“Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace said that while some state-level anti-BDS laws have been called unconstitutional along the way, none of the laws stipulate that boycotting Israel or settlements is illegal, nor will anyone face legal repercussions for boycotting in a state with an anti-BDS law on its books. ‘When people talk about BDS laws barring boycotts, they can’t bar people from boycotting but they can try to attach a punishment. The punishment selected is ‘If you do this, you can’t enjoy the benefits of taxpayer-funded contracts,’ Friedman said. ‘This is an illegal, unconstitutional condition, which is why courts have been so unfriendly to these laws.'”

“Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said there is a big difference between the emergence of young evangelicals expressing greater sympathy for Palestinians and a real change in the evangelical community’s approach to Israel. ‘I don’t yet see the shift in attitudes having any real dent in the effort of evangelicals to shape policy on the ground,’ Friedman said. ‘I trust the polling, but translating these generational shifts into policy change is not a direct line. You still have to get people into office who will promote your issues.'”

“Lara Friedman, the president of the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, argued in her weekly legislative roundup that the bill hinders the Biden administration’s stated policy objectives on reopening the PLO office in Washington and restoring Palestinian aid….”

“Accusations of antisemitism, said Friedman, are a powerful tool – something that Democrats have not figured out how to defend [against].”

“Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), said she was ‘heartened’ by the data, which shows that Americans understand the complexity of the issue and ‘the humanity of both sides’. But she lamented that the shift in public opinion has not moved most politicians in Washington to pursue a balanced approach to Israel-Palestine. Despite recent victories for progressive candidates like Jamaal Bowman and Bernie Sanders’ ability to outraise all of his opponents during the Democratic presidential primary last year, Friedman said, the perception that criticising Israel can be costly politically remains. ‘Those perceptions become reality; if politicians believe they cannot move on this, regardless of what the grassroots says, regardless of what their constituents want, then they don’t,’ Friedman said.”

“Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said that for proponents of Palestinian rights, Mr. Biden’s approach had done little to move the ball forward. ‘The sense of disappointment and betrayal is palpable,’ she said. ‘Those comments are read clearly by the Bibi government as a green light,’ she said, referring to Mr. Biden’s public statement last week. ‘If that’s not what you mean, you’ve got to say something. And if it is what you mean, you’ve got to own it.'”

“In fact, there is no regular reporting on the use of US aid to Israel. According to Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, the bill’s requirement that the Secretary of State report each year on whether or not Israel is complying with US regulations, ‘crosses a red line for many defenders of Israel, who oppose any official US government acknowledgement of Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights, and who would no doubt fear that such a report would strengthen future calls for conditions on aid to Israel.’ Friedman also correctly notes that the bill requires nothing more than this reporting, imposing no penalties for Israeli failure to comply with the law.”

“The purpose of all this opposition is not necessarily to combat the minimal funding Biden has restored to Palestinians. Rather, it is to raise the political cost of addressing Israel-Palestine at all. As Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace told me, ‘The tactic of opponents of progress (between Israel and the Palestinians) is to politicize even the low-hanging fruit so people have to spend so much political capital on what should be simple matters that they have nothing left for tougher battles.'”

“Lara Friedman (no relation to the ambassador), who served as political officer responsible for tracking settlement activity at the Jerusalem consulate in the 1990s, noted that it had long been the desire of settlers and their advocates to close the consulate. ‘They want to be able to say that all of Jerusalem belongs to Israel and there is only one legitimate grouping between the river and the sea,’ she said. ‘Having any diplomatic representation that is not linked to the government of Israel is a contradiction of that.’ Having to go through the US consulate long annoyed settler leaders, but it was something they adapted to, said Lara Friedman, noting that settler leaders even attended the consulate’s Fourth of July party each year rather than the one held at the ambassador’s Herzliya residence. She noted that even if the Biden administration decides to open a consulate for the Palestinians, so long as the embassy continues the Trump-instituted policy of serving Israelis on both sides of the Green Line alike, Washington will still be ‘de facto treating the West Bank as Israeli sovereign territory.’

“Friedman, who now serves as president of the DC-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, flatly rejected the former ambassador’s characterization of the merger as an upgrade. ‘This is effectively saying to… [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas that he is now the equivalent of the mayor of Haifa.’ Taking further issue with the Trump envoy’s reasoning for nixing the consul general post, she said, ‘The idea that it is bad for US policy to have more than one viewpoint suggests that the less information you have the better.'”

“‘There seems to have been a pivot from trying to get Facebook to adopt the IHRA, to Facebook looking at defining the word ‘Zionist’ — used in any critical sense — as indistinguishable from antisemitism,’ said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace [full disclosure: the foundation financially supports +972 Magazine]. ‘This may be based on a good faith concern, as there are certainly instances of antisemites using the terms ‘Jewish’ and ‘Zionist’ interchangeably,’ Friedman continued. ‘But of course, the issue there isn’t the word but the context. Given the pressure around IHRA, it’s not paranoid to be concerned that this focus on the word ‘Zionist’ is just a back door to get the same impact that you would get if Facebook adopted IHRA in terms of stigmatizing and deplatforming criticism of Israel.’”