Interview with Miko Peled, Director of Palestine House of Freedom

Interview by Fariba Amini with Miko Peled, Israeli peace activist and Director of Palestine House of Freedom. Photographs by Fariba Amini © 2025.

F.A. You were raised in a Zionist family.   You also served in the Israeli army. Your father, Matti Peled was a general during the 1967 war.  You sister, Nurit who is an educator lost her daughter who was 12 years old in an attack on a street in Jerusalem.  How and why did you change despite all the trauma in your family?

I don’t believe I changed. What changed was what I knew. Once I was made aware of the injustice that Zionism and the creation of Israel had brought about to the Palestinian people, I denounced it. The Palestinians who I met and who became sisters and brothers to me liberated me and made it possible for me to see.

F.A. October 7, 2023, was a decisive day for all in the Middle East.  How did you feel that day?  Many Israelis were killed, and some 250 people were taken hostage.  Do you think this happened in a vacuum?

On October 7, 2023, fighters came out of one of the poorest, most oppressed and most heavily controlled and monitored regions in the world and they were able to paralyze the apartheid state. No one has ever been able to do that. Considering the apartheid state has enormous military and intelligence capabilities, it is shocking that these fighters, who came from a concentration camp where water fit for human consumption is a luxury and the basic most needs for survival are non-existent, were able to change the power dynamic so dramatically. It was a watershed moment for Palestine.

F.A. Israel reacted in full force as it usually does.   But this time, the reaction was not just against Hamas but a complete destruction of Gaza and genocide against a whole population.    How can this be justified?

It cannot be justified, but neither can the existence of the apartheid state be justified. From its very inception, the Zionist state has been on a mission to destroy Palestine and its people. The horrors that the people of Gaza have been experiencing since October 7 are an amplified version of the terror that they have experienced for nearly one hundred years.

F.A. Do you think the Israeli government has a different mindset when it comes to Gaza?  Do they want to take over the Gaza strip? Or even the West Bank?

They have taken over all of Palestine. The apartheid state controls the lives of every person living between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. Their intent is to destroy the country and its people.

F.A. The Israeli society has been in total shock since October 7. Now a majority think that Trump’s proposal is a good thing.   How can 2 million Palestinians be deported or transferred?   Doesn’t it remind us of the horrible deportation of Jews in Europe during WWII?

This was not Trump’s proposal it was a proposal that was placed in front of him to declare as though it was his own. This has been part of the discourse among Zionists for many years, and he has given it a stamp of approval. But it will never happen.

F.A. Omer Bartov who is one of the leading scholars of the Holocaust has called the war on Gaza a genocide.   What is your opinion?

Limiting the genocide to the Gaza concentration camp is misguided and disingenuous. The Palestinian people have been subjected to genocide, ethic cleaning and apartheid for close to one hundred years. This is genocide amplified but it is not the only aspect of the Palestinian genocide.

F.A. It is unlikely that we would see a two-state solution under the current circumstances. In fact, many people believe it is a forgotten goal.   What is likely to take place?  Can a real Palestinian state come into being?

The Two State Solution is a Zionist ploy that was never intended to materialize. It has no virtues; no moral justification and it is an absolute impossibility. The Zionist state will never recognize the right of Palestinians to their land, to their freedom or to their right to self-determination. It assumes that Palestinians should accept that the apartheid state keep the spoils of its crimes between 1948 and 1967. Palestine is a single state and that cannot be changed. What can be changed is the nature of the state. It can either remain an apartheid state or it can be liberated and made into a free democratic Palestine. A Palestinian state can come into being, once the apartheid state falls and a democratic free Palestine takes its place.

F.A. Do you believe Netanyahu will attack Iran?  The reason I ask is because as an Iranian I am burdened by the thought of it.

Never. The apartheid government as well as the US government are fully aware that they are not capable of winning an all-out confrontation with Iran. Had they not been terrified of this possibility they would have attacked long ago.

You have established a center in Washington, D.C. called Palestine Freedom House or  .دارالحریه  What is your goal in establishing such a center?

Palestine House of Freedom is the home for Palestine in Washington, DC. It was founded answering the call of Palestinians throughout Palestine. Strategically located on Pennsylvania Avenue, this center is a ground-breaking initiative that provides a welcoming, accessible space in Washington, D.C., which will serve as the Washington, DC center for mobilization, strategy, and solidarity-building.

The objectives of Palestine House of Freedom are twofold. To bring about a shift in the United States, particularly in decision-making spaces like Washington, DC, from full support for Zionism to full rejection of Zionism. Then we wish to see the peaceful dismantling of the apartheid regime and replacing it with a free democratic state with equal rights.

To that end we have developed several robust educational campaigns and forged alliances that we believe have the potential.

Bio:

Miko Peled was born in Jerusalem in 1961.  He is the grandson of Avraham Katznelson, who signed Israel’s declaration of Independence, and the son of Matti Peled, who was a general in the Israeli army.  Later in life, Matti Peled, became an advocate for dialogue with the PLO.   General Peled studied Arabic and wrote his PhD thesis on Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer who received the Noble Prize in Literature in 1988.    He was also one of the founders of the Arabic literature Department at Tel Aviv University.  The Palestinians named him Abu Salam or father of peace.    He condemned the Israeli occupation and said in a talk in San Francisco that it is a stain on the Israeli society. 

Miko, who served in IDF, lived in San Diego where he taught martial arts.  He became an activist and a staunch critic of Israeli government’s policies.  He is now the director of Palestine Freedom House in Washington, D.C., which he helped found. 

He is the author two books: The General’s Son: The Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.  

Miko Peled, Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. Click here to buy.

He also holds a sixth-degree black belt in karate. 

Miko traveled to Iran in 2018.   He says about his trip:  

“The look on people’s faces when I mention that I had just returned from visiting Iran is priceless. Even if the trip had been a terrible failure, it still would have been worth it just to see these expressions of confusion, disbelief and sometimes disdain at the mere mention of a visit to Iran. The trip was not a terrible failure; quite the opposite in fact. It was a reminder that looking at the U.S. from the outside, and in this case from a country that has all but been declared an enemy of the U.S., one has the advantage of a very different perspective; and America, led as it is by Donald Trump, seems petulant and dangerous and possessing far too much power.”