my concern is in the medical field where we see a lot of african immigrants with what old ilex. dialects.e it is difficult to find that will be able to translate different dialects. there is english as a second language here at the community colleges. unfortunately, their funding has decreased as well. host: cindy is waiting on the in florida on our line for independents. caller: i take exception to the fact that people say that i'm afraid of other peoples. in the past, they assimilated. that is why we were called the melting pot. why wouldn't you want to speak american or english?

grace is correct. when we segregate ourselves, and makes a separate from everyone else. everybody should be proud to be an american. that is why you came here. you want our benefits? leave your old country behind yourselves.phenate i'm an american. when people ask me what my ethnicities, i'm an american -- ethnicity is, i say i'm an american. host: we take you now to an event put on by the carnegie endowment for international peace being hosted by the middle east institute where jerry white will be one of the featured speakers.

they will be discussing the role of religion in diplomacy. that begins now. we will see you back here tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> good morning. i would like to welcome you to the middle east institute's panel on preventing violence in the name of god. religion and diplomacy in the middle east. issue a special welcome to our c-span viewers this morning. second in the series of diplomacy and religion. at first we held a month ago fundingg ayatollah euro -- featuring ayatollah

irivani. things have changed in statecraft. madeline albright records in her mighty and the almighty," many practitioners of foreign policy have sought to separate religion from world politics. secretary kerry admonished, "we'd nor the global impact of religion at our peril." "go out and engage religious leaders and faith based

immunities in our day-to-day work -- faith-based communities in our day-to-day work." at a time when religious pilots inflames the middle east, the question of how diplomacy and religion can interact take on a high operational importance. what is the department of state doing to fulfill secretary kerry's instructions? what are the scope and limits of cooperation? toare honored this morning welcome our panelists. is the deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of conflict and stabilization operations. leader insay, a landmine removal. an unconventional diplomat. deputy u.s. envoy to

the organization of islamic cooperation. a tribute to his commitment that he is taking time off from maternity leave after being a father for one week. to welcomeo like ambassador tom pickering whose very distinguished the nomadic career includes ambassadorships on almost every continent except antarctica. as well as being under-secretary of state for political affairs and u.s. ambassador to the united nations. kerry will speak first -- jerry will give the general outlines. ambassador pickering will provide commentary at the end. jerry, the floor is yours.

>> thank you and welcome. thank you for the kind introduction. it's a very exciting time to be .t the state department assistantputy secretary at -- it was launched under secretary clinton to develop nontraditional ways of engaging on issues of conflict prevention and crisis response. there is plenty to do. the question is, how to pick which battles and how to proceed. was importantat for secretary clinton was the issue of religion and diplomacy. as 14-2015 may become known the year of religion and conflict in diplomacy because it

and center on every newspaper. people are concerned, what is religious violence? what is the source of the underlying conditions for violence? when is religion serving more as kerosene or a match lighting and accelerating or causing a viral spread of violence? what are we seeing happening in the middle east? is this something new or old? when i first came in to the state department nearly three years ago, this was starting to percolate. secretary clinton had started a strategic dialogue on religion and diplomacy. i was charged with chairing a working group on religion and conflict mitigation. when i first came in, someone gave me a bucket of books and papers and says, "you love the stuff, why don't you take it there was a cultural bias against taking on religion. it was the third rail that you

weren't supposed to touch. there we were with a basket and lots of ideas where people were understanding we had to tackle this new issue. the issue was a bias in terms of culture. because of our staff bushmen clause as you understand and the perception of separation of church and state and the reality of what that would mean, most people would not touch religious engagement. don't do it. we are not allowed. or, go to the legal office of the state department and get permission from them to engage. this was a challenge for world diplomacy when you find out that 80% of the world are religious or function out of a sense of police and rituals and practices. not even knowing that language or being able to engage at that most fundamental level is a challenge. the question was, how does one really understand the separation of church and state and the establishment clause as it

applies to our role abroad? religious engagement has become the new hot topic. that was apiece challenge with that finding out after 9/11, the concept of how to engage became instrumental. how do we engage with the muslims who hate us or like us? vocabulary of terrorism that was attached to the models of religious dialogue. the concept was more utilitarian. there are good partners in bed partners. somehow, we were in the business of judging who is moderate or extreme or who we could engage with. tos was another obstacle healthy dialogue that we have been wrestling with as well. the third was just the capacity. we found that the foreign service institute had not had lots of training of our diplomats and faith-based

engagement or religious sensitivities. of a was an optional class maximum of four hours. that dearth of training materials was a challenge because there was not religious literacy inside the u.s. government and among our diplomatic class for the most part. as well as just this idea of where you go to in the state department. there are different people working on pieces of this. secretary kerry came in and moved quickly to launch the faith-based initiatives office and established a senior advisor to help navigate the space. up until this point, there was another issue in terms of who to call. people went to the religious freedom office and that is one of the very important transit our engagement policy and what we do at the state department, but it is not the only thing. the white house and the state

department had done a complete u-turn or 180 degree shift in the last year in terms of religious engagement. they set up three major lines of effort and three working groups to accompany them. number one, how to partner with religious community's around the world and in the united states on issues related to health, development and humanitarian assistance. that is one big strand. freedomnd is, religious and human rights in close and how it is protecting minorities and religious groups. third was the working group i cochaired related to conflict mitigation. stand. where we there has been a change. there have been new case that is coming forward. at newup to look training materials that are now being finished up after a year of work. it may not be perfect, but may be among the best out there in

terms of diplomatic training on biases,rticular issues, stereotypes, establishment clause and how to navigate religion in conflict zones. one thing to keep in mind and something we should discuss is how is it that a religious language can manifest itself in conflict. how do you engage with different groups who might be in a different phase of their religious formation? feelsample, if a group under existential threat, the language they use may be more exclusivist or fear based or black and white. it could shift to a cause of violence. is it going to be violent? is hate speech going to trigger violence? we are now just learning how to look at language usage and waste that could show or indicate that violent behavior could be coming.

ways that show or indicate that violent believe your could be coming. to look at the space of violence, not necessarily the space of free speech and religion. other language on the other end of the spectrum might be normative or textbook lang which. -- language. you might be a faith-based organization like world vision and you may use faith-based language, but you function just like an ngo with secular principles here but do our values based on your belief underpins that work. and, there is everything in between. groups war, religious

may be wondering how to find their way and navigate to the reconstruction of their country and of their community after violence. that is another engagement which like recovery after war. how is it that your community based outreach can minister to your communities and way that our open and write for partnership -- are open and partnership? what is actually the intention on the ground to work on these three main issues and working groups. say that theld working group we are working on right now is looking at the possibility of a global covenant. using some religiously infused language. she prince of jordan hav

asked for a response from world religious leaders, including the pope, the archbishop of canterbury and others to take a look at how we respond to the type of violence we are seeing. it is politically and religiously infused. what is it about this language and what can we do to protect and sacredpractices sites that are flashpoints for violence? the global covenant initiative is being looked at by the working group because it's not generated or started by the united states. we would like to track it and understand how to work and lead from alongside our colleagues around the world in the middle east and elsewhere are looking at this new challenge of religiously motivated violence. i will close with the three pieces of this. one is the interreligious leadership.

