In this episode of “Occupied Thoughts,” FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Hebron-based activist Issa Amro and Israeli activist & playwright Einat Weizman about the new documentary play that Einat wrote based on transcripts from Issa’s trial in the Israeli Ofer Military Court. In January, 2023, Issa and Einat came to New York for a staged reading of the play (read more about the play & staged reading here). In this podcast, they speak with Peter about justice and injustice, occupation and oppression, activism and normalization, and next steps for staging this play.

Recorded January 27, 2023 | Watch on YouTube

Speakers:

Issa Amro is a prominent Palestinian activist born and raised in the Palestinian city of Hebron. He is the co-founder of Youth Against Settlements, which works to strengthen Palestinians’ steadfastness against the expansion of illegal settlements as well as to document Israeli human rights violations. He has led a non-violent movement of civil disobedience for years. In 2009, he received the One World media award for his involvement in B’Tselem’s Shooting Back project. In 2010, the United Nations named him the Human Rights Defender of the Year in Palestine. In 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council expressed concern for his wellbeing and safety due to numerous accounts of harassment from Israeli soldiers and settlers and a series of arbitrary arrests. In 2013, too, he was declared a Human Rights Defender by the European Union.

Einat Weizman: Based in Tel Aviv, Einat is an actor, director, playwright and political activist. All her plays, performances and events are focused on documentary theatre as an investigative tool into the hidden spaces of the Israeli reality. Theatre includes Prisoners of the, I, Dareen T., House 113: A Lesson in Political Construction, Palestine, Year Zero, Prison Notebooks and Shame . Video art includes 99.7% Convictions, winner of the DocAviv Festival Prize and Living land, Tel Aviv museum. Einat, together with Aziz Al Tori, coordinates the culture project in the Bedouin village of Al Araqib, a village that stands at the forefront of the struggle against the ethnic cleansing of the Bedouins in the Negev. She received  the Writer’s Guild of Norway’s Solidarity Grand Award 2019.

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.