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.