“Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which works on Palestinian human rights issues, who has tracked anti-boycott laws since 2014, said that many Israel advocacy groups only seem concerned about actions that companies take over Palestinian human rights concerns. Friedman said that state laws that bar companies that boycott Israel from receiving state contracts were clearly written with Palestinian advocacy in mind, but that the language in them would apply to any company — even Israeli firms — that decide to move money out of Israel if the court overhaul is approved. To take a representative example, in Illinois the state pension board is barred from investing in companies that engage ‘in actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with the State of Israel.’ ‘I could imagine there are people who would say, ‘Fine, technically these companies might come into conflict with the laws, but that’s clearly not the intent and it’s ridiculous to have this conversation,’’ Friedman said. ‘That’s quite clarifying.’”

1.Bills, Resolutions & Letters 2. Hearings 3. Media & Reports 4. Members on the Record (Palestine/Palestinians) 5. Members on the Record (Israel) 6. Members on…

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week. To subscribe to this report, please click here.…

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with +972’s Haggai Matar about the growing Israeli protest movement against the Netanyahu government’s…

In this episode of “Occupied Thoughts,” FMEP’s Kristin McCarthy speaks to Rafat Sub Laban (human rights lawyer) and Amy Cohen (Ir Amim) about the Sub…

Learning & Unlearning Palestine Part 4: Allyship & the Fight for Palestinian Liberation featuring Saleh Hijazi (BDS Movement) and Nadya Tannous (Palestinian Youth Movement) in conversation with…

“Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said that even if Greenblatt is drawing some distinction between anti-Zionists and violent white nationalists, he is affirming that ‘because you don’t support the establishment of a Jewish ethno-religious state at the expense of Palestinians, you are ipso facto responsible for what actual antisemites do and say.’ Friedman said this is ‘intellectually dishonest,’ as it’s ‘predicated on the premise that there exist no legitimate reasons for rejection of Zionism that are unrelated to hatred of Jews, and morally indefensible logic because it cheapens and politicizes the very concept of antisemitism, equating legitimate viewpoints and non-violent protest with groups who are motivated by unabashed hatred of Jewish people.’”

FMEP non-resident fellow Maha Nassar speaks with Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine members Malak Afaneh and Risa Nagel about the pro-BDS bylaw that…

“Lara Friedman, president for the Foundation for Middle East Peace, agreed that the extremism of the current government has its seeds in the occupation and, more generally, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. ‘You cannot build a nation on the idea that not all human beings have rights…. You can’t do that for decades and not inculcate a political culture that is what you see today,’ she said. For years, she added, people working on Palestinian rights have tried to make the case that the occupation doesn’t stop at the Green Line (the demarcation of territory captured in the Six Day War). Friedman noted that many American Jews—including ostensibly liberal American Jews—have been more comfortable advocating for the rights of Jews in Israel than for Palestinian rights. ‘American Jews,’ she said, got ‘riled up over women’s access to the Western Wall plaza. They’ll go to the mat for that.’ But where illiberalism affected Palestinians, there was less interest. And now that the equities of Jews are hanging in the balance, ‘there’s a certain amount of, ‘well, if you’d been paying attention for the last 50 years.’”