Lara Friedman participates on a panel convened by the Center for American Progress

“They took Jerusalem off table, now they are taking refugees off the table,” Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, told Al-Monitor, referring to the Trump administration.

“For folks who naively believe we’re simplifying the Palestinian issue, they are not taking seriously the power of narrative and grievances,” Lara Friedman says. “How long have Jews held fast to ‘next year in Jerusalem’?”

“It’s very clear that the overarching goal here is to eliminate the Palestinian refugees as an issue by defining them out of existence,” FMEP’s Lara Friedman tells Foreign Policy.

On Tuesday, Sanders released a video montage on Twitter, embossed with his campaign logo, that cross-cut between the inauguration ceremony of the Jerusalem embassy this week and the violence that unfolded in the Gaza Strip. It also included segments from a panel discussion the Brooklyn native participated in with Lara Friedman, who heads the left-wing Foundation for Middle East Peace, Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, and Rob Malley, a former Obama administration official.

Lara Friedman talks to the Jerusalem Post about how current law could require the US to withdraw from UN agencies which the Palestinian Authority joins as a full member.

FMEP President Lara Friedman participates in a live town hall event hosted by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

“You can’t claim to have principles and then demand that Israel be held to a different and lower standard.” Lara Friedman comments for the American Conservative on the support the Israel Anti-Boycott Act enjoys among some Democratic lawmakers.

Friedman, from the Foundation for Middle East Peace, points to an op-ed written by Amb. Friedman in February 2016, in which he argued that the two-state solution “has never been a solution, only a narrative,” and that “even the narrative itself now needs to end.”

“It is clear that the Trump administration seeks to return U.S. policy to the pre-peace process era, when pressure on Israel to end the occupation was anathema, the notion of a Palestinian state was political heresy, and the Palestinian national cause was synonymous with terrorism,” Lara Friedman added in an email. “In this context, legislation like the Taylor Force Act has far greater and more insidious implications.”

“It fits in with what people like Haley have been saying,” Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a nonprofit opposed to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, told Al-Monitor. “This doesn’t come out of nowhere. People who see this as a positive thing will see this as one more tool in the president’s arsenal to use.”