Remembering Israel’s West Bank Offensive

Eurasia Review, IHaveNet.com & Foreign Policy In Focus./
Institute for Policy Studies
April 18-19, 2012
:
Ten years ago this month, following a particularly deadly series of Palestinian terrorist attacks, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an assault on several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank. The Bush administration largely supported the Israeli offensive, even as hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands of young men detained without charge amid widespread reports of torture. Both Israeli and international human rights groups condemned the widespread violations of international humanitarian law.

Why One of the World’s Leading Peace Advocates Threatened to Punch Me in the Face

Alternet and Transnational.org April 5, 2012 I have rarely ever come face to face – only inches in fact – with such anger. Certainly not at an academic conference. And certainly not from such a prominent figure: chancellor of Australian National University, former attorney-general and foreign minister, former head of the International Crisis Group, and one of the world’s most prominent global thinkers.

Military Intervention in Syria Is a Bad Idea

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
Antiwar.com, Common Dreams
, March 29, 2012

Empirical studies have repeatedly demonstrated that international military interventions in cases of severe repression actually exacerbate violence in the short term and can only reduce violence in the longer term if the intervention is impartial or neutral. Other studies demonstrate that foreign military interventions actually increase the duration of civil wars, making the conflicts longer and bloodier, and the regional consequences more serious…