Interview: Is Peace Possible Between Israel and Palestine?

I joined Bretigne Shaffer once again on her podcast podcast What Then Must We Do?, this time to discuss the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, Israel’s retaliatory war crimes in Gaza, the origins and root causes of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and what would need to happen for a just peace to be realized.

Topics we discussed include:

• Why I set out to write my book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict.
• Looking at the origin of the conflict with The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination.
• The role of Western governments including the UK and US, as well as the role of the League of Nations and then the United Nations, in causing the conflict between Jews and Arabs in occupied Palestine.
• The role of the US government ever since in perpetuating the conflict.
• The role of the Western mainstream media in perpetuating the conflict.
• How the whole purpose of the US-led so-called “peace process” was to block implementation of the two-state solution.
• The myth of the UN creation of Israel.
• Israel’s 16-year blockade of Gaza in violation of international law.
• The US government’s use of its veto power in the UN Security Council to defend Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.
• How the claim that Palestinian civilians only ever die because they were being used by Hamas as “human shields” employs a euphemistic meaning of that term that is completely unrelated to its definition under international law and essentially means any Palestinian civilians killed by virtue of their being in Gaza.
• How Israel’s 16-year blockade of Gaza violates international law, and how its total siege of the strip to prevent Palestinian civilians’ access to basic goods necessary for survival amount to genocidal intent on the part of the Israeli policymakers.
• How there is a growing consensus among international human rights organizations and United Nations member states that Israel’s policies toward the occupied Palestinian territories constitute the crime of apartheid under international law.
• How the “Jewish state” of Israel came into existence through the ethnic cleansing of most of the Arab population from their homes in Palestine.
• How the denialism of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is completely untenable.
• Why Israel’s policy since Hamas’s inception has been to empower the group and ensure its radicalization while opposing any evolution of the group away from armed violence toward diplomatic engagement.
• Why the claim that Hamas came to power in Gaza through a violent “coup” flips reality on its head.
• Why I do not believe the rumors claiming that the Israeli military and intelligence establishment had foreknowledge of and deliberately allowed the Hamas terrorist attacks of 10/7 to occur.
• Why I believe in the one-state solution, and why I believe implementation of the two-state solution is a necessary firs step toward that appropriate goal.
• Why US support for Israeli crimes against the Palestinians must end before there will ever be a chance for peace.
• Why most people when it comes to the topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict tend to take up one extremist position or the other, and why we all need to take an objective approach in order for a peaceful resolution to occur.
• Why the shift in the nature of the mainstream media’s coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza compared to past operations like “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008-2009 is a very positive development.

Here is some additional content that came up during our discussion along with a collection of articles I’ve written about the topic:

• My recent debate with Alan Futerman on the Tom Woods Show
• Tom Woods’ interview with Scott Horton
• The public statement from legal scholars warning of potential genocide in Gaza
• A collection of my articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Here are the books I’ve written on the subject:

• The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination: The Struggle for Palestine and the Roots of the Israeli-Arab Conflict (2009: paperback, Kindle, or PDF)
• Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2016: hardcover, paperback, Kindle, or ePub)
• Benny Morris’s Untenable Denial of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2016: Kindle or PDF)
• Exposing a Zionist Hoax: How Elan Journo’s ‘What Justice Demands’ Deceives Readers About the Palestine Conflict (2018: Kindle or PDF)

And here are past interviews I’ve done with Bretigne:

• Draconian COVID-19 Responses Are an Opportunity for Health Freedom Advocates
• COVID-19 and the Great Mask Debate
• The Failure of Central Planning in COVID-19 Responses
• Counterproductive Claims from the Health Freedom Movement
• Public Vaccine Policy vs. Public Health
• Do Vaccines Cause Autism?