“Advocates for Palestinian rights said that the Israelis may get more traction with the Americans than Europeans. ‘The Israelis have long tried to get the Europeans to stop funding these groups, first by accusing them of delegitimizing Israel, then by accusing them of being terrorist groups, and now by accusing them of affiliation with terrorist groups,’ said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. ‘In the U.S., on the other hand, there is a general lack of awareness of the process to delegitimize these organizations and shut down their funding, so when the Israelis show up in D.C. and say they have evidence, the Americans don’t know any better.'”

“Lara Friedman, who heads the Foundation for Middle East Peace, called the dossier ‘a combination of out-of-context quotes implicating the [six] organizations, and which were taken during interrogations of people who were arrested for other things, together with alleged documents suggesting that not every dollar the Europeans gave one of the groups went to the purpose it was intended, yet without connecting that money to terror. In a court of law, this is not considered the highest level of evidence. This is not proof.’ (Full disclosure: FMEP is a financial supporter of the nonprofit that publishes +972 Magazine.) Friedman says the reason the Europeans, as opposed to the Americans, are far more reticent to accept the Israeli allegations as truth is a result of a ‘long escalation.’ ‘The Israelis have long tried to get the Europeans to stop funding these groups: first by accusing them of delegitimizing Israel, then by accusing them of being terrorist groups, and now by accusing them of affiliation with terrorist groups. In the United States, on the other hand, there is a general lack of awareness of the process to delegitimize these organizations and shut down their funding. So when the Israelis show up in D.C. and say they have evidence, the Americans don’t know any better,’ Friedman said.”

“Lara Friedman, president of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, tweeted: ‘So saying something like this to attack Dems as anti-Israel is fine, right? But just imagine the shrieks of rage if same words were spoken by [a] member of the Squad.'”

“We have 100s of people from all over the world today which is a testimony to the interest in hearing from you, the Palestinian organizations,’ Lara Friedman of Foundation for Middle East Peace said at the outset.”

“‘There’s nothing accidental about this,’ Lara Friedman, president of the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, told The National. ‘The Israel law and the US laws were designed to corner companies and individuals in the international community into taking a side: there is Israel, river to the sea, and you stand with it or you’re an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel bigot.’”

“‘The Jewish mainstream looks at Canary Mission and it makes them uncomfortable. The idea of trying to ruin students’ lives is uncomfortable. But the bottom line is it comes out of the Jewish mainstream,’ said Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (and a contributing writer to Jewish Currents). ‘Shutting down critics of Israel and criticism of Israel on campuses is in the mainstream. [Leven’s donation] is one more piece of evidence of how mainstream it is.’”

“According to Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Israel — whether its backers intend it or not — is often used as a wedge issue to make reactionary policy palatable to liberals and progressives. Once reactionary policies designed to help Israel are passed, they are often expanded upon to other fields. Friedman pointed to legislation in states like Texas that targets private businesses for discrimination against the gun, oil, and gas industries, which are based in part on anti-BDS legislation. These Israel-related bills, she said, are ‘the tip of the spear to destroying free speech.’”

“Foundation for Middle East Peace President Lara Friedman says the Iron Dome response is ‘the latest example of the selective outrage when it comes to anyone who doesn’t hew to the expected status quo position when it comes to supporting Israel.’ She says the difference in Democrats’ statements on Paul compared to the House fury ‘would suggest that much of the elected Democratic Party either wants to fend off accusations that Democrats are insufficiently pro-Israel, or they are very happy piling on to delegitimize members of their own party who hold positions on Israel that they find uncomfortable. There seems to be an insistence on differentiating between why somebody is asking questions about something related to Israel,’ she says. If ‘the person who was asking questions is Republican, and is doing so ostensibly for reasons that are not about criticizing Israeli policy, then that’s basically [seen as] OK. If a Democrat is seen to be obstructing in ways that have anything to do with a kishkes test that says they are not sufficiently supportive of Israel, right or wrong, then they fail,’ she adds.”

“[Lara] Friedman, who is also president of the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, said Arizona, Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever have all been crystal clear, and the state’s law is being applied the way it was intended. Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s say they are not boycotting Israel, but Arizona has defined boycotts to ‘explicitly apply to ‘in territories controlled by Israel,” she said. ‘The law basically says, ‘We don’t care if you do business inside the sovereign state of Israel, if you are differentiating between the sovereign state of Israel and areas of Israel that are not even under Israeli law, or part of the sovereign state of Israel but are controlled by Israel. We consider that boycotting, and you’re done.”

“Progressive American Jews, who overwhelmingly voted for Biden, increasingly view Israel’s policies toward Palestinians through the lens of racial justice. ‘It’s a Jewish American population that is maybe more aware than at any time since the civil rights movement of what inequality and inequity and injustice means,’ said Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington. But she said the Democratic establishment has little appetite to adopt progressive positions and push Israel to change its policies significantly toward Palestinians in a way that could be turned into a wedge issue weakening Democrats ahead of U.S. midterm elections.”