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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 Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — a definition that explicitly conflates criticism of Israel/Zionism with antisemitism.
Follow Dr. Persson’s work: http://dranderspersson.com; on Twitter at @82AndersPersson.
Links:
Times of Israel 10/5 (Anders Persson): IHRA reminds me of the Mohammed cartoons
EU Observer 10/11: Call by scholars: Stop instrumentalising antisemitism
Jerusalem Post 10/14: Australia endorses IHRA definition of antisemitism
Times of Israel 10/12 (Avraham Burg): Why the Malmo Forum against antisemitism risks failure
Bios
Dr. Anders Persson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Linnaeus University. He researches the role of the European Union in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has written four books about this topic, including EU Diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967–2019 (Edinburgh University Press, Aug 2020) and The EU and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 1971-2013: In Pursuit of a Just Peace (Lanham, Lexington Books: 2015). He has published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies, Mediterranean Politics, Journal of European Integration, Middle East Critique, Journal of Conflict Transformation and Security and New Middle Eastern Studies. He serves as expert commentator for Swedish TV/radio/press on Israel-Palestine and contributes regularly to Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, Al Jazeera English, Politico EU and EU Observer.
Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP). With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, Lara is a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely in the U.S. and international press and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to her work at FMEP, Lara is a Contributing Writer at Jewish Currents and a non-resident fellow at the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). Prior to joining FMEP, Lara was the Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now, and before that she was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, serving in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis and Beirut. She holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona and a Master’s degree from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service; in addition to English, Lara speaks French, Arabic, Spanish, (weak) Italian, and muddles through in Hebrew.