Can U.S. Citizens End Israel’s Legal Impunity?

YES! Magazine November 21, 2012. Republished by Baltimore Nonviolence Center, Common Dreams, Transcend.org and Transnational.org: The great wish of the early Zionist leader Theodor Herzl was that Israel would be treated like “any other state.” Were that the case, there might be more rational and productive discourse regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is particularly critical in light of Israel launching yet another devastating attack against civilian-populated areas.

Remembering George McGovern

Truthout October 22, 2012. Also see Zunes’ article in Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and 1993 interview with McGovern in The Progressive.
Getting to know George McGovern – who died Sunday morning at age 90 – as a friend, collaborator, co-author and co-teacher has been among my proudest, and most fulfilling experiences. As a 15-year-old high school sophomore, I volunteered for his 1972 presidential campaign. McGovern won my county (one of the few in the South that went Democratic that year), but lost the state and the nation in a near-record landslide, thanks in large part to attacks by the right wing of the Democratic Party during the primaries and the dirty tricks by the campaign of incumbent President Richard Nixon during the fall campaign. These illegal acts, along with the resulting cover-ups, eventually led to impeachment procedures that forced Nixon’s resignation…

The Case Against War: Ten Years Later

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Sept. 11, 2012.
By Stephen Zunes. Republished by: Common Dreams, Transnational.org, The American Bear, and Promised Land Museum.
“Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website, in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war. At the request of the editors of The Nation – the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States – I wrote a version entitled “The Case Against War,” which appeared on their website September 12, 2002, and as the cover story of the September 30 issue. It became one of the most widely circulated articles in the magazine’s 147-year-old history. Every congressional office received multiple copies. In the articles, I correctly predicted that an invasion would result in sectarian violence, terrorism, Islamist extremism, and a bloody counterinsurgency war that would be the most elaborate and expensive deployment of U.S. forces since the Second World War…”

Democratic Leaders Undermine Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Their Own Procedures

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Sept. 6, 2012.
By Stephen Zunes. Also by Antiwar.com, Reddit and Transnational.org.
In a stunning violation of its own rules, the wishes of the majority of delegates at its national convention, and positions taken by the UN and virtually every other country, Democratic Party leadership pushed through a platform amendment with barely half the delegates present and, allowing for no discussion or debate, stating, Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel,” and should be “undivided”…

U.S. Shares Responsibility for Rachel Corrie’s Death

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012. by Stephen Zunes; Republished by Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, Eurasia Review, Transnational.org, and others. On August 28, an Israeli court rejected a civil lawsuit against Israeli occupation forces for the 2003 murder of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist killed in the Gaza Strip, upholding a severely flawed internal Israeli military investigation. Amnesty International strongly condemned the decision…

U.S. in No Position to Condemn Alleged Russian Transfer of Helicopter Gunships to Syrian Regime

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 13, 2012.
Republished by National Catholic Reporter & ZNetwork
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has claimed that “there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria,” though the Russian government denies the accusation. If true, it would be highly disturbing, given the Syrian regime’s widespread use of such weapons against unarmed civilians. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have called for an immediate end of arms transfers to the Syrian regime, particularly of weapons that have been used to target civilians… Thousands of Salvadoran civilians are believed to have been killed by U.S.-supplied helicopter gunships during the 1980s…

Congress Pushes for War with Iran

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies June 13, 2012.
Republished by National Catholic Reporter & ZNetwork
In another resolution apparently designed to prepare for war against Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 401–11 vote, has passed a resolution (HR 568) urging the president to oppose any policy toward Iran “that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat…” Indeed, the rush to pass this bill appears to have been designed to undermine the ongoing international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program…

Obama, Palestine, and the United Nations

Tikkun magazine, March 2, 2012: For the Palestinian Authority to win UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, it would have to overcome major hurdles presented by the Obama administration. Back in 1948, Israel achieved its independence through a U.S.-backed UN General Assembly resolution. Credit: Ramzy Taweel (Cartoon Movement). For those of us who hoped that President Barack Obama would usher in a new era supporting international law, the United Nations, and Israeli-Palestinian peace, 2011 proved to be a profoundly disappointing year.
[Also archived at Duke University Press]

Iraq: Remembering Those Responsible

Truthout Published 1 January 2012: Also at Common Dreams, Transnational.org, Peace and Justice Post and ZNetwork
The formal withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this month has led to a whole series of retrospectives on the invasion and the eight and a half years of occupation that followed as well as a host of unanswered questions.. of critical importance at this juncture is that we not allow the narratives on the war to understate its tragic consequences or those responsible for the war — both Republicans and Democrats — to escape their responsibility…

Obama Ad Condemns Israel Aid Opponents

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
December 14, 2011 and at Common Dreams.

An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, “Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!”
This struck me as odd for two reasons: First, it is disingenuous and misleading… Secondly, millions of Americans—particularly younger voters—support zeroing out aid to Israel on human rights grounds.

Obama to Aid Uzbek Dictatorship

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies November 9, 2011, By Stephen Zunes. Also: Eurasia Review, Truthout, Huffington Post, Antiwar.com and Scott Horton Show: The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, in a move initiated by the Obama administration, has voted to waive Bush-era human rights restrictions on military aid to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on the planet…