This is CBSI In The World. I'm John Bachelorette with Jonathan Shancer of the Foundation

for the Defense of Democracies, the author, John Shancer. The new book is Gaza Conflict

2021. Hamas, Israel, and 11 days of war. Jonathan gives us a very large view of 30 years

in which Hamas has been gaining in strength. There were obstacles that Hamas had to overcome

one of them, surprisingly, was Yasser Arafat, who launched serial operations on the West Bank.

When I was first introduced to Israel, it was during the siege of Bethlehem, an operation

launched by Yasser Arafat. However, he is to die soon enough. And that, to my reading of

Jonathan's book, opens up a road for Hamas that might not have been possible otherwise.

However, the Palestinians are going to hold an election. I believe it's 2006. They're

going to hold an election. What does that mean to Hamas? Why do they, at that time, say

they will participate on it?

Okay, so the story is that Arafat is faced with a fateful decision in 2000. You've got

Bill Clinton and A. Hood, Barack, then Prime Minister of Israel. They call for a summit

to try to bring an end to the Oslo process and to the beginning of a new era of full

peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. Arafat rejects this. He launches the, what's

known as the Second Intifada, which is another asymmetric war. And that goes on through 2005.

Arafat dies in 2004. He was surrounded in his compound in Ramallah for several months.

The Israelis were punishing him for launching this conflict. And when he passes away, we

have the rise of Mahmoud Abbas, the new president, naturally today, the president of the Palestinian

Authority. But Mahmoud Abbas inherits chaos in the West Bank. The Second Intifada really

laid waste to all of the progress that had been made in the intervening years. And at

that point, it's very difficult to know who's in charge of what neighborhood, from one

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