where is it that religious elders can gather together? pulling people together from around the world to renounce this collective violence in the name of god or mass killing in the name of religion. that is something nonstate actors and leaders have to address outside of the nationstate parameters of the u.n. one movement is at the highest level of religious groups hocking each other in developing some declaration. the second level is the u.n. level. nation states have laws and policies against genocide, violence and other norms. something different seems to be entering. violence against religion themselves. groups and their practices and their believes and their gatherings. the u.n. would like to look at the isil question and boko

haram. what can be preventative to stop that and inhabit that or containment? -- or contain it? these are new international issues that are coming up that are not just nation to nation, but also dealing with nonstate actors were committing atrocities. , ngos around the world have been on the frontline doing this work for some time and they have many best practices. countering violent extremism and promoting resilience. people know a lot about that and violence tape leaks -- take place at a communal level. what are the best practices and how do people build neighborhood to neighborhood the type of resilient fabric that prevents and protects against future violence? whether reconstructing after war or just prevent future conflict between religious and other communities.

that is a lot, but in the last beene of years, there has quite a significant shift in how the united states thinks and looks at this issue based on lessons we have learned from the past. thank you for your attention and interest in the topic. [applause] >> thank you. i would like to thank the middle east institute and the carnegie endowment for national peace for organizing and hosting this panel and also for alan and jerry and ambassador pickering for being here with me today. jerry gave much of the overview of a lot of the changes that department. -- at the department.

highlight the role the white house strategy on religious leader engagement played in 2013. they issued this strategy which is meant to promote governmentwide, greater engagement with religious leaders. it is not just the state department. it is meant to affect the department of defense and other actors who are engaging in foreign policy or diplomatic work. in order to encourage them to also engage with these communities were playing -- who are playing a significant role in the world. if we ignore them, we nor them to our peril. -- we ignore them to our peril. i want to talk about about the work we have done out at the office of the special organization of islamic cooperation.

a bit of an example of the ways work inengaged and collaboration with religious actors in order to promote some of the goals, including some that jerry talked about. some of you may not be familiar, but the office of oic was established at the end of the george w. bush administration. president obama appointed a special envoy to the position. when he did so, he gave them the mandate of deepening and expanding the partnerships that the president announced during his cairo speech. as you probably remember, the speech went through a whole litany of issues. the hot topic issues that have been problematic in terms of u.s. relations with the muslim world in general. things from the wars in iraq and afghanistan to counterterrorism policies to human rights issues to democracy promotion. has worked on a lot

of different areas. one of the areas we have been working on in particular is to engage with religious communities and leaders in our work in order to include them. because of the significant roles they play in general and in muslim societies. one example i want to give that touches a bit on what jerry was talking about in terms of the and howthe u.n. religious communities sometimes to find themselves as a group -- isine themselves as a group the issue of defamation of religions. something that may be familiar, but beginning in 1998, the oic had advocated a resolution on the so-called defamation of religions. it was a resolution that was calling out a lot of the hate speech or discrimination or bia that a lot of

people were identifying in the post-9/11 years. this resolution started before that. back in 1998. the idea behind it in part was to address discrimination against people on the basis of religion. however, the problem that the united states had was that it went a step further and talk about banning speech and restricting criticisms that you can make about religion. that was problematic for a number of reasons. particularly because freedom of believe, is an important human right. restrictions on expression infringed on an individual's ability to exercise their religion freely. we have been working on essentially defeating this resolution at the u.n. when the obama administration came in, we took an approach

that was also working to defeat the resolution and to work with the oic on potentially transforming the resolution into a positive. because we share some of the underlying concerns about discrimination, but we did not agree with the means. 2011, we work on an alternative resolution which passed by consensus in the one -- by consensus in the u.n. it focuses on positive actions governments can take to address religious tolerance. things like antidiscrimination laws, educational awareness programs, engaging with religious communities. all of these proactive measures that we practice near united states are listed in this resolution and we have been working ever since 2011 on promoting implementation of that resolution.

beenf the key ways we have working on this is with religious community's and religious actors. as you are aware, this -- some governments were using that as a way of justifying or providing cover for domestic blasphemy laws. those are often abused in ways in which they target minority religious groups. justifying communal violence against religious minorities. and of the efforts between the 1618-- behind the agreement was to get governments to move away from that. it was important domestically and internationally in our engagement in order to explain to them that we understand your concerns about hate speech erected towards your religion, towardsirected religion, but the wait list price to address this goal does not actually work. increases the

tension people get to that speech. and is often used to repress religious minorities. on explaining this position with governments and the oic directly, but also with religious community's and their support was important in order for us to convince various communities and countries. their support has been important in the implementation process. we have initiated a training program since then to work with thesest governments on specific activities we outlined in the resolution. we have had a series of meetings which are focusing on best practices for augmenting those goals. the last meeting of which was held in doha. with the ministry of foreign affairs. the focus of that meeting was on

collaboration to protect religious freedom. you have their human rights advocates, members of religious communities, religious leaders and government officials altogether working on the same shared issue. it was interesting to observe because that group of individuals don't often get together. thiss a nice way of using initiative to convene a lot of the actors who share the same goals and try to direct them in a way that they can work together on shared policy initiatives. another way we have used religious engagement is to open new channels of communication or office. we are often visiting oic member countries. --y of them have been going undergoing democratic transitions. in bodhran, there has been a lot of sectarian tension around the ain.sitions -- bahr

on one of the visits, we used our office in order to try to expand the lines of communication that the united states has with actors in bahr ain. our government has met with the opposition leadership. up to a certain point last year, we had never met with the spiritual leader of that group. we took the opportunity for one of the visits to meet with that religious leader to explain to him, directly, the west policy in the country -- the u.s. policy in the country and to express our concerns. activity, you can open a new relationship to explain to them our positions .nd to express concerns we have concerns also shared by the government of bahrain.

, i wanted to mention one other nation that we have been working with religious actors on. initiative that a number of religious followers, in collaboration with the islamic society of north america, have developed or work on. which is issuing a declaration on the rights and protection of full citizenship rights for minorities in the muslim world. anyone who has been observing there has beenat a difficult and ongoing problem of violence against religious minorities, particularly in the middle east. that was something we have talked about a lot in our efforts and engagements. the initiative was a way of

religious leaders in the community to try to address that. there have been meetings by and ministers of religious affairs from various countries in the middle east and north africa who have attended these meetings where there have been discussions on framework for a declaration. based largely on a research paper on protecting religious minorities authored by one of the most influential scholars in the middle east. been encouraging these actors to continue this project and are hopeful that it may be concluding by the end of this year. wheres another example of we are not directing any actors to do anything. we are not funding anyone to do anything, but we are engaging on shared goals and engaging in a way that respects these leaders and the authority they carry. encouraging them in ways that

also line up with our goals. with those examples, i will turn it back to alan. [applause] >> thank you very much for gathering us, and it is a pleasure and honor to have the opportunity to say a few words. after the speakers we have already heard, thanks to the institute and carnegie as well for helping us put it all together. a sense is that this is both new and an old adventure. that jerry's approach of within three areas two or makes a deal of sense. certainly well would be called

