Media

  • FMEP Legislative Round-Up February 14, 2025

    1. Bills, Resolutions 2. Letters 3. Hearings 4. Selected Members on the Record 5. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements New episodes of FMEP’s Occupied Thoughts…

  • Trump Is Bullying Jordan and Egypt to Help in Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza. It Isn’t Working. (The Intercept)

    “Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said it was a deal neither country can afford to make. For Egypt, argued Friedman, moving Palestinians into effectively ‘concentration camps’ along the Sinai, would open them up to military conflict from Israel. ‘There is inevitably going to be residual recidivist military action by Palestinians against Israel, which is going to lead to war between Israel and Egypt,’ she said. There’s also the broad domestic support for the Palestinian cause in Jordan — already home to the world’s largest population of Palestinian refugees — as well as Egypt. ‘For Jordan, the idea of de-populating Gaza and potentially asking Jordan to take more Palestinians is an existential threat for the Jordanian regime,’ said Friedman. ‘From an Egyptian perspective, politically, national security-wise, I don’t know how anyone imagines that Egypt can give in on this and not see itself massively destabilized.’”

  • How Title VI investigations are silencing grade-school students against Israel’s genocide in Gaza (Prism)

    “For years, defenders of Israel have accused its critics of being antisemites, a notion that the DOE has also entertained. Since at least 2018, the department has considered adopting a definition of antisemitism that includes criticism of Zionism or Jewish ethnonationalism. Although the DOE has never formally adopted it, such a definition has been used to challenge student and staff organizing in support of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, which advocates economic opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Individual schools have also incorporated the definition into their internal policies, including Harvard University, which did so in January to settle a Title VI complaint filed by the Brandeis Center. Such complaints of alleged antisemitism are filed with the DOE against schools or school districts, which often opt for settlements rather than litigating cases, thereby incurring more significant costs—including further accusations of antisemitism.

    “’The core of that is the argument that any meaningful protest or criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitism,’ Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, which tracks such Title VI complaints, told Prism. ‘The overwhelming majority of these cases that they’re making are about things that a teacher said about Israel, or allowed to be said in class about Palestine, or was written on a wall—that sort of thing.’

    “As an example, Friedman cited the phrase ‘from the river to the sea,’ a popular rallying cry for Palestinian liberation, which Title VI complainants have claimed is antisemitic.”

  • Settlement & Annexation Report: February 7, 2025

    Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering major news on Israeli settlement and annexation activity this week. To subscribe to this report, please click here.…

  • FMEP Legislative Round-Up February 7, 2025

    1. Bills, Resolutions 2. Letters 3. Hearings 4. Selected Members on the Record 5. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements New episodes of FMEP’s Occupied Thoughts…

  • Trump’s EO to ‘Combat Antisemitism’ Wields Jewish Safety as a Weapon to Crush Palestine Solidarity (Religion Dispatches)

    “Casting a broad net, the legal code penalizes concerted activity to deprive individuals of their rights. It remains to be seen how the administration may wield this statute against Palestine solidarity protesters, a tactic encouraged by a Heritage Foundation legal scholar last year. ‘This incredibly broad, easily abused statute,’ tweeted Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, ‘is what they intend to weaponize against anyone who dares voice public support for Palestinian lives/rights.’”

  • Mapping Life & Land: Beirut Urban Lab

    In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Dr. Nour Joudah speaks with Ahmad Gharbieh, professor at the American University of Beirut and co-founder of…