“Before the last presidential campaign, it was an article of faith that no candidate of any serious stature would go near Israel-Palestine,” FMEP’s Lara Friedman tells JTA. Sanders showed, she said, that “you can engage politically on this issue in a way that differs from the orthodoxy that has defined where politicians can go. Not only does it not hurt you, it makes you stronger as a candidate.”

The Nation profiles former FMEP President Matt Duss.

The Jewish Democratic Council backs anti-Israel boycott movement legislation under consideration in Congress, as does AIPAC; J Street, which opposes the boycott movement, also opposes the legislation, joining left-leaning groups that say the bill would impinge on speech freedoms. (The legislation broke a Senate filibuster this week and is scheduled for a vote before week’s end. Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, is tracking how senators are voting.)

There are signs that U.S. opinion might be shifting on Israel and its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. Mehdi Hasan interviews FMEP’s Lara Friedman and Marc Lamont Hill.

Friedman said that for Republicans, “any Democratic opposition to these bills over concerns about freedom of speech will end with a statement bashing Democrats for being supposedly ‘anti-Israel”. She added that “so long as progressives allow the term ‘pro-Israel’ to be defined by Netnayahu and his supporters, there is no win for them on this. Until they take the initiative and take back the definition of what it means to be pro-Israel, this will be a losing argument for them.”

The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald quotes Lara Friedman on the anti-boycott laws that are proliferating at the federal and state levels.

“An effort to now use this massacre to move legislation on the Hill that literally has nothing to do with the kind of anti-Semitism that was at play in this massacre, but is about trying to shut down criticism of Israel and activism related to Israel, seems opportunistic and cynical,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, compiled statements from 10 legislators in her weekly legislative roundup, including Jewish and black Democrats and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the Democratic whip.

Lara Frieman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said denying the Palestinians the multigenerational attachment to historical Palestine embedded in their refugee status was odd, considering the millennia-long Jewish attachment to the land of Israel. “For folks who naively believe we’re simplifying the Palestinian issue, they are not taking seriously the power of narrative and grievances,” she said. ‘How long have Jews held fast to ‘next year in Jerusalem’?”

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