Middle Eastern studies scholar Jennifer Loewenstein is available for interviews about the latest developments related to Gaza and the West Bank.
On Tuesday evening, the Associated Press reported, President Trump “suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take ‘ownership’ in redeveloping the area into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East.’ Trump’s brazen proposal appears certain to roil the next stage of talks meant to extend the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza.”
On the West Bank, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has tracked a wave of assaults that continued. The organization reported that “the ink had barely dried on the ceasefire agreement before the Israeli army blocked most access points to and from Palestinian villages, and all the cities in the West Bank, severely disrupting the daily lives of more than 3 million Palestinians: Students could not reach schools and universities, patients could not access medical treatments, and ordinary civilians could not get to their workplaces. … As soldiers looked on, Israelis attacked Palestinian communities, trying to set fire to homes with occupants inside, torching cars and vandalizing property on a massive scale, in Turmusaya, al-Funduq, Sinjil, Al-Mughayyir and Jinsafut among other places. The attackers themselves have declared these pogroms were an act of revenge for the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal.”
JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN, sarinj111@gmail.com, (608) 215-9157
Loewenstein is former Associate Director of Middle Eastern Studies and Senior Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She founded the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project in 2003 and is currently active in Jewish Voice for Peace-Tucson and AZPAL, the Arizona-Palestine Network. She is a special Middle East correspondent for KPFA Radio in the San Francisco Bay Area.