think conflict shrinkage is something that should be thought about and so i think, i and on that note, there are things that can be done to show that the other side, that approach pays with israel, even if it is modest, it is something, it is gradual. so we will see how this ends up and i want to thank you all for reaching us with your insight. we listeners who are out in the middle east, i hope you all stay safe and everyone else, i wish you good health and good spirits and a good>> "washington journa"

continues. host: our guest is jon alterman. thank you for joining us this morning, sir. there is a lot to react to. one of them is the reaction from the associated press to the israeli airstrike the other day. the headline says ap horrified by israeli attack on its office. an israeli airstrike destroyed this high-rise building that housed offices of the ap and other media outlets saturday. all ap employees and freelance employees evacuated safely. the president and ceo of the ap released the following statement. "we are shocked and horrified that the israeli military would destroy the building housing ap's euro in gaza. they have long known the

location of our bureau. we received a warning that the building would be hit. the israeli government said the building contained hamas intelligence assets. we have called on the israeli government to put forth the evidence. this bureau has been in this building for 15 years." first, your reaction to that part of the story? guest: it is impossible for me to judge whether there was an hamas operation in the building or not. the israelis certainly are not very interested in allowing international journalists to do a lot of sympathetic stories about the effects of the attacks on gaza. whether it was in fact both of those, we can both cut down some of the sympathetic reporting of palestinians and take out hamas

assets, whether the story of hamas assets was invented, whether they are really not serious assets but that it was a pretext, i don't know. it is very hard from outside, certainly in the fog of war, to sort out these kinds of claims. host: i wanted to get your broader sense of what is going on. here is a vox.com headline. what is happening is the inevitable result of a grim status quo. why are we at this point right now? guest: in many ways this has happened before. it happened in 2014, it happened in 20 -- 2008. the israelis have come to call this mowing the grass. there have to be military operations to destroy hamas infrastructure and reinforce israeli deterrence of hamas. you can argue that if you have to keep doing it it is not working, and israel always faces

this problem. what we know is that hamas is not going to defeat israel. israel has no intention of preoccupying gaza. israel is reluctant of having any ground incursion into gaza. have to exchange, largely through airpower, kills a bunch of people, terrorizes a lot more people. then we go back to where we were. what is probably surprising to some people and not surprising to me was the sense a lot of people had in the trump administration that we were done with this conflict. that the problem. i think this is a reminder that the problem is not solved. there are millions of palestinians who feel stateless or disenfranchised. i think increasingly we see israeli arabs who are feeling threatened and disenfranchised. you see a growing number of israeli jews who feel threatened

by israeli arabs. this is tearing apart the fabric of israel in the way that, to me, reinforces the need to move forward to some sort of durable solution. for many this has been a polarizing episode, to convince people there is nobody to make a deal with. host: two phone lines for our guest, jon alterman of asis. if you live in the central or eastern time zones, call this, (202) 748-8000. if you live in the mountain or western time zones, (202) 748-8001 is the number. so, what do you make of the biden administration's response to all of this so far? guest: this also seems to fill the poem -- the familiar pattern the united states response to

this episode of violence first by talking about israel's right to defend itself. there are gestures about restraining the israelis. i think there are moves toward diplomacy. nobody wants hamas to come out as a victor here. neither israel nor the united states, nor surrounding arab states. i think there is willingness for hamas to get a bloody knows, it also widespread willingness to not have this get out of hand. i think what israel often has is a two weeks or three weeks to try to do some damage, to try to teach some lessons, in their mind, to hamas. then there is a movement toward some sort of cease fire. the u.s. has been speaking to the egyptians, it has been speaking for -- speaking to the jordanians. there is an effort toward diplomacy.

