San Francisco Chronicle December 7, 2017:
President Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that the United States formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that the U.S. embassy would be moved to that multiethnic and multifaith city once again places the United States at odds with the rest of the international community. No other government in the world formally recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or has its embassy there, instead basing their diplomatic offices in nearby Tel Aviv.
Category: Democratic
Democratic Party Foreign Policy
Both Parties Pushed Trump Toward Reckless Action on Jerusalem
[Full Article] Published in The Progressive, Huffington Post,
Common Dreams & Transcend Media Service:
President Trump’s plan to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. embassy there risks a violent and destabilizing reaction targeting U.S. interests globally. The 1947 UN partition plan was to divide Palestine between a Jewish and Arab state, with Jerusalem and surrounding areas designated as an international territory under U.N. administration. Instead–as a result of the first Arab-Israeli War–by 1949 Israel had annexed the western part of the area and Jordan the eastern part, but the international community refused to acknowledge either claim. Following the Israeli conquests of 1967, Israel annexed Palestinian-populated East Jerusalem and surrounding lands as well…
Why Democrats Don’t Want to Talk about Flynn’s First Meeting with the Russians
The Progressive and The Huffington Post December 5, 2017
Key points are rendered in this 5-minute video.
Trump’s Far-Right Israel Stance Creates an Opening for the Left
But congressional Democrats won’t act without a push.
In These Times & The Huffington Post February 17, 2017
Panetta’s first foreign policy vote sides with Trump
Once Again, Democrats Blow It on Middle East Peace
Foreign Policy In Focus January 11, 2017: In the first major foreign policy vote of the new Congress, most Democrats sided with Trump — and against international law — on Israeli settlements.
Hope fades for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
National Catholic Reporter January 10, 2017 The election of Donald Trump may mark the end of any realistic hope of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And don’t expect the Democratic Party to try to save it, it appears.
Overcoming Bitterness and No Longer Assuming the Worst of Democrats
National Catholic Reporter November 28, 2016
For decades, I have been obsessed with exposing the Clintons and like-minded Democratic politicians’ dangerous foreign policies, challenging liberal naiveté that ignores or excuses such hawkish proclivities, and underscoring the need to withhold support until they embrace more responsible positions. What I am belatedly discovering, as this campaign season is drawing to a close, is that while such concerns are not without merit, such efforts have ended up contributing to what may be an even bigger problem: the anger, frustration, cynicism, self-righteousness, isolation and other self-defeating tendencies on the left.
Millennial Apathy and a Possible President Trump
The Progressive September 28, 2016: Despite Hillary Clinton’s shellacking of Donald Trump in Monday’s debate, polls show the presidential race remains disturbingly close.
Republicans, Democrats alike still level threats at Iran
National Catholic Reporter, August 15, 2016
(Also in the Huffington Post and Common Dreams)
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal should have curbed the longstanding bellicose rhetoric coming from Republican and Democratic political leaders toward the Muslim country. Signed by Iran, the U.S. and five other nations and ratified by the UN Security Council, the comprehensive agreement strictly limits Iran’s nuclear capabilities and subjects Iran to the most rigorous inspection regime in history. The result has been dramatically reduced regional tensions and the elimination of any potential threat to U.S. national security.
Interview: ‘Most Progressive Dem Platform in History’ Hawkish on Foreign Policy
The Progressive, Reddit, BillMoyers.com, July 27, 2016.
Also on WORTFM.org, August 4, 2016
(40-min., Zunes’s analysis segment begins at 11:00)
Defending Israel’s Attacks on Civilians—A Harbinger for Clinton’s Presidency?
The Progressive May 26, 2016 and his May 29 Tikkun column:
Bernie Sanders’ appointees to the platform committee, Cornel West and James Zogby, plan to challenge the party establishment’s uncritical support for an increasingly aggressive, right wing Israeli government… Hillary Clinton has repeatedly gone on record defending the IDF’s conduct.
Hillary and Bernie Part Ways on Israel
The Progressive April 18, 2016: In last week’s debate… Bernie Sanders reiterated both his longstanding position condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and supporting Israel’s right to self-defense. But he also declared that the killing of nearly 1,500 Palestinian civilians by Israel during that fifty-day conflict represented a “disproportionate” use of force… But Hillary Clinton refused to acknowledge Israel had done anything wrong.
The US role in the Honduras coup and subsequent violence
The National Catholic Reporter March 14, 2016: Thousands of indigenous activists, peasant leaders, trade unionists, journalists, environmentalists, judges, opposition political candidates, human rights activists, and others have been murdered since a 2009 military coup ousted the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya [who had] raised the minimum wage and provided free school lunches, milk for young children, pensions for the elderly, and additional scholarships for students. He built new schools, subsidized public transportation, and even distributed energy-saving light bulbs.
Hillary the Hawk
The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Winter 2016: Her hawkish views go well beyond her strident support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent occupation and counter-insurgency war. From Afghanistan to Western Sahara, she has advocated for military solutions to complex political problems, backed authoritarian allies and occupying armies, dismissed war crimes, and opposed political involvement by the UN and its agencies. TIME magazine’s Michael Crowley aptly summed up her State Department record in 2014…
On Hillary Clinton, Sexism, and U.S. Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy In Focus February 12 2016
After Bernie Sanders’ strong early primary showings, a few high-profile supporters of his rival Hillary Clinton have seized upon an explanation: sexism…
The Five Lamest Excuses for Hillary Clinton’s Vote to Invade Iraq
In These Times February 1, 2016: Also published in:
Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Consortium News, Democratic Underground, News.Alayham.com, Antiwar.com, Foreign Policy in Focus, My Trust In Conflict, Portside.org, RINF.com, Reddit, The Scott Horton Show radio, and referenced in other media. e.g., Mondoweiss.net.
The primary reasons Clinton gave for supporting President George W. Bush’s request for authorizing that illegal and unnecessary war have long been proven false. As a result, many Democratic voters are questioning — despite her years of foreign policy experience — whether Clinton has the judgment and integrity to lead.
Hillary Clinton’s strident opposition to the International Criminal Court
National Catholic Reporter January 18, 2016: Hillary Clinton’s support for Iraq war authorization effectively placed her in opposition to the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles forbidding such wars of aggression.
What We Can Expect From Hillary Clinton on Israel/Palestine
Truthout December 5, 2015 and republished in FreeList.org: Hillary Clinton’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq (a flagrant violation of the UN Charter) and Morocco’s illegal annexation of occupied Western Sahara, as well as her hostility toward the International Criminal Court and attacks against the UN and key agencies, raise concerns her election would bring a return to the Bush administration’s neoconservative rejection of longstanding international legal principles…
Obama’s Escalation in Syria
The Progressive November 5, 2015 [and the Huffington Post]
Obama’s plan to send up to 50 U.S. Special Forces to “train, advise and assist” armed militia fighting forces of the so-called “Islamic State” in Syria marks an escalation in U.S. military involvement and raises serious legal, political, strategic, ethical, and constitutional questions and may open the way to a far larger and dangerous military entanglements.