the broad spectrum of humanitarian work around the globe has always had an appeal, a sense of conjuring to the common good him and the feeling of what i would call satisfaction that it transcended theological differences, and put into place the values that are widely shared among religions. that in themselves contribute to a more harmonious and better globe. i think the notion of dialogue between religious leaders and between religious leaders and thought leaders across the spectrum is extremely important. and another way of emphasizing those portions of religious activity which i think it epitomizes that plan of action can be epitomized in the second effort through plans of ofrdination and indeed plans mutual information and in dealing with problem areas that

inevitably have come up in the difference between belief systems. and i think the third area is very important and perhaps i would like to spend a little bit of time on the conflict resolution. i say this against a backdrop of something i had not realized until i thought a little bit about it as i was doing an oral history after i retired. position ofique being an ambassador first to a , with anuntry, jordan important christian minority. i then went on to nigeria where effectct two -- where in two great religions, christianity and islam, had advanced down the road of convergence and proselytization, done so with reasonable harmony week at the time i was there. but left a lot in many ways in the hands of traditional african religion, and need themselves

were heavily -- and in deed themselves were heavily influenced by african religious reich says. while homosexuality is an emmy for among nigerian christians, christians is widely winked -- polygamy is widely winked at. in many ways the edges of christian vanity and islam are -- christianity and islam are linked by the development of syncretic sects. it was an interesting and indeed somewhat eye-opening experience. i then went on to a largely catholical roman country, el salvador, one in many ways in the throes of liberation wars and theological conflict among the majority was also undergoing a change in the influence of evangelical

protestant is in within the community. within thentism committee, and played an enormously valuable role in some ways in bringing up things together and a divisive role and others in failing to recognize the transcendental values of the principal system that made things work. i went from there to the world's only jewish country, israel, and from there to the united nations, urges everything for everybody. i was delighted to see from from menew information on work being done in the context of the united nations, which has to skirt the difficult questions that we americans have the skirt -- how do we differentiate between faith-based belief systems, which are distant consider to be individual largely, and the

absolute need to develop communication and indeed understanding and cooperation on a world scale? what you are undertaking is challenging in anyways. clearly, it is not the role of diplomats or in my view though world role of world leaders to help redefine theological concepts. it is the role however for all of us to try to bring together those who think and work in the realm of theology around the areas where they can find agreement and help them in their definition of areas of disagreement, hopefully first to do no damage and secondly seek commonality where they might exist. i went from there to the world cost largest hindu country, you may see the ugly one, but nepal also fits that one model.

that was fascinating. i was there only a short time, but it was extremely interesting the degree to which, despite the predominance of hinduism, islam and others, many other religious experiences, including the birthplace of buddhism played a role in indian thinking and indian ideas. has had a strong history of, and working together and terrible devastation as a result of religious differences, t from thoseerences differences that have transcended world harmony in the western world for thousands of years and which diplomats have to deal with. finally, i went to russia, then and still the largest eastern orthodox christian country, but

one just until a few eye blinks before i arrived was totally committed atheist. and in many ways these experiences as a diplomat meant that inevitably i had to deal with the patriarch, with the archbishop, with the mullahs. without doing that i cannot understand what was happening or more or less unable to help to make a contribution to dispute settlement. we american diplomats in some ways are saddled by invisible handcuffs that over the years have served us well, but always need to be re-examined. one of those, which is the handcuff that we all share, is that we cannot operate outside aw, thestitution, the l regulations, and the policy, and we must serve those interests. we have the privilege of seeking

to change the latter and indeed the task of doing so when it is inadequate, and we have the through change the law our elected representatives, and indeed, only the constitution, with its own processes. the second invisible handcuffs is we do not do domestic politics. in my view that is extremely important, but i found a higher up i got in the state department, the more i had to take it into account. there was no way to convince the president to adopt a foreign-policy initiative i was interested in if in fact it was completely antithetical to his domestic political success. that is a reality, but it is a ancifully hard one to deal with. the third is religion, and here we tend to take a constitutional barrier to establishing state

religion as a broader barrier against even involving religion, thinking about religion, were talking about it. thein many ways it was basis for harmony in this country that we did not use in whatever ways we could have avoided, religious differences as a source of political and personal gain. in many ways that holds true, but it is also true we have to face up to the reality that we live in a world of a large number of faith-based systems which help people operate. as a diplomat in dispute settlement, i found it was increasingly important first and foremost to understand those particular faith-based systems as much as i could. secondly, to communicate with the leadership in those systems

as to how they solve the kinds of issues that i wished to deal with as a diplomat. thirdly, to see how the conjunction of views could be used as a basis for harmonizing and moving processes ahead rather than agitating and dividing. there is no question, of course, that each of the major religions has what i would call its fundamentalist wing. i saw an old friend, the prime minister of israel, assassinated eglioner on what were religious grounds. we have seen among christians the use of violence in this country to destroy people associated with our government because of apparent religious beliefs, and we have seen as

well in islam a late manifestation, what we call isil, or what my friends in the --and to some extent this presents us with special problems which we do need to understand, but it was never absent from our military engagement in iraq and afghanistan over the last 10 years. the problemy ways, we must continue to work on and solve with our friends in israel and the arab world, particularly palestinians. it is extremely important, that gaza truce has broken down again. we need to work on it. the last effort with the help of the egyptians made some progress in the areas of what i would call fundamental change on both

sides. we need to find a way to link that particular set of processes to the longer run requirement that we continue to push and do everything we can for the two-state solution. john kerry, even in the aftermath of what is an apparent failure to see, that he is prepared to take it on, and i do not think he has given up the notion that this is still a major challenge for us and we have to work at it. to being able in many ways solve the problems, which are now a mixture obviously of fear, a fear of annihilation on the part of many, a sense of concern about ethnic and ethnic religious identity and how that will be respected, and over that most fundamental of human goods beyond, put it this way, some

asian land, and how in what way people can live together in princes and at the same time -- in differences in at the same time enjoy the promise that religious harmony will bring us to us as we go ahead. syria and iraq are the centerpiece of these issues, and unfortunately, in my view, can usenformed, if i that expression, by heavy emphasis on religious differences, which over eight time -- a period of time given goodwill and wise leadership could become the basis of change and indeed rather than the basis for further radicalization and destruction of human life. and we need to accept the challenge that we as a major beenr in the world have contributing whatever way we can do the answers to those

problems. i agree with the president that boots on the ground has not turned out to be a very good answer to inferences, whether they are religiously inspired, motivated, or informed, and we need to be careful about that. but i think there are ways ahead. among have a world ur friends who speak arabic of turmoil and difficulty, of change that has come about through the satisfaction. i think mainly with sigler approaches, but in some cases -- with secular purchase, but in some cases with religious approaches, and we need to understand that and decide how to do with it. as a diplomat, we never have perfect options. we are always saddled with dealing with people whose frailties we understand, maybe even disdain and would like to change and have very little

possibility of doing that, but who we have to inspire obviously to greater accomplishments, if i can put it that way, through personal motivation, through long-run in first in their own value system, and it the to the opportunity to make a contribution to their federal -- which should be the highest good, but often the worst danger. so there are plenty of things out there for us to do. failure to understand how important religion is in these conflicts is a first point of error. the other -- of success is to populate the relationships that can take common understanding forward to make those changes, and i think that the notion that senator kerry had, that it is and in an organizational institutional sense to put the state department in that path is

