Israel/Palestine Conflict and U.S. Policy

ParallaxViews.podbean.com: We explore recent events involving Israeli airstrikes, the Sheikh Jarrah district of East Jerusalem, Hamas, Gaza, and U.S. foreign policy [and] dive into the Israeli airstrike that took down an Associated Press building… the misuse of antisemitism to stifle…

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Sudan’s 2019 Revolution The Power of Civil Resistance

Stephen Zunes’ April 2021 report* reviews the chronology of the resistance struggle in Sudan, the critical role of nonviolent discipline, other factors contributing to the movement’s success, and the current political situation. It seeks to explain how the movement was…

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One of the Democrats’ Biggest Hawks Is Now Senate Foreign Relations Chair

Now with a working majority, the Democrats have named Sen. Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This has rung alarm bells for advocates of peace, human rights and international law, given that Menendez has opposed the Iran nuclear agreement, repeatedly attacked the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, supported unconditional military aid to governments that have used the weapons in the commission of war crimes, and taken other positions far closer to those of Republicans than rank-and-file Democrats.

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Nonviolent Activists Laid the Groundwork to Oppose a Coup. They May Have Saved the Republic

Activists prepared for months, expecting Trump to steal the election. They were right, and he failed.
Since President-elect Joe Biden’s decisive win in November, there has been understandable consternation at the efforts by President Trump and his supporters to steal the election. It is also important to understand why, so far, and despite the recent violence in Washington, his attempts have been unsuccessful.

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When a Ceasefire is Not Enough

THE WAR BETWEEN Armenia and Azerbaijan this past autumn was an avoidable tragedy.
The disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region has been populated since at least the second century B.C.E. by Armenians, one of the world’s oldest Christian civilizations. The Muslim Azeris and others have lived there and in neighboring areas for centuries as well, and the region was ethnically mixed (albeit majority Armenian) when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

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Trump’s deal on Morocco’s Western Sahara annexation risks more global conflict

Last week, President Trump formally recognized Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara as part of a deal to get Morocco to normalize relations with Israel. But Morocco’s claim on Western Sahara is rejected by the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union and a broad consensus of international legal scholars that consider the region a non-self-governing territory that must be allowed an act of self-determination. This is why no country had formally recognized Morocco’s takeover — until now.

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