Stephen Zunes

“The U.S. aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world,” said Stephen Zunes during a January 26 CPAP presentation. “In sheer volume, the amount is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries,” added Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He explored the strategic reasoning behind the aid, asserting that it parallels the “needs of American arms exporters” and the role “Israel could play in advancing U.S. strategic interests in the region.”

The United States-led war against Iraq commenced on January 16, 1991. On this the tenth anniversary of the Gulf War, the myths that justified the war continue to be widely circulated. It is important, particularly in the light of the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iraq and the devastating humanitarian impact of U.S.-led sanctions, to challenge these myths. To fail to do so will make it difficult to change U.S. policy and could even increase the possibility of another cataclysmic war in the future.