The Lawfare Podcast: Jerusalem on the Brink

Jen Patja; Scott Anderson; Natan Sachs; Zaha Hassan

The Lawfare Podcast: Jerusalem on the Brink

Jen Patja, Scott R. Anderson, Natan Sachs, Zaha Hassan

Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 12:00 PM

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The situation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories is growing heated. Protests over the forced dislocation of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have escalated into violent confrontations with Israeli police forces, including in the Old City of Jerusalem and on the sacred grounds of the al-Aqsa Mosque, interrupting prayers there during the holy month of Ramadan. Over the past few days, these clashes have in turn triggered rocket attacks into Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza and reciprocal airstrikes by the Israeli military. Some such rockets have even reached the city of Tel Aviv, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition partner, Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, to promise a new military operation against Hamas in Gaza over the days to come.

To catch up on these fast-moving developments, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Natan Sachs, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Center for Middle East Policy, and Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They discussed the origins of this most recent conflict, the unusual Israeli and Palestinian political context in which it is occurring and what it might all mean for the Biden administration's own objectives in the region.

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Jen Patja

Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.

Scott R. Anderson

S_R_Anders

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Scott R. Anderson is a Senior Editor at Lawfare and General Counsel of the Lawfare Institute. He is also a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Non-resident Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

Natan Sachs

Dr. Natan Sachs is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC and an adjunct lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Until 2025, he was Senior Fellow and the Director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy in Washington DC. He publishes widely on Middle East affairs, on Israel's foreign policy, and Israeli domestic politics, and is a frequent media commentator on these issues. Sachs previously taught at Georgetown University as adjunct faculty, was a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University, a visiting fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center, and a Fulbright Fellow in Indonesia. He holds a B.A. from the Amirim Honors Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.