Media

  • ADL Staffers Dissented After CEO Compared Palestinian Rights Groups to Right-Wing Extremists, Leaked Audio Reveals (Jewish Currents)

    “Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said that even if Greenblatt is drawing some distinction between anti-Zionists and violent white nationalists, he is affirming that ‘because you don’t support the establishment of a Jewish ethno-religious state at the expense of Palestinians, you are ipso facto responsible for what actual antisemites do and say.’ Friedman said this is ‘intellectually dishonest,’ as it’s ‘predicated on the premise that there exist no legitimate reasons for rejection of Zionism that are unrelated to hatred of Jews, and morally indefensible logic because it cheapens and politicizes the very concept of antisemitism, equating legitimate viewpoints and non-violent protest with groups who are motivated by unabashed hatred of Jewish people.’”

  • Can American Jewish Support for Israel Survive This New Government? (The New Republic)

    “Lara Friedman, president for the Foundation for Middle East Peace, agreed that the extremism of the current government has its seeds in the occupation and, more generally, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. ‘You cannot build a nation on the idea that not all human beings have rights…. You can’t do that for decades and not inculcate a political culture that is what you see today,’ she said. For years, she added, people working on Palestinian rights have tried to make the case that the occupation doesn’t stop at the Green Line (the demarcation of territory captured in the Six Day War). Friedman noted that many American Jews—including ostensibly liberal American Jews—have been more comfortable advocating for the rights of Jews in Israel than for Palestinian rights. ‘American Jews,’ she said, got ‘riled up over women’s access to the Western Wall plaza. They’ll go to the mat for that.’ But where illiberalism affected Palestinians, there was less interest. And now that the equities of Jews are hanging in the balance, ‘there’s a certain amount of, ‘well, if you’d been paying attention for the last 50 years.’”

  • FMEP Legislative Round-Up: March 3, 2023

    1.Bills, Resolutions & Letters 2. Hearings 3. Media & Reports 4. Members on the Record (Palestine/Palestinians) 5. Members on the Record (Israel) 6. Members on…

  • Settlement & Annexation Report: March 3, 2023

    Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week. To subscribe to this report, please click here.…

  • What Rashida Tlaib Represents (New York Times)

    “the question of U.S. aid to Israel, in the words of Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, has remained ‘sacrosanct.’” and “The anti-Semitism charge, Lara Friedman told me, was a ‘sharp knife’ that Republicans could throw ‘and watch Democrats attack each other.’”