Hello and welcome to another episode of the Politics Theory of the podcast. My name is Alex Doherty.

Two guests today. In the first half hour, I'll be speaking with Lara Friedman, president of the

Foundation for Middle East Peace, about the dire situation in Gaza and also the West Bank,

and about the dramatic escalation of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism

in the United States. In the second half of the episode, International Security Expert Paul Rogers

joins the show again to talk about how Israel is likely to approach its attempt to destroy Hamas

and the risks of regional escalation. If you've been finding PTO useful, please do consider becoming

a supporter on Patreon. Five pound supporters get access to episodes of PTO Extra, including the

upcoming episode in which Richard Seymour will be responding to listeners' questions

regarding the interview on Gaza that we recorded last week. And now to our first interview.

Lara Friedman is the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

She's a leading authority on the Middle East,

with particular expertise on US foreign policy in the region,

on Israel-Palestine,

and on the way related issues play out in Congress and in US domestic politics.

So, Lara, in recent days, the Foundation for Middle East Peace, of which you are the president

and you yourself, have made use of the term genocide or incipient genocide to describe what is

occurring in Gaza. Many supporters of the Palestinians in their struggle for statehood have in the

past previously shied away from the term when describing Israel's project in the West Bank

and Gaza, impart no doubt out of understandable reticence that doing so might suggest direct equivalence

being drawn with the Nazi Holocaust. Now, I know from your work that you're not someone who

is given to exaggeration or hyperbole, so I wonder if you could explain why in your view it is,

...