Israel, Palestine, & Take-Aways from the 2022 Democratic Party Primaries

Aug 30 2022

Tuesday
– EST

Israel, Palestine, & Take-Aways from the 2022 Democratic Party Primaries

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Featuring Rania Batrice (Communications and Legislative strategist), Lara Friedman (FMEP) and Dr. Yousef Munayyer (Arab Center DC) in conversation with Dr. Maha Nassar (Professor, University of Arizona and 2022 FMEP Non-resident Fellow)

Listen to this conversation as a podcast here.

During the 2022 Democratic Party Primaries Israel-aligned funders invested tens of millions of dollars to defeat progressive candidates who, as part of a broader rights-based, democratic agenda, support Palestinian rights. To examine this phenomenon and its implications, FMEP non-resident Fellow Dr. Maha Nassar will host political strategist Rania Batrice, FMEP President Lara Friedman, and analyst Dr. Yousef Munayyer in conversation to address questions like: How does Israel/Palestine show up in Democratic Party politics today? How deep is the embrace of Palestinian rights among progressive candidates and in the grassroots? What has pushback from Israel-aligned funders (from both parties) looked like and how may it manifest in the future, and what does it mean for progressive organizing and candidates in the future?  

Resources included in the webinar: 

Follow our panelists on Twitter: 

On Israel-aligned funding in the 2022 primaries:

On the Democratic Majority for Israel:

On Nida Allam’s campaign & aftermath:

On Israel/Palestine in U.S. politics more generally:

On the upcoming Israeli election:

On the 2018 elections / the Squad:

Participants: 

Rania Batrice is founder and president of Batrice & Associates, a strategic policy and public relations firm specializing in making the progressive vision a reality. As a daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Rania has blazed a life path as a voice for the voiceless, working on issues ranging from gun violence and climate change to immigration and foreign policy. She has worked as a Democratic operative for nearly twenty years, lending her expertise across political, non-profit, legislative strategy and crisis management. For Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run for president, Rania served as Iowa Communications Director, the National Director of Surrogates and Deputy Campaign Manager. She tweets at @RaniaBatrice. 

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 US foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on Israel/Palestine and the role of the US Congress. 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. She tweets at @LaraFriedmanDC

Dr. Maha Nassar is a 2022 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellow at FMEP. She is also an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, where she specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of the modern Arab world. Her award-winning book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017), examines how Palestinian intellectuals connected to global decolonization movements during the mid-twentieth century. A 2018 Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project, Dr. Nassar’s analysis and opinion pieces have appeared in numerous publications, including The Washington Post, +972 Magazine, The Conversation, and The Hill. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, son, and daughter, and she is working on her next book, a global history of Palestine’s people. Maha tweets at: @mtnassar

Yousef Munayyer, PhD, is a non-resident Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC (ACW). He writes on the Arab-Israeli conflict and is a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Some of his published articles can be found in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, Journal of Palestine Studies, Middle East Policy, and others. Dr. Munayyer holds a PhD in International Relations and Comparative Politics from the University of Maryland. He tweets at @YousefMunayyer.