Occupied Thoughts
From the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), Occupied Thoughts amplifies the voices of FMEP grantees and partners, offers critical framing, and promote new ideas and new angles on the many issues connected to achieving justice, security, and peace for Palestinians and Israelis. FMEP works to defend and support Palestinian rights, end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and ensure a just and secure future for Palestinians and Israelis. FMEP advances this goal through its grants program, public programming, and research. www.fmep.org
Episodes
June 5, 2026 • 47 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Professor Dana El Kurd (University of Richmond) and Professor Nader Hashemi (Georgetown University) about how the current war increases Iran’s “soft power," why Saudi Arabia and the UAE are reacting differently to Iran and Israel, and why American hegemony remains in the Middle East.
Dana El Kurd is an associate professor at the University of Richmond i...
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June 3, 2026 • 50 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Harrison Mann, a former U.S. Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Middle East/Africa Regional Center who resigned from the Biden Administration in protest of his office's support for Israel's war in Gaza. Ahmed and Harrison discuss the seeming impunity of the elite making policy decisions and recommendations and the effort ...
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May 29, 2026 • 51 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Omar Shakir, Executive Director of Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN), about DAWN's new report on the revolving door between AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and U.S. and Israeli governmental institutions and the roles AIPAC plays in U.S. politics and public discourse. They also look at instances of conflation between Jewish people and ...
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May 20, 2026 • 41 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with analyst Ben Lorber about the definition of antisemitism today and how it compares to Islamophobia as well as the dynamics around finding common cause with white nationalists.
See also "Joe Kent, who resigned over the Iran war, is not your ally" (Religion Dispatches, April 2026, by Kate Bitz, Elianna Boskoff, and Ben Lorber);
Ben Lorber works as a Senior Re...
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May 13, 2026 • 52 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Matt Duss and Zuri Linetsky about the destabilizing nature of the Abraham Accords; the evolution of the security dilemma and how integration may drive destabilization by fostering aggressive behavior; and whether the Abraham Accords undermined the reinstatement of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - the Iran nuclear deal) by the Biden Administratio...
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May 7, 2026 • 49 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with journalist Maya Rosen and analyst Natasha Soffer-Roth about the groups behind the nascent effort to establish Israeli settlements in Lebanon, the US-to-Israel pipeline of radical Zionists (such as Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein, and others), and the role that secular Israelis play in pursuing settlement policies.
For more, see:
"Support for Settlement of Leba...
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May 4, 2026 • 57 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Mahmoud Mushtaha, a journalist and researcher from Gaza, and Obada Shtaya, the co-founder and CEO of the West Bank-based Institute for Social and Economic Progress. Mahmoud recently published two articles that focus on the thousands of people still missing in Gaza, drawing in part from research that Obada's institute conducted. Ahmed, Mahmoud, and Obada speak ...
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April 23, 2026 • 48 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Bard College Professor Ziad Abu-Rish about the roots of Israel’s aggression against Lebanon. They discuss why Israel has been attacking Lebanon since 1948, why Hezbollah continues to fight Israel, and why the Lebanese military can’t disarm Hezbollah. They draw upon this article that Ziad recently published in The Public Source, “Sovereignty Without Defense:...
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April 20, 2026 • 39 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman is joined by political analyst/commentator Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP), for a far-ranging conversation about Europe's equities, concerns, and options with respect to current events in the Middle East (the US/Israel war on Iran, Israel's wars on Lebanon and Gaza, and Israel's escalation in the West Bank) including with respect to US...
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April 16, 2026 • 63 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Middle East policy journalist, analyst, and author Omar Rahman about the Iran War and its impacts in the region. Their conversation explores:
Iran-U.S. diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire, and challenges to ending this war.
The Trump Administration's blockade of Iran's blockade of the Straits of Hormuz
The impact of the Iran War on the policies/in...
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April 13, 2026 • 21 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor holds a quick conversation with FMEP President Lara Friedman in which they discuss the U.S.'s "blockade of a blockade" in the Strait of Hormuz and the lack of thinking that seems to characterize it; the Israeli effort to undo Oslo, undo the Gaza "disengagement", and undo the withdrawal from Lebanon; and the question of whether Israel considers Turkey to be a peer competit...
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April 10, 2026 • 37 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with foreign policy analyst Matt Duss about whether the US has lost the war on Iran and whether the Israelis drove the US's entry into the war. They talk about prospects for Democratic party intervention on the war and the ways in which US policy towards Israel may be changed over time, looking at party politics as well as elections.
Matthew Duss is Executive Vice...
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April 7, 2026 • 63 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with journalist Oren Ziv (+972 Magazine/Local Call & Activestills) about the dynamics of reporting on war and living in Israel. Drawing on a recent article Oren published on +972, "‘Our coverage is not truthful’: How Israel is censoring reporting on the war," the two discuss the realities of the war with Iran and the challenges of reporting on it inside of Israel a...
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April 6, 2026 • 49 mins
In this episode of FMEP's Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Dr. Amira Abdelhamid, Director of Research & Monitoring at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC).
The ELSC is the first and only independent organization defending and empowering the Palestine solidarity movement across Europe through legal, research, and advocacy support. Check out the ELSC online at https://elsc.support/ and on X a...
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April 3, 2026 • 62 mins
In this episode of FMEP's Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Sawsan Zaher, an independent Palestinian human rights lawyer based in Haifa [full bio below]. Their conversation includes:
- The background of Israel's recently-passed Death Penalty law
- The way in which the Israeli judiciary supports the regime there
- The role of the Supreme Court, incl whether it may strike down the law, and how the Court h...
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March 30, 2026 • 35 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Mara Kronenfeld, Executive Director of UNRWA USA. They discuss the role of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in the lives of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and especially in the West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA has 12,000 staff on the ground in Gaza now and continues to offer essential hu...
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March 25, 2026 • 52 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with David Velasco, the former editor-in-chief of the art magazine Artforum. Ahmed and David discuss David's decision in October 2023 to publish a letter from cultural workers in support of Palestinian liberation and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and in opposition to violence against all civilians, regardless of identity. David was fired following the publication ...
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March 19, 2026 • 30 mins
FMEP non resident fellow Peter Beinart is joined by Sari Bashi (Executive Director, Public Committee Against Torture in Israeli) to discuss the dismissal of charges against five Israeli soldiers who were filmed violently abusing and raping Palestinian detainees in the Sde Teiman facility - as well as the torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody more generally.
For resources please visit: https://fmep.org/resource/sde-teiman-perm...
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March 17, 2026 • 57 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with analyst Annelle Sheline about the history of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. They discuss the state of the American "security umbrella" from the perspective of leadership in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the perspective that American military bases are liabilities. They a...
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March 13, 2026 • 49 mins
In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Ramallah-based Palestinian journalist/analyst/commentator Nour Odeh. Nour is an independent media professional and communications consultant with 20 years of experience as a distinguished journalist. In 2012, Ms. Odeh became Palestine’s first female government spokesperson and she served in various capacities as a senior communications and public diploma...
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