In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Bard College Professor Ziad Abu-Rish about the roots of Israel’s aggression against Lebanon. They discuss why Israel has been attacking Lebanon since 1948, why Hezbollah continues to fight Israel, and why the Lebanese military can’t disarm Hezbollah. They draw upon this article that Ziad recently published in The Public Source, “Sovereignty Without Defense: The Army, the State, and Hezbollah’s Weapons.”

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Recorded on 4/23/26

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 MSNOW Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. He publishes regularly on https://peterbeinart.substack.com/.

Ziad Abu-Rish is Associate Professor of Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies and Director, MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College. He is a scholar of the modern Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. His research centers around state formation, economic development, and popular mobilizations, particularly in Lebanon and Jordan. His teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate courses in human rights; comparative state formation; various themes in Middle East studies; and research methodologies. Abu-Rish is the author of The State of Lebanon: Popular Politics and Institution Building in the Wake of Independence (Stanford University Press, 2026). He co-created (with artist Tania El Khoury) The Search for Power, a touring lecture performance and sound installation exploring the history of electricity in Beirut. Abu-Rish is also coeditor of The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (2012) and Critical Voices: A Collection of Interviews from and on the Middle East (2015). Abu-Rish has also authored several articles appearing in Middle East Report and Review of Middle East Studies and chapters in edited volumes on the political economy of the Middle East, the Arab uprisings, and teaching Middle East history. Abu-Rish also serves as coeditor of Arab Studies Journal and Jadaliyya e-zine, and codirector of the Lebanese Dissertation Summer Institute.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman is joined by political analyst/commentator Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP), for a far-ranging conversation about Europe’s equities, concerns, and options with respect to current events in the Middle East (the US/Israel war on Iran, Israel’s wars on Lebanon and Gaza, and Israel’s escalation in the West Bank) including with respect to US-Europe relations. Follow Daniel’s work on Substack.

Articles by Daniel Levy that relate to this conversation:

• The Guardian 4/13/26: What Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right really mean when they invoke ‘Greater Israel’
• Al Jazeera 3/30/26: Did Israel miscalculate in launching the war on Iran?
• Zeteo 3/6/26: Why Netanyahu Duped Trump Into the Illegal War With Iran
• Zeteo 10/6/25: How Netanyahu Saved Himself by Destroying Gaza
• Zeteo 6/17/25: America First or Israel First? Will Trump Join Netanyahu’s War on Iran?

Daniel Levy is a political commentator and 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 the newly formed 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. He frequently writes for, is interviewed by and quoted in multiple media outlets and has been published in the New York Times, FT, and Foreign Affairs, amongst others.  Levy was born and educated in the UK where he has returned to residing and where he graduated with an MA and BA from King’s College, Cambridge with awards. His most recent testimony to the UN Security Council from February 2025 can be viewed here.

Lara Friedman is FMEP’s president. With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S. foreign policy in the region, on Israel/Palestine, and on the way Middle East and Israel/Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S. domestic politics, policies, and legislation. Lara is also a preeminent subject-matter expert in the area of anti-Palestinian legislation and “lawfare,” including the weaponization and instrumentalization of the definition of and concerns about antisemitism. Lara’s research on lawfare and antisemitism-related topics – which she makes available to the public – is widely cited and widely recognized as the authoritative data in the field. 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.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Middle East policy journalist, analyst, and author Omar Rahman about the Iran War and its impacts in the region. Their conversation explores:

• Iran-U.S. diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire, and challenges to ending this war.
• The Trump Administration’s blockade of Iran’s blockade of the Straits of Hormuz
• The impact of the Iran War on the policies/interests/unity of Gulf states
• Israel’s war on Lebanon and its impacts for the region
• The rapidly expanding/shifting Overton window with respect to support for Israel in the U.S.