it will probably take another week or so, but it feels like this is a sad repetition of a pattern we have seen many times before. each time we see people die. -- ca people die. host: who is leading the diplomatic effort for the u.s.? guest: the secretary of state is responsible for israeli-palestinian issues. he is in israel now. frankly, that gives you a lot of room to escalate up. the deputy secretary of state is not a senate-confirmable position. you can go to the assistant secretary of state, you can go to the secretary of state. in many ways you have somebody on the ground to say we are doing something, but you are still leaving room for and we get close to something, you start bringing in they heavier guns. host: first call is from paul, from the united kingdom. we will take a look at the

series of photos from the associated press from inside gaza. paul, go ahead, please. caller: the question is to jon. will there be peace between the palestinians and israel? permanent peace? host: it is a big question. guest: permanent pieces hard. let me put this in a different context. which shows you how different this situation is. you have three simultaneous political crises. you have a battle for the leadership of hamas in gaza. a negotiator with the israelis. you have a political crisis in the palestinian authority. mahmoud abbas, long overstaying his term. just canceled legislative

elections. in large measure because he thinks his side can't win. fatah in particular is of diminishing credibility. his ability to speak to bella 10 -- to ballot 10 -- the palestinians is compromised. on the israeli side you have benjamin netanyahu, who has failed in his effort to put together a majority coalition after israel's fourth round of elections. we seem to be going toward a fifth. i think you have a battle, in some cases to try to play a nationalist card to show we are not going to take it. people in the israel said this is helping benjamin netanyahu, who is comfortable playing a nationalist card. when you talk about actually resolving this in a longer-term

way, i think it is hard to make a lot of progress when you have these political vacuums with hamas, with the palestinian authority, and israel. it could be that a crisis could pave the way for a deeper discussion about where we are trying to go with this and what is the endgame. that discussion has not happened, and as long as bombs are flying, i think that discussion is not going to happen. host: on to indiana. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. huge fan of "washington journal." you are doing an excellent job. i was waiting a long time for this subject,. in my humble opinion, this is pretty easy to solve. israel does not have the right to exist. it is occupied palestine.

it started out, the united states had banned european jews before, during, and after world war ii. i can understand before, but if they cannot put up after world war ii, and we would not accept the jews, dump them on the palestinians, who cares? they were left there. they overran the country, and we have been bankrolling this occupation and oppression of the palestinian people ever since. there will never be a peace between israelis and palestinians. benjamin netanyahu even said this. there will never be a two state solution. i think what we need to do is we give foreign aid to, any country we give foreign aid to, if they get nuclear weapons, we stop.

we cut off trade with them, don't give military weapons. these palestinians are throwing stones and sticks at tomahawk missiles and up actually -- and apache helicopters. you give palestinians the right to return, one man, one vote. be a true democracy and not be apartheid of the middle east. thank you for the time. host: thank you for joining us. mr. alterman, any thoughts? guest: alan and i disagree with the history, freight. we can start with un resolution's which recognized the state of israel. there are certainly some very difficult issues that need to be untangled and difficult issues that israelis and palestinians haven't agreed on, i don't think the answer is -- but i don't think the answer is 8 million jews have to leave israel.

the answer is we have to find some way to have people share what was palestine, and i think that is where the u.n. is, and it is certainly where the u.s. government has been. that is the appropriate place for the u.s. to be. host: let's go to paul, another paul from alexandria, virginia. good morning. caller: hello, this is the first time in many years i have call. thank you very much for taking the call. what i think is being ignored in this entire coverage is that one the iranians have been powered by biden's policy to reopen talks with iran and iranians are now testing the waters by supporting their clients in

gaza, hamas. in light of all of that, there is elections going on in the palestinian authority. you have many factions involved, and hamas is flexing its muscles irresponsibly and israel is not going to stand by and be attacked. that is about all i have to say about this. what do you think about this? guest: paul, i totally agree with you on the fact that hamas is flexing its muscles irresponsibly. there was a problem in jerusalem and hamas turned a problem in jerusalem into a palestinian-israeli war.

