Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the latest round of peace talks for a ceasefire in Gaza to avoid a wider war in the Middle East,

which, following the assassination of the top Hamas negotiator, are now minus a representative from Hamas,

as its hardline leader in the tunnels under Gaza, appears to be waiting for a military retaliation on Israel from Hezbollah and Iran.

Joining us to assess how the prolonged agony from Netanyahu's war in Gaza will impact our election politics and Monday's Democratic Convention in Chicago

is Rashid Halidi, the Edward Sa Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University.

He's the former editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and was president of the Middle East Studies Association and an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations

from October 1991 till June of 1993.

His books include The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance,

1917 to 2017, Brokers of Deceit, How the U.S US has undermined peace in the Middle East, and

the Iron Cage, the story of the Palestinian struggle for statehood. Then we'll explore the origins

and definition of settler colonialism, which was previously applied to the troubled histories of genocide

in Australia, Canada and the United States,

but is now being applied to Israel following the war in Gaza,

ignited by the brutal Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on October the 7th.

Joining us is Adam Kirsch, the author of several books of poetry and criticism,

a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow.

He is an editor at the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Review section,

and is the author of the new book, Just Out,

on Settler Colonialism, Ideology, Violence, and Justice.

Then finally we'll examine the latest example of the U.S. not acting according to its

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