Media

  • FMEP Legislative Round-Up: April 7, 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: April 7, 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.…

  • The ADL’s Antisemitism Findings, Explained (Jewish Currents)

    “Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), said she was struck that the report devoted more space to explaining how anti-Zionist groups operate than to analyzing white supremacist activity, despite the comparatively small number of incidents related to anti-Zionism. ‘Even if you accept the ADL’s conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, their own numbers demonstrate that [leftist anti-Zionism] is not the largest problem. The fact that they give more space to this than to white supremacy or actual assaults on Jews really does disclose the political agenda that is underlining the ADL’s approach on this issue,’ she said. …Some of the ADL’s policy recommendations reference Israel advocacy explicitly. The audit calls on its readers to ‘mobilize’ against the BDS movement, and also recommends support for the Abraham Accords, a series of peace deals between Israel and Arab states, in order to ‘promote tolerance and fight antisemitism in the region.’ Many progressives have criticized the accords for failing to hold Israel accountable for the occupation. ‘This has become red meat for the Jewish community to say, ‘If you don’t support normalization of Israel’s relationships with the Arab world, that proves you’re anti-peace and antisemitic,’ Friedman of FMEP said. ‘If you won’t marginalize or erase Palestinians from the public narrative, then that’s antisemitism.’”

  • Israeli far-right think tank Kohelet is ‘shaping US policy’, experts say (Middle East Eye)

    “Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, noted that Eugene Kontorovich, a professor of law at George Mason University and fellow at Kohelet, was described during a 2015 congressional hearing as being a ‘major force’ behind an anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions law (BDS) in the state of South Carolina… ‘It’s not some conspiracy to say there’s this role, whether he does it in the name of himself or the university that he’s working for, at the time, or Kohelet Forum,’ said Friedman. ‘It’s him, and he is the director of the international law programme at Kohelet Forum, and he is effectively claiming and I believe him to be a key if not the lead drafter and legislation which is now spread across the majority of US States seeking to quash free speech of American citizens.’ … “‘There’s the very strong US side of this. Now that the world is suddenly paying attention to Kohelet in Israel, I think they maybe are missing the story in the US,’ Friedman said. ‘In the US they have played, I would say, a parallel, enormously effective, and quiet role of shaping US policy to where it is today when it comes to anything related to Israel-Palestine.'”

  • FMEP Legislative Round-Up: March 31, 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…