Rami Khouri, senior public policy fellow, professor and columnist at The New Arab, says that much of the instability in the Middle East stems from the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. We spoke with Khouri, who is currently a journalist-in-residence at the American University of Beirut, about how the U.S. is exacerbating tensions in the region. The U.S. is trying to erase the “Palestinian national reality,” he says. “There’s about 12 million Palestinians in the world. And they have an identity. They have rights. … And the United States is basically telling the Palestinians, 'You don't exist. You don’t have rights. The Israelis have rights in Israel and Palestine. Their rights are superior to yours.’”