very valuable. we need to avoid the traps and infalls of going too far theology and perhaps too little into peace. keep those two points in mind, i know we will have success, and i am very pleased that jerry and arsalan are making their contributions to that effort. i compliment them on taking on for task and thank them doing so. and i thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much, ambassador pickering, and in some ways i would like to take off from what you just said to pose some questions about both to you and to arsalan and to jerry. i mentioned in my remarks to the middle east is in flames, and in many case of beirut issues are religious issues. sometimes atacy is

a high level, which you talked about, but quite frequently it is how did you get people to stop killing each other over religious issues, whether it is baharairain ora or so on and so forth. what is the contribution that your work can make to resolving the very issues that ambassador pickering talked about, and maybe you two could talk first, and maybe ambassador pickering could give his own vibes. rry? >> thank you. to speak about strategies, we need to come up with some case studies. starting at the bottom-up

approach in terms of intercommunal work, i think -- is needed not just for diplomats, but also on the ground, because it is easy to demonize the others. i've been working on examining the role of scriptural reasoning in this work of increasing tolerance and respect for difference. it is one way that has been largely tried among or between abrahamic faith staff groups study their scriptures together, torah, new testament, roa and have groups looking at related passages. what happens in the course of the group study is a dialogue and a relationship noting that in fact can be seen to reduce prospects for example. let's say i go into a textual study and i believe as a christian that you are bound for feel i'm i meight

under threat. some people have taken their passions to violent ends. you can start to learn with textual reasoning and deeper understanding of text that you may still think they're going to hell, but there might be some interpretation or some wiggle room out what is the exclusion or the need for action. and in that course of opening up anyone's mind to the possibility that there might be another interpretation of texts, not just a liberal one of this particular text, the have seen that groups have become more tolerant and started building relationships, and that can take place in the eyes of four hours, four days, four months, four years, but in fact people are looking and scanning the globe for techniques that yet at religious literacy as well as relationship building at the community level. scriptural reading just happens to be one that is used out there. at the community service level,

that is another area people have to look at. i think ambassador pickering was right, the communitarian or the theective action around -- humanitarian or collective action, another way to get interfaith groups working together and serving the community. it builds resilience, so there is a new initiative to save the jordan river where it is understood that all the faiths value creation, but the particular iconic river jordan is at risk of dying. it is basically running out of water, filled mostly with sewage, surrounded by minefields, and is a victim of conflict. religious groups will take, calls and say, how do we save the river, how do we work on andes of environment that is another way of building fabric on issues of common concern. then i think we have seen with, as arsalan s when atrocities

have broken out acrossaid, then, we have dispatched mets and tried to pull together religious leaders to go on the site and try to work with local religious leaders. we are seeing that in nigeria, in a lot of cases, but it has done at almost an ad hoc level. we do not have the capacity to create a mediation team that is literate in religion and engagement so it can be more effective. the u.n. and could look at what would a rapid response team look like an insect is in this category of religious engagement, how does one do that here in reaction to crisis, but from an ongoing capacity, whether at the u.n., the u.s. government, or among faith-based organizations? this would require leaders working more closely together to language ofther's conflict resolution as well as scriptural reasoning. those are three examples. >> before we go on, i would like

to understand, the department of state already has sort of an emergency reaction or religious mediation team? >> no, i would like to build the capacity. the special envoy has been dispatched with others to do this work and to good effect. what is interesting when we see this working, people speaking their own language and being able to engage with bleachers leaders and effectively, we should be working to do this. >> i might add, to build on that, i think obviously every situation is different and we have to understand the context of a particular conflict. in many cases, religion is not actually the source of the contract. it just happens to sometimes overlap with the political lines of other economic or whatever factors are driving the conflict. so to say that a certain

situation is religious violence really sometimes mischaracterizes the situation and glosses over a lot of the underlying factors. that is important to recognize because when you intervene or when you engage with actors on whether they are parties that are affected by the conflict, the role they can play is important. they was talking about scratching delegations. one of temple of that recently was in the central african republic and where the state department assessment said it was not a religious conflict per se, a conflict that is being driven by various political factors and other factors, but there is a lot of overlap in terms of religious lines. rashad had in april, visited the central african

republic, and he brought religious leaders from the united states, representing the catholic community, the muslim community, and the protestant community. on the groundhere with religious leaders who had already been working to get her to promote peace and to and violence between the communities-- end the violence. the archbishop and the leader of wereuslim community there working together and there were various articles about the work they had done trying to promote peace and try to prevent their communities from being sucked into the violence that was going on there. the idea of sending this delegation was to highlight the efforts that these religious leaders were doing already on the ground to provide them with some solidarity and support from co-religionists who are interested in helping in that

situation. and since that the litigation -- delegation visited, some of the members have gone back, and some of the groups they are affiliate with have increased their systems in -- their assistance in certain ways. there was one group that was oft of the delegation leaders that had visited a couple of times, and they are working along with other partners, including the king abdullah international center or interfaith and religious promotingthe oic, on mediation in the central african republic, which was divided by some people who were in favor of working with the christian communities toward peace and some groups who were writing off those efforts. as result of that delegation, there are mediation efforts of intra-religious

level. that is an example where he can bring parties together, and those parties might have different resources where they bear and can help efforts on the ground. one thing i want to mention is a lock of the situations that we are facing right now where there is conflict with the elements of is often avolved, it case where you have kind of a minority interpretation or a minority group that is claiming to speak on behalf of the larger religion, and the majority of those religionists or people who follow that religion feel it has abused orterpreted or taken advantage of. not just for islam, but you see that in certain cases in burma and sri lanka where you have buddhist communities, certain

groups that are promoting violence in certain ways and arer co-religionists who not supportive of that. in those types of situations, i think there's another set of tools or factors that can't be employed -- that can be employed to highlight the voices of the mainstream members of those communities or leaders who represent most of the members of the religious community whose religion may be abused in certain ways. an example of that recently is in nigeria, where you have book organized around a particular ideology. they are kind of a mafia group run by this guy who is claiming to act on averages basis, but is not -- to act on a religious basis. and there are religious leaders in nigeria who were speaking haram, and their

voices were silenced. one of the things that we at the state department, after the kidnapping of the schoolgirls we had a school covers where the embassy had senior religious leaders have a ink with religious leaders the u.s., to ask them, what kind of assistance can you get? we know you have been speaking out on this group. what can you do? the state department convened these in journals, and they are now trying to organize an international conference room you can have assisting some of -- backing cap and groups. another example of how in this situation of violence -- the authority to bring together people who share the same goals are can help the situation on the ground. >> we have heard a lot of wisdom

from the two speakers, and i have little to add. let me say a couple of things. areis that most conflicts immediately distinguished by the we-they syndrome. syndrome then seeks to develop all of the rationale, all of the logic, all of the ill ogic as to why the conflict should be perpetuated and why my side should win. it is in that cycle that historically religion has played a large role or enroll as an additional identifier or as a role for rationalizing a point of view in one way or another. it is also clear that the

