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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.
Khalid Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of its program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, discusses the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in May that killed 12 Israelis and 242 Palestinians. Elgindy describes the politics of the war in Jerusalem, Gaza and Washington and the events in Jerusalem that triggered hostilities — Israel’s push to evict Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem and its violent incursions inside the compound of the Al Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. He notes that for very different reasons, Israeli oppression is greatest in East Jerusalem and Gaza, one reason why Hamas issued a warning to Israel to cease violent repression in Jerusalem or face hostilities. “Power is not self-regulating,” Elgindy observes, who says the United States has ignored growing right-wing extremism inside Israel and is now seeing its consequences. He says Washington must stop acquiescing to Israeli policies in Jerusalem and Gaza if it wishes to prevent future wars between Israel and Hamas.
