In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with University of Maryland Professor Dr. Shibley Telhami and FMEP President Lara Friedman. The three discuss the new US & Israeli war against Iran, the strategic changes in the Persian Gulf and the polling data in the U.S. demonstrating a lack of support for the war. They discuss the fate of the Abraham Accords and normalization more broadly. They also discuss the role and politics of Israel in the U.S. now, including recent polling data and the impact on current and future leadership.
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Recorded 3/3/2026
See Dr. Telhami’s most recent poll, “Do Americans Favor Attacking Iran Under the Current Circumstances? The Latest Critical Issues Poll Findings,” conducted in early February 2026, before the U.S. & Israel launched the recent war.
Dr. Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, and the Director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll. He is also Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Telhami is the author and editor of numerous books. His best-selling book, The Stakes: America and the Middle East, was selected by Foreign Affairs as one of the top five books on the Middle East in 2003. His most recent book is a co-edited with contributions volume, The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine? which was published in March 2023 with Cornell University Press. He has one forthcoming book: Peace Derailed: Obama, Trump, Biden, and the Decline of Diplomacy on Israel/Palestine, 2011-2022 (co-authored).
Lara Friedman is FMEP’s president. With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S. foreign policy in the region, on Israel/Palestine, and on the way Middle East and Israel/Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S. domestic politics, policies, and legislation. Lara is also a preeminent subject-matter expert in the area of anti-Palestinian legislation and “lawfare,” including the weaponization and instrumentalization of the definition of and concerns about antisemitism. Lara’s research on lawfare and antisemitism-related topics – which she makes available to the public – is widely cited and widely recognized as the authoritative data in the field. Prior to joining FMEP, Lara was the Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now, and before that she was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, serving in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis and Beirut.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a Fellow at FMEP. He is an advisory board member of the US Campaign for Palestinian rights, co-editor of After Zionism (Saqi Books) and is currently writing a book about Palestine. He also currently serves on the board of the Independence Media Foundation. His work has been published in The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere. He earned a BA at the University of Pennsylvania and an MPP at Harvard University. You can follow Ahmed on Substack at: https://ahmedmoor.substack.com.