Articles by Omar discussed in this podcast:

• His 4/7/26 article in Foreign Policy: The Gulf’s Wartime Unity Is Unraveling
• His 4/15/26 article in the National Interest: In Blockading Iran, the US Forgot About China
• His 3/4/26 co-authored piece in Foreign Policy: Security Alliances With the U.S. Have Made Gulf States More Vulnerable

Omar H. Rahman is a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, where he focuses on Palestine, Middle East geopolitics, and American foreign policy in the region. He is the Editor of Afkār, the Council’s online publication providing insights and analysis on current events in the region. He was previously a non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, and a research analyst at the Arab Gulf States Institute, where he focused on the political economy of the Gulf states. Rahman established his career as a journalist based in the U.S. and the Middle East, including three years in Palestine where he was a columnist for +972 Magazine. Rahman was also an associate editor at World Politics Review in New York, as well as an editor and senior Middle East correspondent at Argus Media. His writing has been published in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The National Interest, Lawfare, VICE, PBS NewsHour, Quartz, Al-Jazeera English, and The National, among other outlets. Rahman’s other work includes peer-reviewed policy papers. academic articles, and book chapters including in the recently-published volume: What is Israel/Palestine? (Routledge, 2022). Follow Omar’s work on X at: @omarrahman

Lara Friedman is FMEP’s president. With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S. foreign policy in the region, on Israel/Palestine, and on the way Middle East and Israel/Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S. domestic politics, policies, and legislation. Lara is also a preeminent subject-matter expert in the area of anti-Palestinian legislation and “lawfare,” including the weaponization and instrumentalization of the definition of and concerns about antisemitism. Lara’s research on lawfare and antisemitism-related topics – which she makes available to the public – is widely cited and widely recognized as the authoritative data in the field. 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.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor holds a quick conversation with FMEP President Lara Friedman in which they discuss the U.S.’s “blockade of a blockade” in the Strait of Hormuz and the lack of thinking that seems to characterize it; the Israeli effort to undo Oslo, undo the Gaza “disengagement”, and undo the withdrawal from Lebanon; and the question of whether Israel considers Turkey to be a peer competitor.

For a little more recent analysis from Lara Friedman, see Lara’s observations about Israel’s history and how it informs policy and this April 9, 2026 panel at the Arab Center DC in which Lara spoke, “Trump’s Second Term: Upending Democracy, Development, and Diplomacy.”

Lara Friedman is FMEP’s president. With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S. foreign policy in the region, on Israel/Palestine, and on the way Middle East and Israel/Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S. domestic politics, policies, and legislation. Lara is also a preeminent subject-matter expert in the area of anti-Palestinian legislation and “lawfare,” including the weaponization and instrumentalization of the definition of and concerns about antisemitism. Lara’s research on lawfare and antisemitism-related topics – which she makes available to the public – is widely cited and widely recognized as the authoritative data in the field. 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.

Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 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. 

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with journalist Oren Ziv (+972 Magazine/Local Call & Activestills) about the dynamics of reporting on war and living in Israel. Drawing on a recent article Oren published on +972, “‘Our coverage is not truthful’: How Israel is censoring reporting on the war,” the two discuss the realities of the war with Iran and the challenges of reporting on it inside of Israel amidst direct government censorship and harassment of journalists and activists by police as well as deputized, armed vigilantes. They talk about the ways that the the Israeli administration normalizes permanent war with Iran and Hezbollah for the Jewish Israeli public, similar to the ways that permanent war with Palestinians has been normalized. They discuss how different sectors of Jewish Israeli society relate to information about the genocide in Gaza and abuse of Palestinians more broadly, including what some choose not to know, what some celebrate, and what others are coming to accept. They also look at the trend of both leftwing and more mainstream Israelis who are emigrating from Israel, noting that the numbers are as yet unknown but seem to be growing. Finally, they talk about solidarity activism and organizing among Israelis, including how they approach more mainstream Israeli society.

