we're going to head to ann arbor, michigan and juan cole a mideastern scholar at the university of michigan. juan, thanks so much for being here in "the war room." i hope you were listening to that conversation with hussein. were you able to hear it? >> yes, i was. >> jennifer: great. so from your perspective inside of gaza, i want to get at -- so the people see how has the economic blockade impacted palestinians on the ground? >> well, the israeli economic blockade is devastating to the gaza economy. the people in gaza, the palestinians in gaza are not able to export most of what they produce. whether agriculture or handy crafts or whatever. they can't get it out of the country. and so their own market and that's it. it has driven people into poverty. it has created about 56% of palestinians in gaza are food insecure. they're not starving to death. there's not a lot of -- malnutrition. it is not clear to me why the israeli -- that should be about bringing in weapons. to send out their goods. >> jennifer: so juan, you heard hussein's description of the challenge with hamas palestinian autho

juan cole is a professor at university of michigan. his latest book is called "engaging the muslim world." >> i was opposed to general betrayers of becoming the head of the cia in the first place. one of their charges is to evaluate policy. one of the things that needed to be evaluated was the surge in afghanistan, the big counterinsurgency program that the jurors put into place and shepherded through as commander on the ground. the cia cannot properly evaluate the program and its head is the author of the program. i am sure the analysts tried and petraeus tried to be objective, but it is not right. that is the real issue. why did the obama administration put an actor in a military role, then as the head of the agency evaluate the actions? i think we need a national debate about obama's troop escalation in afghanistan. it was a failure. obama is now committed to withdrawing in 2014. that is generally a good thing, but did we need the true escalation, how well did it work, should we do more? all of that cannot be addressed unless we hav

common dreams and titled r t's abby martin accuse israel of war crimes for targeting journalists by juan cole which says quote abbie was a was the victim of a smear attempt by the israel lobby which accused her of support for terrorism because she dared called illegal israeli actions illegal if more journalist stood up to such smear campaigns with her feistiness the world would be a better place watch her let her detractors have it thank you for that one that's awesome and yes if more journalists did call a spade a spade and didn't let fear reign supreme over the truth the world might be a better place moving on the next articles of future from firedoglake and titled abbey slayer by edward teller just to give you the context this far refers to pro israeli propaganda and the article teller states that my reports on gaza quote may have been the best on american television and welcomes me to the battle well thank you man i'm on or to the props and also please to take the title of us tara slayer awesome finally one of the most read online news publications the huffington post recently featured an

granholm in "the war room" for more on the critical situation in the middle east with her guests juan coleater on tonight. for now more "viewpoint" coming right up. forty times on the tonight show, i think he owes me a few visits. >> eliot: maybe it's the proximity of thanksgiving that has gotten to me but here's a really positive take on the year in politics. the good guys won. i don't just mean the president got re-elected. there was more to it. so let's take a closer look at two specific aspects of the political landscape. first, democracy was elevated. yes, that may sound crazy after all of the vile and nasty tv ads that buffeted us this year. the ugliness was there as it will always be. at its core was a healthy and sophisticated debate about the vision and role of government. president obama and governor romney brought very divergent views about the role of government to the table and the public got that. even though governor romney tried very hard to slide to the middle in the first debate, the specific programmatic positions he had taken over the course of the campaign couldn't be