Thank you all for joining us. There will be time for Q&A at the end, but you can enter your questions here at any time.

remember to post your questions in the chat

Q: Settlement construction, both formal and informal, skyrocketed during the Trump presidency. The Abraham Accords did not address current and future settlement building activities, leading to the increased insecurity of Palestinians and an even bigger blow against hopes for a better future. Are there any options or opportunities for the Biden presidency to address settlement activity or does Trumps agreement hinder their ability to act?

Informative reading, "The War of Return", Adi Schwartz / Einat Wilf - details what really has been going on in the M.E. since 1948.

What is the fundamental Middle East problem with peace with Israel? Can this be solved without one side or the other being defeated? Why is the autocratic nature of neighbors a problem that Israel has the obligation to solve?

Q for Professor Hashemi: Do you think Accords represent a fatigue of Gulf autocrats to adhere to symbolic animosity with Israel even though it goes against their financial and security interests? Will this lead to more tension between the autocrats and their population (in regards to Israel) or will it influence their populations to weaken their animosity against Israel as well?

Q: For Professor Hashemi: the democratic forces in Arab countries may have diversified concerns, like the Palestine feminists are currently opposing Hamas's conservative social policies. So is it more possible that they will have diversified opinions with regard to their states' relations with Israel rather than unified on seeking justice for the Palestinians?

Should a country besides the United States have a hand in the peace accords given our nation’s history with various Middle Eastern nations and terrorist groups?

Q: How will the Abraham Accords affect China’s influence and relationship with Israel and the MENA region? Was there a motivation to weaken China’s influence in the Middle East?

I wanted to ask what Dr. Ishay & Dr. Hashemi think is the place of grassroots activist movements like BDS (boycott, divestment, & sanctions) in the pursuit of human rights progress within the framework of international relations between Israel & Palestine.

Do you believe that the Biden administration's recent decisions to reconsider the Iranian Nuclear Deal and remove the Houthi rebels from the US Terror Group list will create tense relations with Israel for the rest of Biden's term? Will this redefine the Israeli-American relationship?

There still are the '3 No's'.

Dr. Hashemi, I appreciate the point you’ve made about how these agreements validate and bolster autocratic regimes, since Israel now has a vested interest in governments maintaining their autocratic leadership in order to preserve agreements. However, historically it seems that protracted conflicts as well as the presentation of a constant, external threat also validates and bolsters autocratic regimes. On balance, do you think that a diminished focus on Israel will allow domestic politics in other Middle Eastern countries to focus more on internal tensions and improvements?

No Zachary.

How can AC res. help trade for PAL when they have checkpoints?

to traverse.

Why can’t Iran have nuks?

IS’s problem? Extreme paranoia. It’s extractive diplomacy to deal with them. First recognize them? NO. First recognize BOTH sides.

What really happened with the explosion in Beirut?

How come another shipment swept right through to Mozambique?????

Thank you!

Morocco, these are all proxy diplomatic “efforts”.

Hamas origin? Israel.

IOW Hamas is a reaction. Robert Fisk says it all.

Evangelicals?

All talk. That’s it. For the US. Deal with the victim. Reparations to PAL.

Agree good policy better for US. AND Israel.

Dr. Hashemi, thank you for your answer, sorry if I was a broken record.

https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/facebook-we-need-to-talk/

Why is China harming the Ughers? sp.

What comes next after BDS? Justice.

for PAL! And as a result IS.

https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid Respected Israeli human rights org

Sanctions for Iran? Nope. Sanctions for Israel.

That is also best for the Israel human rights activists.

Thank you for the conference! - תודה! - شكرا

Lynn Segal, Communism is generally anti-religion.