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Recorded on 4/7/26

Oren Ziv is a photojournalist, reporter for Local Call and +972 Magazine, and a founding member of the Activestills photography collective. Find him on X at @OrenZiv_; and find his work at +972 Magazine & at ActiveStills.org.

Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 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 and on X at @AhmedMoor.

In this episode of FMEP’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Dr. Amira Abdelhamid, Director of Research & Monitoring at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) [also on X]. The ELSC is the first and only independent organization defending and empowering the Palestine solidarity movement across Europe through legal, research, and advocacy support. Lara and Amira talked about the ELSC, it’s work challenging anti-Palestinian repression in the UK and Europe, and about the recently launched database, Britain’s Index of Repression and the previously launched database, Germany’s Index of Repression [check out both databases here — developed/published in partnership with Forensic Architecture and Forensis], as well as ELSC’s recent report: On All Fronts: The Multi-Sited Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Britain.

In this episode of FMEP’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Sawsan Zaher, an independent Palestinian human rights lawyer based in Haifa [full bio below]. Their conversation includes:

• The background of Israel’s recently-passed Death Penalty law
• The way in which the Israeli judiciary supports the regime there
• The role of the Supreme Court, incl whether it may strike down the law, and how the Court has evolved in the past twenty five years

Full Bio

Sawsan Zaher is an independent Palestinian human rights lawyer based in Haifa. She serves as a legal advisor for several Palestinian human rights and feminist organizations, specializing in both Israeli domestic law and International law. Sawsan has extensive experience in constitutional strategic litigation on behalf of Palestinians before Israeli courts; notably, she recently represented the Palestinian Authority in a constitutional petition before the Israeli Supreme Court regarding the freezing of Palestinian tax revenues. She also serves as a co-supervisor at the human rights clinic in Tel Aviv University.

Since October 2023, Sawsan has focused her practice on representing Palestinian citizens in cases of political persecution. She is a frequent public speaker on Israel’s violations of international law, specifically examining how the Israeli genocide of Gaza is supported by the Israeli constitutional and legal regime.

Previously, Sawsan served as the Deputy General Director and Senior Lawyer at Adalah, where she practiced for 16 years. Her work has earned her prestigious global recognition, including fellowships as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a Yale World Fellow, and a Public Interest Law Fellow at Columbia University.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Mara Kronenfeld, Executive Director of UNRWA USA. They discuss the role of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in the lives of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and especially in the West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA has 12,000 staff on the ground in Gaza now and continues to offer essential humanitarian support as well as schooling, despite attacks from Israel, which has destroyed more than 90% of UNRWA schools, refused to allow UNRWA-designated aid into Gaza and refuses to permit international UNRWA staff from entering Gaza and the West Bank, and the challenge of lost funding from many funder states including the United States. Peter and Mara discuss the content and success of UNRWA schooling, including addressing the accusations of antisemitism in UNRWA curricula, as well as the unsubstantiated allegations that some UNRWA staff participated in the October 7th, 2023 attacks inside of Israel. Finally, they discuss the enormous growth in funding support for UNRWA via UNRWA USA, which has sent $83 million dollars of raised funds to Gaza over the past 2.5 years.

For more on UNRWA and UNRWA USA, see Israel has crushed Unrwa in Gaza – and the rest of the world has done nothing by Phillipe Lazzarini in The Guardian 3/21/26 and UNRWA is Still In Gaza by Mara Kronenfeld in December 2025 in the Washington Post (an UNRWA USA ad and op-ed). 

Mara Kronenfeld is the Executive Director of UNRWA USA, where she leads the strategic vision, operations, and fundraising efforts of the nonprofit organization that supports the humanitarian and human development work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Middle East. With over 20 years of experience in international development, Mara is a Fulbright Scholar and an expert in designing, implementing, and leading public private partnerships supporting youth development programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

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 MSNOW Political Commentator. His newest book (published 2025) is Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. He publishes regularly on https://peterbeinart.substack.com/.