conflict are often over other questions. that is, that the primary intention of religion x is not to convert everybody in religion y. some othersolve problem, a conflict over over doing business, over running a country. many of these are power centered in their own way. religion in an interesting way can play a remedial role as well as an aggravating role, particularly the more the leadership invests itself in the clothing of religion, the more it should be susceptible in terms of religious interpretation gap resolve the problem. one could start with that perception. next, there are two or three

levels where this can work, and you have examples from us of all of them. but one of those is interreligious dialogue using religious leaders and their influence as a major way to thect the movement of problem toward resolution, whatever that might be. it has been an interesting in the history of non-american iranian relations that to some extent the religious differences have been high. on the other hand, particularly on the iranian side, the respect for religious leaders from the other side has been well above their tolerance for the political leaders on the other side, in part because of a feeling because people of have enough in common to bridge the differences and they share some common sense of values, some common sense of

devotion to a deity that they can't see as having -- that they can see as having a common role and interest in their religious lives, and that is important. the second is obviously how those in the political sphere, spherelomatic's fa can use their understanding to bridge the differences,. that itself is extremely significant and very important. and the third is, because the public always plays a huge role, much of what is done in agitating and making worse foreign affairs problems is done in the name of domestic politics, unfortunately. we may say democracy is

splendid, and i agree it is, that democracy, put it this way, by people-- informed committed to the wrong values is as hard a problem with autocracy where the leadership wants to say to you my people will not go for this, i cannot sell it. in both cases, we have a common issue. beliefs,t the public put it this way, myths, lies, falsehoods about the other side, inn you have a huge problem trying to work with that, and if igiousas a rel quotient, as it often does, which may stem from a religious tradition, then you can use that as waste find your way through that as a way-- to find her way to the streets.

in an effort to give some structure context to these things that i said what i said. >> questions from the audience. who would like to be first? back here. >> thank you. service.foreign i would like to follow up on uleman,her marks of mr. s who was speaking about boko haram, but also the islamic state. i'm wondering if you think it would be appropriate, helpful, and possible if authoritative islamic leaders who could speak on a global stage would issue some kind of statement or doctrine saying people who use the tactics of the islamic state or boko haram or completely off the reservation do not represent

the islamic faith and should be erratic, andclared if in fact it should be appropriate and help for possible, is there a role for the u.s. in that? i think you were fingered, but maybe others would like to take it. >> absolutely. there have been some statements. the oic had a very strong statement kind of rejecting what isis has claimed to have established, and the group in and of itself, there have been a number of international islamic scholars who have also issued statements directly condemning the group and rejecting their , establishment of the state. there is a union of scholars that has a number of senior scholars that are members of issued anization which

statement, and other personalities have issued such statements. there is or has been those kinds of statements out there, not but also groups against al qaeda, boko haram, and others. we do not just necessarily i asked get reporting on -- i guess get reporting on that, or the media has not highlighted that as much, but the statements are certainly there, in that position has been expressed by some of the senior leaders. >> you have anything to comment, jerry, tom? arsalan said about the lack of knowledge in this country speaks in many ways. we do not hear much of the good news, particularly from the islamic side, as to how mainstream leaders in islam treat the particular problems.

and it has been a problem before 9/11, but it was certainly seriously aggravated. my greatest fear of 9/11 was not another attack. it was that we would launch a war against islam. that,ent bush sheered but was never capable of taking it fully into account. i've been concerned about that, and to some extent, it is true that christian denominations in the united states are aware practically of what is being said, and for the first time arsalan has put it out in its various manifestations in a way it is easy to understand. you wonder why we have the ideas we have, and i think partly it is ignorance about what else is going on in other parts of the world. we are marvelously served by highly competitive press whose principal interest is bad news. question begst

another one, which others might have commentary on, the role of media in this. beia, like religion, and remedial or aggravating, to use ambassador pickering's words. what is the parallelism of this communication on religion and religious leaders and group or media, social or traditional media. it is when we are seeing that spirals bread of ignorance -- the viral spread of ignorance or lies, what does one do about that when you're balancing the free speech allowing the internet to be the internet? these are very serious rest about this, because people are starting to fight their battles with violent language online, and people tend to use various types of media. recentmple, there is a study i was being briefed on related to extremists and exclusion this weekend be violent prefer youtube and the

graphic nature and fear factor that can be generated by showing very awful pictures, as you have beheadings -- of beheadings. thehe other end of spectrum, there are the nice people who want us to live together in love and peace just eetto use twitter to retw positive stories. conference during a -- in between, there is the crowd that you might call more tribal or afternoon -- entho or nationalist who use facebook. one has to look at how the continuum of religious-based actors, and politically motivated actors, power actors, are using media and how is it that we have a strategy on that

front the counter viral spread of violence online. lastly, it raises this question, too, of what the positive nature of religion, how is it that the silent majority, those who are lovers not fighters want to us to live peaceably and respect the dignity of differences of others, how is it their voice not asamplified, clashing images of moderates. i do not think you would like to be called a moderate friend if you feel you are devoted friend or a devout person. so this language of this inviting people to take a stand for something, faith, resilience: the peace, and protection of communities and practice and standing against something, which is things that are beyond the pale. see popeeresting to francis taking a stand and saying isil's behavior so far

beyond the pale that it justifies the interaction. that is a strong and unexpected statement coming out this week. >> there we go. >> thank you. hassan.is i was born in tehran. arsalanto see you, tom, , and jerry. ande is a lot of talk, right now in a place called manassas, there is a mosque that was vandalized a couple of days ago. and i do not know what information has been already printed. everybody knows about it or not? openmosque is particularly

to all faiths, christians, jews, muslims, and they have dialogue all the time, and they were vandalized a few days ago. awaree that the public is of what is going on. and jerry said 85% of the people of the world are religious. if i am worshiping in iraq, would i be a religious person, an idol, would i be a religious person, or an unseen entity, am i a religious person? there is also a saying that talk is cheap, put your money where your mouth is. i do not know the budget that you have, both of you, to combat and sobig, big mission,

fed, theil is not evil will die under its own weight. your task is to find out who is feeding these people, the boko arems, or other people who cutting people's heads and plane for all with it in the name of religion -- and playing with it for the name of religion. >> who is religious? there was a poll being done around the world, mostly people who would self-described as religious. whether they are worshiping this or that is their business. i would add a put on that front, the people of no faith, secular's or atheists, are also for tech did -- also protected. it is important we keep the

conversation that is being exploited in religious circles to say the secular west. is ones, united states of the more religious countries in the world, but if we just worship hollywood or i'll call. this idea of who is religious is an interesting question, but it is true the majority of the world expresses itself and finds meaning in religious and religious practice and belief. i think that other question about money and resources is alsotant and how we are building up this capacity inside the state department to deploy and trainarily the glass -- train the comments. -- diplomates. diplomats. it is a challenge for all of us

contain off an stem and conflict and counter some of those resources. so weot of questions, will pick two at a time at this point. here and here. >> before i asked my question, i would like to make an aside considering how the media sometimes creates misunderstanding in religion and hatred to a concerns isis. i've seen it reported that isis offers christians the choice of conversion or death. i have also seen -- >> flight. i have seent, but they are being offered and version, death, or paying a tax. a big difference, a tax that goes back to the very first day of islam.

