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Understanding Israel Palestine
This show is inspired by Citizens for Justice in the Middle East, a local group that has advocated for 20 years for a fair and even-handed U.S. foreign policy that recognizes the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis. Our program offers interviews with journalists, scholars, policy experts and activists to offer multiple perspectives, and to clarify the underlying issues that are often obscured by headline news.
Lara Friedman, director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, discusses the increase in Jewish settlements on the West Bank during 2020 and the rise in settler violence. Both escalated as Israelis took advantage of the Trump administration to increase their presence on the West Bank with no U.S. pushback or criticism. Settlers on the West Bank have been increasingly bold during the pandemic, and the Dec. 21, 2020 death of a teen-age setter youth in a car chase with Israeli police has since unleashed a torrent of violence directed against Palestinians and in a few cases against Israeli police and soldiers as well. Friedman describes the messianic ideology that drives extremist settlers to uproot Palestinians’ trees, vandalize Palestinian property, expropriate their land and physically assault them. The settlers believe the indigenous Palestinians are an illegitimate presence that must be driven out so the Jews can take back the land that God has given them. Politically powerful, they enjoy almost complete impunity from the law. Israeli soldiers are charged with protecting them, not stopping their illegal actions. Friedman speaks of the blitz in new settlements during 2020 and the controversial decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to build the first new Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem in 20 years at Givat Hamatos. Long regarded by the international community as a death blow to the two-state solution, Givat Hamatos will ring the Palestinian community of Beit Safafa and prevent the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem. So far, there has been little response to Givat Hamatos by the incoming Biden administration.