i think it was a mistake of israel to allow hamas to determine the time and place of confrontation. i think i disagree with you that this is tied to anything involving iran. i don't know that there is any evidence that the iranians are supporting hamas in this endeavor. i think the iranians have their hands full right now. while they certainly don't oppose it, there is a difference between causation and correlation. it is not a policy that they are advancing. as i said, the biggest problem from an israeli perspective is this problem of polarization inside of israel, polarization inside of mixed arab-jewish towns. the rise of vigilante groups on

both sides. there are serious vigilante groups on both sides. i think for a democracy like israel, that is a huge problem, it is a huge warning sign, and frankly israeli politicians have been encouraging the default meant -- devolvement of those groups for some time. that is laying the seeds for future conflict, unless israelis and palestinians can turn it around. that will require a healing of palestinian politics, which i think mahmoud abbas has been -- has become part of the problem. host: 10 minutes left with our guest, jon alterman. here is president biden on all of this. pres. biden: one of the things i have seen thus far is that there

has not been a significant overreaction. the question is how we get to a point where there is a significant reduction in the attacks, particularly the rocket attacks that are indiscriminately fired in the population centers. i expect that i will be having some more discussions. we have not just spoken with the israelis. the egyptians, the saudi's, and others. it is a work in progress right now. host: mr. alterman, you're reading a lot about the president can eat from the left in his party are not taking a stronger stance against israel. that is bubbling up. what do you make of that dynamic? guest: there is clearly a much

broader discussion in the democratic party than they used to be, but i will tell you, joe biden is an old-style foreign policy democrat who cared about the cold war and cares about ties with israel. and i was a staffer to the late senator moynihan, joe biden was a senior democrat. joe biden is committed to the security of israel. while that is less of a common view among younger democrats, i believe that it is a deeply held view that president biden has had for decades and decades. it is not about to change. host: let me share this headline in the washington post. it says trump's mideast deals fade amid war. scenes from gaza. how about that part of the story? guest: it is an interesting problem, because there were a

number of states -- the united arab emirates especially was looking for a different kind of relationship with israel. and said that the old kind of relationship is not serving their interests anymore. they had many of the same enemies. why are we keeping ourselves from working with the israelis? i thought that was a very courageous, and some ways, others would say reckless, but it was certainly a bold move. i think that the uae finds itself in a difficult position. virtually every arab state is very hostile to hamas. but they are also sympathetic to israeli arabs. they are sympathetic to palestinians who seek to pray in jerusalem. it is not easy, and i think what they would like to do is they would like to turn this into an

israel-hamas conflict where they can say we are not supporting hamas, because they don't. as this becomes more of a jewish -arab conflict within israel, it raises some uncomfortable questions for arab states that want to sustain close not only diplomatic, but economic insecurity ties israel. host: here is a text. why does saudi arabia not support the palestinians? who does? trump moved the embassy. how is that working? did bigo -- two questions. guest: two very different questions. the saudi's are interested in supporting the in some ways. the saudi's are interested in having an interest in the mosque, but they are not fans of the palestinian authority and are hostile to hamas.

in terms of moving the industry to jerusalem, i think that was meant to reassure the israelis. the jerusalem compound is small. the tel aviv complex is large. i'm not sure it has done much. when you look at what the effect on israel has been, as it led israel to make bolder gestures of peace? i think in some ways the last four years persuaded israelis the problem was gone and the problem did not require compromises or anything else. what we are seeing now is the problem is not gone, and the problem is no longer a cross-border problem, it is an internal israeli problem. 20% of israeli citizens are arabs. that is a problem that does not

go away easily unless work it. i think israel is moving toward feeling we don't have to work that. in the coalition building discussions there is a tradition in israel, you don't have a majority coalition that includes arab parties. in some ways that requires everybody to have a super majority. nobody is able to get a super majority, and we seem to be on the verge of bringing in an arab party into a coalition in the way that would have been historic for israel, reaching out to everybody in israel. i think that has been set back a bit, and it creates some unsettling problems for israelis about what kind of society they are going to have. this is submit information

in writing at any of our hearings or markups using the email address provided in advance to your staff. now, let's begin. today i welcome tae johnson acting director of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement. he is here to discuss i.c.e.'s management of its resources and its operational priorities. thank you for being here this morning. acting director johnson, as a current civil servant you have been asked to step into