Khaled Elgindy on his book: Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump

What It Covers

Brené Brown interviews Khaled Elgindy about his book Blind Spot, examining how US policy failures in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations stem from ignoring Israeli power imbalances and Palestinian political realities, particularly the destabilizing Fatah-Hamas division.

Key Questions Answered

• •US Diplomatic Blind Spot: American peace efforts operate on two flawed assumptions: that credible settlements can be achieved without addressing the vast power imbalance between Israel and Palestinians, and that internal Palestinian politics can be ignored or manipulated to serve the peace process rather than acknowledged as legitimate factors.
• •Palestinian Political Division: The 2006 Hamas electoral victory and subsequent 2007 civil war split Palestinian governance between Gaza and the West Bank, creating seventeen years of predictable instability with repeated conflicts in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2022 that Israel termed mowing the grass, a cycle analysts warned was unsustainable.
• •Asymmetric Pressure Strategy: US policy consistently applies pressure on the weaker Palestinian side to reform while providing only positive incentives to Israel, deepening rather than resolving the conflict. This approach assumes Israelis need reassurance through security guarantees while Palestinians require political re-engineering to become suitable peace partners.
• •Security Paradox: Between 2008 and 2022, fewer than three hundred Israelis died from conflict compared to six thousand Palestinians, yet this period was characterized as calm because it only measured Israeli security. True Israeli security cannot exist without Palestinian freedom and security, making the current approach fundamentally illogical and counterproductive.
• •Generational Shift Potential: Despite current policy failures under both parties, a significant generational change in American attitudes toward the conflict is emerging, particularly among young people organizing protests and civil disobedience. This demographic will eventually enter positions of influence and reshape US policy, though change remains years away.