my question is we have been engaged in a war on terror for a long time now. do the so-called terrorists oppose us because of our religion? >> ok. >> retired foreign service. i wanted to back up on the diplomacy and religious conundrum. , as several of the panelists have noted, that conflicts frequently our struggles for powertel, influence, resources, covered in theological garb or religion. how does american diplomacy in general take into account that ed todrum as a se positively engage without eating seen as making choices among those contending parties? tot would require it seems me a great deal of knowledge that we do not always possess

about what is seen as the ofuational on the ground lay the players. the second is a term of any ourselves, the challenge of at times, dating of validating -- the narrative of. we follow the site or the services that monitor extremist websites. you will see words or actions on our part that are then used, exploited to validate the narrative that they are seeking to advance. it can be from the standard crusaders, zionist collaboration, or in iraq, it is the west seeking to protect minorities, be they christians, or others, that then are

exploited by isis or whomever -- >> the question? >> how do you deal with them in reality as you come up with specific diplomatic or policy initiatives to take that into account and to mitigate? >> three questions. terrorism, power politics, and amplification of violent meters. -- violent leaders. who would like to take that? >> we have seen a litany of things to which terrorists object, and not all of them are religious. some of those are colonial. invasive, thatre is, sacred space is being taken over or removed from their purview. the mother that is internal, that the monarchies do not do a good job governing us. so i think it gets mixed, the

coloration of religion is really part of it, and in some cases, it may either primary appeal in the field to the recruitment of new people to serve the cause. but each one of these i think is quite a different and each deserves a separate examination. that gets your second question, that we can put it off if we do not understand how and in what speaking can be either misinterpreted or misaligned to serve the cause. we had it all through the cold war with the soviets. so it is not anything that is entirely new to american diplomats. it requires perhaps a new basis for understanding and it requires a lot of reading, whether it is reading in the new media or the old media or a combination of both to do that. i think that is important and it requires obviously a lot of language knowledge of all of which certainly we have tried to promote among american formats as a way to get the answer.

i think the other question of are they getting enough money to do this, the answer is always no. how much more should they get? it depends on their success, but i hope that the budget for the budget for thee bureau of stabilization includes the continued effort along these lines, because i think it makes a lot of sense and has a long a to go. >> let's take these three right here. heartland's international. all you talked about is very impressive, but you have not and alld women at all, the colleagues he talked about were men. i wonder if you're taking any initiative to bring in women, because they are more victims than men? >> could you pass it ahead? somalia.am from

>> could you hold it a little closer? >> i am from somalia. like all the information that is presented by the panel, and it is very important, but my question, it very important that dialogue between religious leaders -- i wonder what will be the use? in the countries, you see the young people who do not have any islam who had been told something not true? how can we afford them that they do not have people based on their difference? thank you. >> one more. >> this person. years as a for liaison between the catholic cardinals and the national

islamic front in pseudonymous -- work with a small army serving there. my question deals with some of what the ambassador talked about and also the deputy assistant secretary white. sudantly, the envoy to has not been allowed into sudan because he refuses to meet with the president there. i am wondering if somebody like ambassador >> is a correct call you ambassador white? >> jerry is fine. jerry, would it be more viable to have you go in, because you're dealing with a non-state actor, and maybe your expertise would be something that would help break things open again?

ambassador pickering, you have talked about there have been so influencesand other that are domestic, because what i have seen with the keys talks, the south sudan problem and looking at the north-south things, did it in terms of religion can and they moved lock stock and barrel to door for -- to darfur. i know how instrumental you have been in that and how influential you still are. and i would love to hear how we could help what is going on in sudan now and maybe have somebody like jerry's croup go in, because i do not think, unless the presidential envoy agrees to meet with the present, that anything will happen. t's take another.

>> fulbright scholar. i had two questions. the first one was also for jerry, because you described this fusion that happened in the state department in the practice of u.s. diplomacy. you see the same thing is happening on the other side of the landing best of the atlantic, like europe, or some countries [indiscernible] i was wondering if you had any transatlantic commonality on that, especially also with the european elections, that if you had any contact? this leads me to my second question, again, drawing from european philosophy to engage with islamists come especially political parties, is that evident? it was denounced that western iters are -- tunisia because

is a clinical force. i could also cite the case of egypt. -- is your view of the coping with those realpolitik interests? >> we have a question about the youth in somalia, sudan, coordination with europe, and tunisia. faulty,part of this jerry, so we will go down the line. i wish you would take this as your final wrapup cause we're about five minutes toward the end,. jerry, arsalan. >> cause we have so many people entranced in the audience, it is clear that the questions are grounded in that experience and you know somebody answered by the questions i would imagine.

we need to do more, better, faster, and it is an urgent time for the seizure. thematic thingll which our bureau has tried to exploit is what does nontraditional or asymmetric diplomacy look like for such a time like this? getting beyond some of the traditional diplomacy. there's a joke that would the state department uses 19th-century tools and 20th century approaches, and we've got to be facing 21st-century problems. that is a criticism we take on board where we try to upgrade all of our tools and our purchase -- and our purchase. theave people looking to phraseology of how to describe doing diplomacy with civil society and other thematic envoys that are not always ambassadors of these niceties or notpe find them selves

getting to know the people. the people to people exchanges are withering. this is a real challenging for our diplomacy in non-permissive environments, whether s yria or libya. in the case of the south sudan envoy, i agree with the intention that sometimes the top level negotiating envoy is this is harry, but not sufficient, and there are political limitations on timing. and the times you need to send retired ambassadors as well as religious actors or nongovernmental entities to help work. of rome has been doing a lot of piecework around the world, and there are good examples of them doing nontraditional work outside the public space. the role of women, it is a challenge in our bureau.

you cannot be dealing with conflict around the world unless you have a gender strategy of increasing -- inclusion working .ith women it tends to be a lot of men, patriarchal system, running and getting engaged top down. there must be another stream that uses more empowerment and capacity building for that level of leadership of women fake actors who are going to play an important role on the world stage. and youth, the same thing, you cannot deal with these things unless you are looking faqs question, incentivizing them. what is the sex appeal of joining and being trained in violence, but also being rewarded for that? rewarded,gang, being to helping new skills, having courage and excitement, a longing, and then show videos of why this is a heavenly reward, when the religious messaging omes on board.

americans often wonder how they are being perceived. it is not really about religion, although that is what is taking place, but it is the politics and policies. these outstanding issues of what we are standing for consistently in the world. what about the two-state solution that continues to fester as a cancer in the region, among many other things. this is a very challenging space to be working in as we move forward with a consistent foreign policy. the dynamic is not always as traditional as it looked last century. we are doing our best on the innovative front, and we need more ideas and partnership with civil society and your thought leadership as well. thank you so much for this time today. >> >> thank you. i think you have started to take

