Senior Researcher Jørgen Jensehaugen highlights a different angle of the Iranian hostage crisis that still affects the Iran-US relationship to this day in an episode of 'PRIO's Peace in a Pod'. The episode is based on his article "A Palestinian window of opportunity? The PLO, the US and the Iranian hostage crisis" from 2019.
November 4 marks the anniversary of the start of the Iranian hostage crisis. In this podcast episode, Jensehaugen highlights an aspect of the crisis that has rarely been discussed but can tell us a lot about the political dynamics at the time, and how its ripple effects are still being felt today. Through archival research, Jensehaugen found that the fuller story is not just about the hostage situation and the negotiations leading up to the release of some of the hostages, but also about a longstanding paradoxical US policy. The US was unwilling to negotiate with the Palestinians when it was their conflict that was at stake, but once US lives were in the balance, the US administration was more than willing to open a direct channel to the PLO.
