From the NPR podcast Consider This (from the weekday broadcast All Things Considered ). Akiva Eldar, Israeli political analyst and journalist, and Mkhaimar Abusada, professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, in conversation:
Eldar: I don’t see any way where the Israelis and Hamas can reach an agreement as long as the Israeli government is held by the Israeli right-wing parties, who don’t believe in a two-state solution. And in Gaza, what Hamas managed to do is to unite the Palestinian communities in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel proper. And this is not going away if we don’t deal with it in the roots of this seriously.[I’ve made slight changes from the NPR transcript. Comments are off for this post; I’m not interested in debating.]
Abusada: Akiva, can — let me just interrupt here and say, let’s agree on one thing here, that the continuation of the Israeli occupation of West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, which has been going on for more than half a century now, since 1967, and the creeping annexation with settlement expansion on Palestinian territory is the source of the problem. Let’s agree that if Israel puts an end to its occupation of Palestinian land and accepts international law and U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, there is a good possibility for peace. There’s a good possibility for security and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Eldar: I fully agree with you, my friend.
