[Start at 21:30] “Trump Deflects His Own Racism by Claiming the Democrats Are Anti-Semites”

“But anyone who believes that this resolution will in any way resolve or mitigate the bitter political wrangling over BDS has been drinking too much celebratory champagne, said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace — a nonprofit that promotes a two-state solution. ‘You’d have to be delusional to think that this is over,’ said Friedman.”

“‘The resolution is a far-reaching, unambiguous indictment of anyone who boycotts Israel,’ tweeted Foundation for Middle East Peace President Lara Friedman before the bill was passed. ‘Folks who support it are in effect legitimizing the same simplistic narrative that is being used to justify laws quashing free speech…Folks who support it are going to be called hypocrites if they subsequently vote against legislation trying to fight what they have in effect labeled an evil scourge.’

DC Insider spoke with Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, to get closer insight into the progress of the so-called ‘deal of the century,’ and how policymakers are reacting in Washington.

“This is a brazen violation of Americans’ right to free speech,” Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman writes at the group’s website. “It is also a McCarthyistic tactic of required self-reporting designed to enable – and legitimize – the U.S. government in building a list of Americans tracking their political views/activities.”

“They’re working openly, and have been for years, to argue there is no distinction between Israel and settlements, that all the land was given to them by God, and that making a distinction between settlements and Israel is anti-Semitic,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a liberal think tank whose work focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The Trump administration has not announced any change in U.S. policy when it comes to entry of Palestinians to the United States,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and a former U.S. foreign service officer in Jerusalem. “One [denial] could be just a random happenstance, two could be a coincidence. Three, it’s reasonable to ask whether or not there hasn’t been a de facto shift in U.S. policy that is denying visas to Palestinians to come to the U.S. based on their political views, which would be deeply troubling.”

The Foundation for Middle East Peace published a chart listing the 17 states whose anti-boycott laws or implementing guidelines penalize businesses that boycott Israel or the territories controlled by Israel, a phrase that applies to the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami and Foundation for Middle East Peace President Lara Friedman in conversation with Todd Gitlin. They discuss what BDS is and isn’t — and offer strategies for responding to this very polarizing issue.

The Lawfare Blog quotes Lara Friedman’s analysis of anti-BDS legislation in Congress: “The purpose of the [Combating BDS Act] is to give political and legal cover to, and encouragement for, state laws that violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.”