.his into account as well if you want, i can talk to you afterwards and maybe share some context there. question of values, i mean, that is absolutely critical, and jerry was just getting to this, about the recruitment, which goes back to the earlier question about validation and not validating minority -- the narrative from one side. a lot of the countering violent extremism programs at the state focuses onimplements the younger population and on the countering the other narratives and avoiding validating the narratives. part of not validating the narrative is, you know, not to use certain terminology. like, if someone calls themselves a jihadist, they mean to invoke their religion in saying this is a holy war, so we should not call them a jihadist. we should just call them a

terrorist or violent extremists. that is one thing our office has tried to do. --not call the jihadists they are not. they are terrorists. also, challenging the narrative. a lot of the situations where these ideologies can really gain hold, you have a lot of problems, kind of a breakdown of state institutions, including educational, economic, political, and so on. a lot of those underlying that allowsssues violent extremism in those ideologies to take hold has to also be addressed, and education is also one of those issues, including religious education. not just secular education, but also religious education. that's one thing we hear when we engage with religious scholars as well. they take these issues very to heart, and they feel it is their responsibility to correct a lot

of the miseducation that is out there. that is certainly one thing that poses a challenge for the state department because we cannot teach religion. we cannot run programs with someone is teaching a certain thing. it becomes a little bit more tricky in terms of the constitutional invisible handcuff, but that is absolutely an important role that civil society has to play. religious leaders themselves are playing it and have to play. >> we just have a minute or two. overtime.we are in i think as a matter of general rules, most rules and diplomacy have a few exceptions. this one has a few, but i think the notion that came out of the woman who spoke so much about sudan, that you demand a price for talking to is one that is close to bankruptcy. very rarely will people pay up aboutfor the idea to talk

his solution to their problem with things that solve the problem in your direction, if i could put it that way. however, put it this way -- an individual might be in their actions, if they are on the other side and control an outcome, then you have to find a way to talk to them, and you may be right in your suggestion or indirect that using channels, unofficial people, can always play a useful role. the second piece is also very much along that line. years ago, when i was at the united nations, i urged the secretary-general to keep a list of individuals, former prime minister said he or maybe .omeday she can call upon as unofficial or official representatives. that list now needs to have

leading religious figures added to it. i go back to secretary kerry and just say, "we are thinking about those people like certain muslim religious leaders in this country, the wonderful imam from catholic university -- that is certainly not meant to be an oxymoron -- but others who could serve as individuals, who could relate messages, create understanding, build bridges, be part of what we would call the unofficial, but now much more employment -- put it this way -- universe of diplomacy that we could use in that particular fashion. i think it makes a lot of sense. b tyree's are fine, but maybe active individuals in their own area who know the problem very well from a religious angle want the officialt of

quotient in moving the question ahead. >> thank you. thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> a reminder, you can see all of this discussion at www.c-span.org. more live coverage coming up on c-span. and about 30 minutes, we will examine u.s. national security threats in the middle east including al qaeda and the islamic militant group isis. also a look at the current state of iran's military program from the hudson institute coming up at noon eastern. later this afternoon, an assessment of president obama's strategy in iraq with the former national security adviser for george w. bush as well as other foreign and national security policy experts. that's at the heritage foundation and gets under way at 2:00 eastern here on c-span. tonight, a look at the relationship between the press and the government with the discussion on the nsa snowden leaks whistleblower protections, and the obama administration's restrictions on press access. times'" executive editor also talks about how the

paper decides whether or not to publish a story. >> used to be, the government say if you publish a story that violates national security and summary will be killed, that's not good enough for me. i want to hear who. i want to hear the specifics. you don't have to tell me how they are going to get killed. i just mean i really want to know. the second thing is i always demand a request to hold something back comes from the highest -- somebody very high in the government. person asks for it, i will not even take the call. it has to come from someone in the white house -- the head of the cia, the head of the nsa. they cannot come from the press person. usually, when you say that, by the way, half of all requests go

away because they are not quite willing to ratcheted up that high. i always insist they ratcheted up that high off of very, very specific proof. i would say, still, most of the time we go with the story, but are there stories we have held over the years? stories that met that standard? yes. >> you can see all of that discussion hosted by the national association of black journalists tonight at 8:00 eastern. also tonight, highlights from this year's book festival. , american history tv, the theme tonight -- world war ii. to askbook, we continue you about the shooting earlier this week in ferguson, missouri. the justice department investigating missouri teen michael brown and the shooting of earlier this week. some comments on

facebook,/c-span. your thoughts welcome. facebook.com/c-span. also on twitter watching reaction from some members of congress and others. you will find more at twitter.com/c-span. we spoke to a reporter this

morning about that justice department investigation. he's the justice department reported there. let's start with the justice department investigation, who specifically is involved, how the justice department was involved, and does the justice department have a timeline for when they expect to have answers? guest: the justice department rightspecial civil division set up to investigate matters like this. they got involved monday and are running what is described as a .arallel investigation just like you were just saying, the justice department [inaudible] but there is no timetable. does a parallel

investigation mean? >> local authorities will look at whether the shooting of michael brown violated any local or state use of forced law, which is a very specific offense, prescribed by local missouri law, whereas the justice department is going whether there were civil rights violations. there are a couple of statutes. [inaudible] a police officer using the power of his office, power of his authority, power of his badge knowingly deprives someone of their civil rights or constitutional rights. in this particular instance,

that right is simply the right to live. that is what they are looking at. >> i want to read out --host: i want to read our viewers a bit from the statement from attorney general eric holder. he said at every step, we will work with local investigators who should be prepared to complete a thorough investigation and their own right. i will continue to receive regular updates on this matter in coming days. eric tucker, what specific resources is the justice department providing to the local police as they tried to conduct this investigation? they have a specialized team of lawyers based in washington helping out. there is also aside from that what is known as the community .elations service

it goes out to areas experienced in racial turmoil, racial problems, and they go in and try to figure out what is the root cause of the turmoil and tension, and they work to resolve that in a peaceful manner. those specialists are also being deployed. what options does the justice department have after this investigation is complete? what is the role of the civil rights division here? guest: there could certainly be a criminal prosecution. for themmon at all justice department to prosecute municipal police officers for -- for violating a civil rights issue. there is also a criminal section. there is criminal prosecution. no one has said that that is the

thaty eventual outcome or one could predict this happening, but that is a possibility at the end of the tunnel. much for joining us on the "washington journal" this morning. >> and an update -- the associated press does say the president was briefed today by the attorney general and senior adviser valerie jarrett on the situation in ferguson. we will hear from the president in about half an hour, from martha's vineyard. we'll have live coverage here on c-span. ahead of that at noon, we will take you at least briefly to a discussion on national security threats in the middle east. we will go to that at noon, sugar the president, and go back to the hudson institute discussion, if we are able. all of that coming up at about noon eastern or so. up until then, a portion on the discussion on the conflict in gaza between israelis and palestinians. the role of hamas and u.s. interest in the region.

