This is democracy now, democracynow.org, the Warren Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzales.

We are speaking to Shibli Telhami, part two of our conversation, Professor of Peace

and Development at the University of Maryland, also a senior fellow at the Center for Middle

East Policy, co-editor of the book, The One State Reality.

What is Israel Palestine?

Professor Telhami, this Hamas surprise attack took place right as the U.S. was negotiating

the normalization of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Do you think that played a role?

And do you think that is not going to happen at this point, explain the significance of

it?

Well, I don't think it played a direct role in the sense that Hamas is trying to prevent

that from happening.

But I think what happened is that Hamas is a political entity, too, and they're trying

to reap benefits, and especially against the Palestinian Authority.

And they're reading the despair, not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.

I think the 56 years of occupation, a right-wing Israeli government increasing settler

violence.

I was there last week.

I was in Israel and the West Bank last week.

And the despair is really tremendous.

That despair is partly related to the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, in a sense

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