Khalil Sayegh on Peacemaking, Israel’s War Aims and Gaza’s Future

Understanding Israel Palestine

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Now a political analyst in Washington, D.C. focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Khalil Sayegh grew up as a Palestinian Christian in Gaza, home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Sayegh speaks of the Christian role in Gaza, the recent loss of family members there, the diverse responses of Christian churches in the United States to the war in Gaza, Israel’s war aims — ethnic cleansing and the resettlement of the Gaza Strip with Jewish settlers — and the different objectives of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as regards Gaza’s future. Sayegh is co-founder of the Agora Initiative, a non-profit that seeks to advance constitutional democracy in the Middle East. Later in the program, Eamon speaks briefly to war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody about the ICC’s recent decision to issue arrest warrants to three Hamas leaders and to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.