Expert Analyst: International Politics, Middle East & Nonviolent Action
Civil Liberties
VIDEO: Resistance with Metta Spencer July 2025, featuring Zunes, Jorgen Johansen, and Jill Carr-Harris, on the role of strategic nonviolent action in challenging the crises facing the world today. Also see his overview of recent developments: The Power and Value of…
May 17, 2025, Stephen Zunes’s keynoteaddress at the 2025 Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation Spring Assembly
VIDEO of Stephen Zunes and Rebecca Solnit in conversation at the University of San Francisco April 22, 2025 [1:12] on a variety of topics related to growing authoritarianism in the United States and the resistance.
Lecture at University of San Francisco, Sept. 26, 2024, that critically examines charges of antisemitism in the U.S. pro-Palestinian movement.
Americans for Middle East Understanding, Sept. 28, 2024:During the wave of campus protests opposing the US-backed war on Gaza and calling for divestment from Israel, students weren’t the only demonstrators to face arrest; supportive faculty members were also caught up…
“Flashpoints” on KPFA-FM and affiliated stations (20-minute interview begins at the 13:15 mark): Dr. Zunes contrasts blatant censorship and violent police suppression of Gaza War campus protests with anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s.
Late last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. government finds the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to be inherently “anti-Semitic.” He pledged to “immediately take steps to identify organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct and withdraw U.S. government support for such groups” and urged all nations to “recognize the BDS movement for the cancer that it is.”
The use of lethal force by police, National Guard, and other security forces has come under increasing scrutiny in the wake of the George Floyd killing and resulting uprisings. Congressional Democrats have begun speaking out against police-perpetrated killings as well as the use of excessive force against protesters and journalists across the country, such as the notorious incident in Lafayette Park across from the White House late last month.
This past October, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute announced that activist, author, and scholar Angela Davis would be presented with the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award at the group’s annual gala event next month. The announcement described Davis as “one of the most globally recognized champions of human rights, giving voice to those who are powerless to speak.”
The Progressive and Huffington Post Nov. 3, 2017 and quoted in Berkeley Law:
Sa’ed Atshan is generally considered one of the most highly-respected young Quaker scholars in the United States. A graduate of Ramallah Friends School and Swarthmore College with a doctoral degree from Harvard, he is currently an assistant professor in Swarthmore’s…
Santa Cruz Sentinel September 29, 2017 It seems that UC Santa Cruz now reserves the right to bring in ultra-conservative speakers as a condition of accepting in-kind donations from those with left-of-center views.
The Progressive & Huffington Post August 1, 2017 A disturbing number of Congressional Democrats have joined their Republican counterparts in co-sponsoring a bill (S. 720/H.R. 1697) effectively criminalizing support for boycotts against Israel or companies doing business in the…
National Catholic Reporter March 7, 2017
National Catholic Reporter February 9, 2017
Santa Cruz Sentinel, February 6, 2015 In my late teens, I was active in the movement opposing South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia, calling for boycotts and divestment of companies supporting the occupation and sanctions against the occupying power. I…
In preparing my syllabus for my introductory course on the Middle East this semester, it gives me pause that the California Assembly is still on record declaring that discussing certain well-documented historic incidents in modern Middle Eastern history should “not be tolerated in the classroom.” This unprecedented attack on academic freedom came in the form of a resolution (HR 35), co-sponsored by 66 of the 88 Assembly members, which passed by a voice vote in 2012.
Dr. Stephen Zunes’ article in the National Catholic Reporter on the extradition of Edward Snowden
A growing movement has emerged on college campus calling for divestment from companies that support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories that is part of broader international campaign initiated by Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its occupation of territories seized in the 1967 war.
This past week, the Arizona State Bar Association (SBA) held its annual convention. It appears that the ban on my participation is still in effect.
It was exactly ten years ago that the session in which an academic paper I was scheduled to present on the application of international law in conflicts in the greater Middle East was abruptly cancelled just two weeks before its scheduled presentation at the 2003 convention. No one in the organization?s leadership could explain anything objectionable in the paper, which they acknowledged they had not actually read, but were apparently convinced by a right-wing campaign that I was ?anti-Israel? and ?anti-American.?