this is from the foundation for defense of democracy. >> ok, welcome, everyone. i welcome you here to our panel discussion today on gaza, what has been won, what has been lost. i am honored here to be sitting next to some terrific panelists. left is a terrific reporter who has done some excellent work over the last five or six weeks on gaza but more broadly on foreign policy over many years. writeright is a prolific

who has always had tremendous into palestine but also the broader middle east, and to , and a visor the secretaries of state, both democrat and republican, and author of the forthcoming book "the end of greatness: why america can have an does not want another great president." introductionsr my other than to please set your cell phones to stun, and i handle over -- hand over the discussion. >> thank you very much. i want to dive right into it and take advantage of the great panel here. let's start with what just happened. i would like to go panelists i panelists. by panelists. what was the motivation in this hamas, israel,

palestinian authorities, and finally, the reluctant diplomacy from the u.s.? >> the motivation for conflict, the calculations of these core parties in the conflict? >> yes. >> the basic strategic problem is that the modus invented between israel and hamas is an episodic one. as much as they may depend on one another and need one another in on an perverse ways, the reality is they have a strategic problem with one another. ' calculations, i think, were born of desperation on one the and determination on other. financially bankrupt, politically isolated with israel and egypt controlling the gates of gaza. they had reached the conclusion

that governing gaza and a functional and productive manner .as simply no longer possible they had developed, i think from their point of view, the military wing, enough capacity, both in terms of use of high trajectory weapons and tunnel infrastructure, to risk a military confrontation. whether they sought it out or is another matter, and it will take a long time to unwind what actually led up to this conflict, but we are in it. once high trajectory weapons were used, particularly long-range weapons, early on in the conflict. once it became clear that the military wing had been very busy since 2009 in creating both a defense of an offense if -- ive and offensive

regulation, this had to be at a minimum to deter and degrade hamas' military capacity. the third d, destroyed, ever enters the lexicon is another matter. i would urge people to keep in mind that time here is a .elative factor we want to rush things. we need to know outcomes. we need to be certain about things, but that's not the way life works in the region. it is filled with great uncertainty. and victors and/or vanquished are determined only through the course of time. i think that essentially explains the motivations of the .wo main combatants the question now, it seems to

me, is strategically, how do both parties see the future? what are their objectives, and what are their goals? and in essence, are we done? there are three additional primary parties to the conflict. i put the u.s. in here as a somehow very reluctantly. in sketching out the motivations of egypt and the palestinian -- palestinian authority and the u.s. -- the u.s. and the palestinian authority in particular, which are peripheral to the actual conflict, but you could argue critical to the ultimate resolution of the conflict. we can talk about that later. finally, egypt. you have the rather anomalous situation of the most powerful, most populous, most influential arab states still be in a position in which the

official criticism of palestinians and hamas in particular and acquiescence in the death and destruction in is really quite stunning. if you add the uae and saturdays into this mix, i think there is a certain reality that this gaza conflict and the israeli-palestinian conflict generally is no longer simply a localized -- if it ever was -- shepherds war. it is part of a filter through which regional parties see the region. if you ask me right now what the single greatest threat was facing the middle east, it certainly would not be the perpetuation of the israeli-palestinian conflict. it would in essence be what is happening in iraq tom a particularly the rise of isis. i only make this point to broaden the linens and filter because everybody else in the

region is doing it, and it would be truly a fundamental error of analysis to somehow conclude that this problem of israel and any longers somehow -- at least for now -- the of either western civilization or the main of this region -- it is not. >> picking up on that vein, i want to ask you the following question -- there are some i guess you could say from the right to have tried to make the point that hamas is part of an ideological movement that is connected to isis, al qaeda, and the broader global jihadist movement. traditionally, analysts up ridiculously israel-palestine have talked about -- particularly israel, palestine, have talked about hamas with regard to israeli occupation.

how do you parse that, and can you talk about that particular issue? is hamas part of a broader movement, or is it the extreme militant end of the palestinian national movement? >> both the extreme end of the palestinian national movement -- although there are some smaller groups even more extreme -- and also the extreme militant end of the muslim brotherhood movement. it is both of those things, and i think the effort to sort of conflate hamas with jihadist isis, andal qaeda, these others -- are fundamentally misguided, share someey do all things in common, without doubt. however, you already put your finger on the biggest defenses. it has sort of been absurd to hear people compare hamas to isis or al qaeda because hamas is fundamentally driven by a

nationalist ideology. ultimately, their goals are palestinian goals. this has led them to be severely qaeda in the al past and by isis and its leaders now or even its countries, who took to burning palestinian flags online to show their contempt and indignation over , which they regard as a distraction from an immediate need to impose the most ruthless and poodle rule on the immediate areas governed by any group of muslims -- this is the isis position. there's a big difference between a global transnational agenda that cannot be in any way isentially satisfied and totally outside the bounds of any rational system, versus an extreme militant wing of two movements that are not, you

know, universalist in their aspirations and that are not -- that are fundamentally nationalist, in particular the palestinian national movement of which hamas is a part. there's a big difference, so the answer is definitely the second, especially if you fold in the brotherhood angle. >> ok, now i want to get to the initial sequence of the war. we have talked about this journalistically, but i want to kind of get your sense, just answer this question. do you think hamas started this war, or did the israeli reaction to the kidnapping start this war ? talk about that. >> the answer is yes. the way this unfolded -- a number of my colleagues and i were in the region as the tensions began to rise. certainly the tensions began with the kidnapping of these three teens in the west bank, and of course, the israelis alleged immediately that hamas

was responsible. hamas denied this. israelis continue to insist, and as they insisted, they went house to house in the west bank looking for the culprits in the kidnapping, and in the process, rearrested some 50 hamas releaseds who had been . this certainly invoked the ire of hamas, which began to carry rocket attacks. of course, this is nothing new for hamas. hamas has been firing rockets for the better part of a decade. tensions began to rise. then you had the kidnapping of as hisung palestinian neighborhood was aflame. i've visited on the day of the funeral. activities where

the local population had burned the light rail system. they had torched it. they were throwing molotov cocktails, throwing rocks. there was a sense on the part of hamas that they could perhaps what theyames of want. you began to see this uptick in , and you had this deterioration. this notion of whether hamas was definitely involved, and there has been a debate over this. i think at this point, that debate has been put to rest. we have now heard from the brother of this one operative in that has basically oficated that hamas knew this kidnapping. they knew of the attack. they knew of it from the gaza

strip, from the west bank, and .lso operatives abroad presumably, that means an operative that is based in turkey. we have been following -- and so you get a sense that this was known from all angles within the hamas movement. one final note, however, is that any longer in my view a homogenous organization. i believe that there are at least four power centers within the movement. there is the west bank, the gaza strip. each of these power centers has some influence over the movement . i think it is still impossible to tell exactly whose kidnapping this was and who drove it, but it does appear now that at least two or three of those power centers were aware of this operation in advance of it taking place. >> thank you. israel.nt to turn to

you have dealt with benjamin netanyahu. in the beginning of the rocket phase of the war, he was very clear -- hamas is firing rockets from civilian areas in order to get his own side killed to .emonize israel why has he obliged their pr strategy? >> it is a democratically elected government and acts with .oherence not only just physical security, but creating a sense of confidence and a sense of security. netanyahu had a commitment that needed to be discharged. it was a security commitment and

a public commitment. as any government goes about an asymmetrical war, including our own, there are a number of considerations to keep in mind. let's be clear -- the uppermost consideration is achieving military objectives to preempt, retard, and deter and ultimately destroy. >> just to let you know, our coverage plans here on c-span, momentarily, we will take you to the hudson institute for their discussion on u.s. national security threats in the region, but president obama is set to speak to make comments on the shooting in ferguson, missouri, we expect, and also possibly on iraq. we will show you those comments live here on c-span. >> the war in gaza where various palestinian factions backed by