In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with civil rights attorney and activist Huweida Arraf about Huweida’s work to co-found the International Solidarity Movement as well as the different flotilla efforts, including the 2008 Freedom Flotilla, which arrived in Gaza; the 2010 Mavi Marmara, which was stormed by Israeli troops, who killed and injured participants; and the latest attempts to enter Gaza by sea to break the blockade.
Recorded on October 27th, 2025
Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American civil/human rights attorney and social justice activist. She has been involved in legal, political, and grassroots initiatives for Palestinian rights for the last two decades, including co-founding the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and leading the Free Gaza Movement which, beginning in 2008, organized sea voyages to Gaza to confront and challenge Israel’s illegal blockade on the Palestinians living there.
Ahmed Moor is a Palestinian-American writer born in Gaza and a 2025 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.