17 Facts About Miko Peled

Avraham "Miko" Peled is an Israeli-American activist, author, and karate instructor.

Miko Peled is author of the books The General's Son: The Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, published in 2012, and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five, published in 2017.

Miko Peled condemned the Israeli military for seizing the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights, calling the war a "cynical campaign of territorial expansion".

Miko Peled followed his father's footsteps at first, joining Israel's Special Forces after high school and earning the red beret, but he soon grew to regret his decision.

Miko Peled surrendered his status as soon as he earned it, becoming a medic, but finally, disgusted by the 1982 Lebanon war, buried his service pin in the dirt.

One evening in 1983, Miko Peled skipped a Peace Now demonstration in Jerusalem to attend karate class, and on that evening a grenade attack by a right-wing extremist killed one of the demonstrators, Emil Grunzweig.

Miko Peled then distanced himself from activism until 1997, becoming a sixth-degree black belt in karate.

Miko Peled was shocked by random anti-Arab venom spewed casually by Jewish Americans he met who assumed he shared their views, in an atmosphere of growing Islamophobia.

Miko Peled thinks that Israel is an apartheid state that must disappear and that a single-state solution is closer than many people think because of the changing mindsets of many Israelis, American Jews, and Holocaust survivors.

Miko Peled has traveled in Palestine, has taught karate to children in refugee camps and has engaged in nonviolent activism.

Miko Peled is a regular contributor to online publications like the Electronic Intifada and the Palestine Chronicle.

In 2016, Miko Peled generated controversy after tweeting that "Jews have reputation [for] being sleazy thieves," leading to the cancellation of his speaking engagements at Princeton and San Diego State University.

Miko Peled spoke at a gathering at the British Labour Party conference in Brighton in September 2017.

Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson said the conference organizing committee would investigate why Miko Peled was given a platform at the event.

Miko Peled wrote in a June 2012 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times that,.

Miko Peled has described his book, The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, as an account of how he, "the son of an Israeli General and a staunch Zionist, came to realize that "the story upon which I was raised.

Miko Peled is, with Nader Elbanna, co-founder of the Elbanna-Miko Peled Foundation.