Media

  • Mission impossible: How an old US law could scotch peace talks before they start

    Lara Friedman, an expert in US law regarding Israelis and Palestinians and the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said that when she heard Abbas’s speech at the UN this year, she immediately understood it might have repercussions. Friedman has for years followed closely all news and legislation on Capitol Hill that relates to Israeli-Palestinian issues. While reading the December 2015 foreign ops bill that added the ICC provision, she recalled thinking, “Holy crap, where did this come from?” She wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed the ticking time bomb planted silently into the bill. Should the PLO mission in DC be closed, she said, it would take the US relationship with the Palestinians back 30 years. Friedman surmised that may be what the provision’s authors intended: moving the clock back to the pre-Oslo era, when the idea of a Palestinian state was more or less unthinkable in Washington.

  • Anti-BDS campaigner nominated for top civil rights job at Department of Education

    “In tandem with efforts to [legislate] against boycotts of Israel and settlements, [Kenneth] Marcus has long been a vocal advocate of efforts, unsuccessful so far, to pass laws at both the federal and state level defining activism targeting Israel as anti-Semitism, and imposing a gag rule on such activism,” Lara Friedman told the Intercept.

  • Israel challenges BDS at home and abroad

    The Foundation for Middle East Peace has documented at least 28 bills introduced since 2015, targeting Israel boycotts and including in its definition of Israel its settlements in the West Bank. Critics say these anti-BDS bills are problematic because they conflate Israel with its illegal settlements, and stifle free speech.

  • Palestine and Israel: One state, or two?

    Watch FMEP President Lara Friedman discuss the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation and debate the two state solution on this Al Jazeera UpFront special.

  • Palestine and Israel: One state, or two?

    “In this UpFront special marking 50 years of occupation, we debate what the future holds for Israelis and Palestinians.” Ft: FMEP’s Lara Friedman, along with Gideon Levy, Hanan Ashrawi, and Yousef Munayyer.