In this episode of “Occupied Thoughts,” FMEP's Lara Friedman speaks with Nuriya Oswald (International Advocacy Officer at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Palestinian human rights NGO founded in 1999 and based in the Gaza Strip) and Yael Stein (Director of Research for B’Tselem, Israel’s preeminent human rights organization) about how manifestations of Israel's apartheid regime with respect to the Gaza Strip, both in general and specifically in the context of the Great March of Return. NOTE: In December 2021, Al Mezan issued a new report, “The Gaza Bantustan: Israeli Apartheid in the Gaza Strip,” and Btselem, together with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, issued a new report, "Unwilling and Unable: Israel's Whitewashed Investigations of the Great March of Return Protests."

Bios

Nuriya Oswald is the International Legal and Advocacy Director at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.Nuriya is a human rights advocate with ten years of experience in advocacy and coordinating legal initiatives. At Al Mezan, Nuriya manages various activities with the objective of bringing justice to victims of international law violations and informing international stakeholders of the human rights situation on the ground. She has lived in Gaza and Ramallah and has been working in Palestine for over a decade. She holds an LLM in international humanitarian law, an MA in human rights and a BA in political science and French studies. She previously worked for Medical Aid for Palestinians and ChildFund International. Nuriya has appeared in the New York Times, Al Jazeera and other media outlets. You can follow Al Mezan on Twitter @AlMezanCenter.

Yael Stein is the Research Director of B’Tselem. She holds an LLB from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MA in human rights from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. Yael has authored several of B’Tselem reports, including The Occupation’s Fig Leaf (2016), Getting Off Scot-Free (2017) and Fake Justice (2019). You can follow B'Tselem on Twitter @btselem.

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP). She is a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely in the U.S. and international press and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to her work at FMEP, Lara is a Contributing Writer at Jewish Currents and a non-resident fellow at the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). 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. She tweets @LaraFriedmanDC.

Original music by Jalal Yaquoub