab Palestinian theologian from Gaza. They discuss the Christian community in Gaza, the importance of Gaza in Christianity and Christian history, and the destruction of Christians in Gaza, which Dr. AlKhouri has termed ‘ecclesiocide.’ They also discuss the new Kairos document, called Kairos II, launched in Bethlehem in November 2025. According to the Kairos Palestine Initiative, Kairos II “declares the reality in Palestine as genocide and ethnic cleansing, challenges Western silence, and introduces a theology of resistance linking faith with justice. It exposes internal crises and reshapes the role of Christians in the struggle for liberation.” Read the Kairos II document here.
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.
FMEP fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Peter Beinart (also an FMEP fellow) about Peter’s decision to speak at Tel Aviv University, his apology for doing so, and criticisms of both.
FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor is joined by Palestinian analyst Tareq Baconi to discuss his newly published book, “Fire in Every Direction.”
Subscribe to “Occupied Thoughts” on iTunes | Soundcloud |Spotify
Recorded November 25, 2025
Participant Biographies
Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian writer, scholar, and activist. He is the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa and grew up between Amman and Beirut. His work has appeared in, among others, The New York Times and The Baffler, and he contributes essays to The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He has also written for film; his award-winning BFI short One Like Him, a queer love story set in Jordan, screened in over thirty festivals. He is the author of Hamas Contained: A History of Palestinian Resistance, which was shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award, and Fire in Every Direction.
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. You can follow Ahmed on Substack at: https://ahmedmoor.substack.com