Occupied Thoughts

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with analyst Yousef Munayyer about shifts in US public policy and public opinion over the past 20 years and especially the last 2.5 years, including an analysis of the Biden Administration's support for Israeli genocide. They discuss the BDS movement and the impact of the Palestinian boycott of the New York Times in light of dispersed media access. Finally, drawing from the current landscape, they look ahead at coming threats and shifts. The conversation references this Intercept article, '“Between the Hammer and the Anvil”: The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé," from February 2024.  Yousef Munayyer is Head of the Palestine/Israel Program and Senior Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. He also serves as a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Palestine Studies and was previously Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.  Dr. Munayyer holds a PhD in International Relations and Comparative Politics from the University of Maryland. 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. You can follow Ahmed on Substack at: https://ahmedmoor.substack.com Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Sarah Leah Whitson and Michael Omer-Man of DAWN, an organization supporting human rights and democracy in the Middle East & North Africa. They discuss the recently-published book that Whitson and Omer-Man co-authored, From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine. Practically, the book acts as a blueprint for ameliorating the conditions in Palestine-Israel today, such that the residents of the country may decide through democratic means how to organize society in the future. See more about the organization here: https://dawnmena.org/ and about the book here: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/from-apartheid-to-democracy/paper. Michael Omer-Man is Israel-Palestine Director at DAWN and former Editor in Chief of +972 Magazine.   Sarah Leah Whitson is Executive Director of DAWN and former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division. 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. You can follow Ahmed on Substack at: https://ahmedmoor.substack.com Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Hilary Rantisi speaks with Dr. Yousef Kamal AlKhouri, Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Academic Dean at Bethlehem Bible College and a Christian Arab Palestinian theologian from Gaza. They discuss the Christian community in Gaza, the importance of Gaza in Christianity and Christian history, and the destruction of Christians in Gaza, which Dr. AlKhouri has termed 'ecclesiocide.' They also discuss the new Kairos document, called Kairos II, launched in Bethlehem in November 2025. According to the Kairos Palestine Initiative, Kairos II "declares the reality in Palestine as genocide and ethnic cleansing, challenges Western silence, and introduces a theology of resistance linking faith with justice. It exposes internal crises and reshapes the role of Christians in the struggle for liberation." Read the Kairos II document here. Dr. Yousef Kamal AlKhouri (Ph.D., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is a Christian Arab Palestinian theologian from Gaza. He serves as Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Academic Dean at Bethlehem Bible College. He is a member of the steering committee of Christ at the Checkpoint and the board of Kairos Palestine. His research and publications, in Arabic and English, center on Palestinian theology, contextual biblical interpretation, and the witness of Christianity within the Palestinian experience. Hilary Rantisi grew up in Palestine and has been involved with education and advocacy on the Middle East since her move to the US. She is a 2025 Fellow at FMEP and was most recently the Associate Director of the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative (RCPI) and co-instructor of Learning in Context: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine at Harvard Divinity School. She has over two decades of experience in institution building at Harvard, having been the Director of the Middle East Initiative (MEI) at Harvard Kennedy School of Government prior to her current role. She has a BA in Political Science/International Studies from Aurora University and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Before moving to the US, Hilary worked at Birzeit University and at the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. There, she co-edited a photo essay book Our Story: The Palestinians with the Rev. Naim Ateek. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with author Naomi Klein about her new essay, "Surrealism Against Fascism," (published in the Equator, 11/26/25), and the questions of whether we need new institutions, what happens next in Palestine, the meaning of fascism and what resistance to it can and may look like. Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, columnist, and the international bestselling author of nine books published in over 35 languages including No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything, No Is Not Enough, On Fire, and Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World which won the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction in 2024. A columnist for The Guardian, and contributor to Zeteo, her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world. She is the honorary professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University and is Associate Professor in Geography at the University of British Columbia where she is founding co-director of UBC's Centre for Climate Justice. 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. You can follow Ahmed on Substack at: https://ahmedmoor.substack.com Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

FMEP fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Peter Beinart (also an FMEP fellow) about Peter's decision to speak at Tel Aviv University, his apology for doing so, and criticisms of both.

FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor is joined by Palestinian analyst Tareq Baconi to discuss his newly published book, "Fire in Every Direction." For bios and resources, please visit: https://fmep.org/resource/queerness-and-li…ith-tareq-baconi/

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Arielle Angel and Alissa Wise about Jewish navel-gazing, Jewish institutions, and growing the anti-Zionist movement. For bios and resources, please visit: https://fmep.org/resource/jewish_institutions_anti_zionism/

In this episode of FMEP's Occupied Thoughts podcast, FMEP President Lara Friedman speaks with Zo Brown (an alias), the founder of Databases for Palestine about the project, and about why actively working to preserve evidence and memory of Israel's genocide of Gaza -- and actively working to fight the erasure of both -- is central to the achievement of accountability and justice. You can follow the work of Databases for Palestine on X (https://x.com/databases4pal) and at https://databasesforpalestine.org/, and you can support it via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/databases4pal).

FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute about Jordan, the Gulf and US policy on Palestine. They also discuss the Biden administration's complicity in genocide, who is profiting from the mass killing, and what careerism means for those who have chosen to continue to serve in the State Dept. Resources and bios at: https://fmep.org/resource/jordan-the-gulf-and-american-policy-in-palestine/

FMEP Fellow Ahmed Moor speaks with author and journalist Antony Loewenstein about his upbringing in Australia, his film "Germany's Israel Obsession", and the seminal book he published in 2023, "The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World", and the possibility of a one-state outcome after a genocide.