Expert Analyst: International Politics, Middle East & Nonviolent Action
Democratic Party Foreign Policy
The Progressive Oct. 23, 2026: Pro-Israel hawks like North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper are a rapidly shrinking group within the Democratic Party, for example the sharp decline in Democratic Senate nominees supporting the Israeli government…
Truthout, September 3, 2026: Party leaders are ignoring the three-quarters of registered Democrats who oppose providing military aid to Israel. House Democratic leadership has picked two prominent hawks to join the House Foreign Affairs Committee while also promoting an even…
Perspectives in Politics, June 26, 2026: of George Washington University Professor Marc Lynch’s excellent new book on U.S. Middle East Policy
Common Dreams, June 24, 2026; reposted from The Progressive[Audio and transcript] Too many congressional Democrats are demonstrating their own hypocrisy in claiming that they oppose the war while actively undermining efforts to end it.
Unitarian Universalist Church Center, San Francisco, June 14 (90 min.)
Truthout, April 17, 2026: Democrats share responsibility with the GOP for creating the climate that made such a war possible. Unlike the invasion of Iraq, which received the support of a sizable minority of congressional Democrats, Donald Trump’s war on…
The Progressive April 10, 2026: Whether, or not the ceasefire ends up failing, the erratic President has put the region and world in grave danger… [Audio transcripts; podcast]
The Progressive, November 20, 2025, by Stephen Zunes There is much to admire about U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who recently announced her plan to retire in 2027 after thirty-nine years in office, including her progressive domestic agenda, superb…
The Progressive, by Stephen Zunes, October 8, 2025: Neither U.S. political party actually supports a two-state solution, instead both essentially endorse Israeli control over all of historic Palestine.
In These Times, September 4, 2025, by Stephen Zunes Nearly two years in to the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, there are clear signals the Democratic Party’s base is moving far away from supporting the Israeli government and its war machine.…
Counterpunch, May 26, 2025, by Daniel Falcone [source]. Quotes Zunes on Trump’s dangerous militarism, despite isolationist rhetoric
The Progressive April 11, 2025: How Congressional Democrats are siding with Trump against their own constituents on U.S. Middle East policy [source]
Discussion with Dr. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute, where we examined the trajectory of the pro-Palestinian movement over the past 50 years, including his history as an advocate for Palestinian rights from grassroots campaigns in the 1970s to his…
The Progressive March 3, 2025 by Nyki Duda quoting Zunes: “Stephen Zunes, a veteran of the anti-apartheid movement in solidarity with Black South Africans in the 1980s and a regular contributor to The Progressive, sees parallels between that movement and…
For decades, Washington has denied, downplayed and rationalized atrocities by its allies
Serf City Times included this transcript of Dr. Zunes’ speech at a rally in Santa Cruz protesting U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta’s strident support for Israel’s far right government, placing him further right than even the Biden administration — and the…
The Progressive, December 5, 2024 by Stephen Zunes:Examines Washington’s hysterical and dishonest reaction to the International Criminal Court’s indictments of two Israeli leaders for war crimes [Source]
An eight-minute interview for the main Singapore television news on the impact of the indictments Al-Jazeera English half hour conversation with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese and Israeli scholar Ori Goldberg on the ramifications…
First view Dr. Zunes’ 5-minute animated summary (scroll down to third video), of his research on coup resistance; then his Lecture at the University of San Francisco on how to prepare for the aftermath of the election in the event…