Over the past few weeks, the world watched as Israel’s attempted expulsion of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem spiraled into an eleven-day pummeling of the Gaza Strip by Israel’s military, leaving 254 people dead, including sixty-six children. The onslaught saw Israel level high-rise buildings, wipe out whole Palestinian families, and even target Western news agencies.

To put this latest assault into proper context, Jacobin spoke with Nathan Thrall, an analyst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and author of The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. Thrall explains how making progress toward a just settlement of the conflict means letting go of the many myths that govern Western discussions of the subject.