admin, Author at Stephen Zunes

U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the “Strategic Relationship”

January 26, 2001 By admin

“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.”

Iraq: 10 Years After Gulf War

January 11, 2001 By admin

Ten years after the Gulf War, U.S. policy toward Iraq continues to suffer from an overreliance on military solutions, an abuse of the United Nations and international law, and a disregard for the human suffering resulting from sanctions. Furthermore, Washington’s actions have failed to dislodge Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power.

The Gulf War: 8 Myths

January 1, 2001 By admin

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.

Credit the Serbian People, Not NATO

October 1, 2000 By admin

The people of Yugoslavia did what NATO bombs could not. As in 1989, it was not the military prowess of the western alliance bringing freedom to an Eastern European country, but the power of nonviolent action by the subjugated peoples themselves.

East Timor’s Tragedy and Triumph

September 9, 2000 By admin

Peace Review 2000 East Timor’s Tragedy and Triumph (PDF)

International Symposium on Unemployment and Poverty

September 9, 2000 By admin

September 2000 by Stephen Zunes [Download the PDF]

Economic Liberalization, Globalization and World Hunger: New Opportunities and Challenges

September 5, 2000 By admin

International Symposium
Unemployment and Poverty: Causes and Remedies
5-10 September 2000
Rome

http://stephenzunes.org/articles/IntlSymposiumonunemploymentandPovertySep2000.pdf

Cuba’s New Revolution

August 9, 2000 By admin

Explores issues of sustainability in Cuba. [Source and text are no longer available]

Camp David II: Clinton Should Pressure Israel, As Carter Did

July 1, 2000 By admin

It is highly unlikely that the upcoming summit between the United States, Israel, and Palestine at Camp David will the kind of positive results that came from the 1978 summit between the United States, Israel, and Egypt. At the earlier Camp David gathering, President Jimmy Carter was willing to pressure Israel to withdraw from all Egyptian territory seized in the 1967 war in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. President Bill Clinton, in contrast, has not supported total Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands seized in 1967, and he has actually pressured the Palestinians to allow the Israelis to maintain control of large amounts of their land, including Arab East Jerusalem, the historic capital of Palestine.

U.S. Policy Toward Jerusalem: Clinton’s Shift To The Right

July 1, 2000 By admin

Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, July 1, 2000 [Source] It is not surprising that Jerusalem has become the sticking point in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Israeli refusal to share the city with the Palestinians and the Clinton…

The U.S. Must Pressure Israel to Compromise

June 1, 2000 By admin

As the Clinton administration pushes for a high-level resumption of final status talks between Israelis and Palestinians, we are again hearing the mantra that both sides need to compromise, both sides cannot have everything they want and other familiar exhortations. This has been the administration’s approach since the singing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993.

U.S. Must Insist Israel Return to the Peace Talks and Withdraw from Lebanon

February 1, 2000 By admin

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s decision to pull out of the peace talks with Syria is a shameless capitulation to Israel’s far right and raises serious questions as to whether the Israeli government is seriously interested in peace. President Clinton must demand that Israel return immediately to the negotiation table and come into full compliance with UN Security Council resolutions or risk an immediate cutoff of U.S. military and economic aid.

The U.S. and the Israeli-Syrian Peace Process

February 1, 2000 By admin

For the past three decades, the United States has taken the primary facilitating role in the Arab-Israeli peace process, marginalizing the Russians, the European Union, and the United Nations. Washington has therefore had to balance its narrow strategic and economic interests in this important region with its efforts to appear as an honest broker. This often contradictory role has at times been problematic, as is evident in the U.S.-sponsored negotiations between Israel, an important pro-Western ally, and Syria, whose government has traditionally identified with a radical strain of Arab nationalism.

U.S. Policy Hampers Chances for Israeli-Syrian Peace

December 1, 1999 By admin

There is little hope for real progress in the Israeli-Syrian peace talks unless the Clinton Administration is willing to uphold human rights and international law along with its commitment to Israel’s legitimate security needs. Since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, these issues have been at the heart of the

Iran: Time for Detente

November 1, 1999 By admin

Despite recent reforms, the U.S. has been hesitant to forge closer relations with Iran due to lingering hostility to the Islamic government and a fear that supporting moderates would create a backlash against them. The ongoing struggle in Iran between Islamic reformers and Islamic hard-liners, along with struggles within the U.S. foreign policy establishment between hawks and those seeking accommodation, has left U.S.-Iranian relations in a state of flux.

U.S., Greece, and Turkey

November 1, 1999 By admin

President Bill Clinton’s visit to NATO allies Greece and Turkey is raising new questions about the ongoing strategic relationship the United States has with these two historic rivals, particularly in the light of the anti-American demonstrations which delayed and shortened the planned presidential visit.

Nonviolent Action and Human Rights

October 20, 1999 By admin

Nonviolent action campaigns have been a part of political life for millennia. History records many instances of groups rising to challenge abuses by authorities, demand social reforms, and protest militarism and discrimination. In recent years, however, the number of such movements has increased, as has their success in advancing the cause of human rights and toppling or dramatically reforming repressive regimes. In the twentieth century, nonviolence became more of a deliberate tool for social change, moving from being largely an ad hoc strategy growing naturally out of religious or ethical principles to a reflective and, in many ways, institutionalized method of struggle.

NATO’s Rush to War in Yugoslavia

September 3, 1999 By admin

The United States-led war against Yugoslavia continued for more than ten weeks despite the many ways it could have been avoided or ended sooner, and despite the opposition and uneasiness it generated even among its initial supporters. This essay outlines some of the reasons why the war was wrong from a moral, legal and utilitarian perspective.

A Tragic Miscalculation

April 13, 1999 By admin

There is little hope that Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic’s cease fire overtures mount to anything significant. Indeed, he has largely won the war on the ground. By contrast, NATO bombs have done a lot of damage, but have little more to show.

Continuing Storm: The U.S. Role in the Middle East

April 1, 1999 By admin

Throughout the centuries, Western nations have tried to impose their order on the region now commonly known as the Middle East. For certain periods of time they have succeeded, only to find themselves at the receiving end of a popular and oftentimes violent backlash. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph in the Gulf War, the United States stands—at least for a time—as the region’s dominant outside power.