Category: Human Rights

Hamas’ control of Gaza brought on by US policy

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Zunes’s letter to the editor in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept. 4, 2025
Hamas’ control of Gaza brought on by US policy
Many thanks to Tim McGirk (Guest Commentary, Aug. 21) for his open letter to Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who continues to support Trump’s policy of facilitating Israel’s war and famine on the civilian population of Gaza. The former Time magazine Jerusalem bureau chief correctly noted a number of Panetta’s dishonest appraisals of the situation.
     Unfortunately, McGirk’s review of Gaza’s history may have led some readers to believe the people of that territory elected Hamas to rule them. While this extremist Islamist party did win a plurality in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, they shared governance with the moderate Fatah party until 2007, when the Bush administration pushed Fatah to forcibly remove Hamas from government.
     In a brief civil war, Hamas was defeated in the West Bank, but was able to violently seize power in Gaza, where they have tragically remained in power ever since. If the Bush administration hadn’t kept supporting Israel’s occupation and settlements (thereby weakening the moderates) and hadn’t meddled in internal Palestinian politics, Hamas’s control of Gaza and the subsequent horrors would never have occurred.
—Stephen Zunes, Santa Cruz

Interview: Rabbis protest of ongoing genocide in Gaza and growing Jewish resistance

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KSQD Community Radio, August 18, 2025 [1-hour]:
Zunes and Rabbi Chaim Schneider discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the growing Jewish resistance to what is being done in their name.
On Monday, August 11, roughly 18 San Francisco Bay Area rabbis and cantors sat down in the street, after speaking in front of the barricaded Israeli Consulate building, in opposition to Netanyahu’s plan to re-occupy the Gaza Strip and to express dismay at the unrelieved starvation and suffering of the people of Gaza and all hostages–on both sides–enforced by the Israeli and U.S. governments. The civil disobedience action yielded no arrests, although the group escalated from blocking Montgomery Street to sitting in the intersection of Montgomery and Sacramento for approximately half an hour of singing and prayer.

A Two-Year Road to Genocide. Israel-Palestine Conflict. Its Past, Present, and Future.

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Wyoming Star, August 13, 2025, ByJoe Yans, quoting Stephen Zunes
Stephen Zunes: … This is not a religious conflict, first and foremost, and that hasn’t stopped extremists, both Jewish and Muslim, from trying to turn it into one. Not to mention some Christian fundamentalists in the West. But in these two competing nationalisms, Israel ultimately won. And while Zionism for Jews was a national liberation movement for historically oppressed people, like many of the nationalist movements arising during the late 19th Century, it felt more like a colonial settler enterprise, like the French in Algeria or the British in Rhodesia… And because of the support from the West and their own technological prowess, the Israelis have had the upper hand, not only claiming 78% of historic Palestine in the First War, which led to the fleeing and expulsion of the majority of the indigenous Palestinian population, but, since 1967, they’ve had effective control of the rest of Palestine, giving the Palestinian Authority these tiny urban enclaves, surrounded by Israeli settlements…

Webinar: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a Partner in the Crime of Genocide

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Arab Organization for Human Rights, UK, August 8, 2025, sponsored this panel on the misnamed “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” the ongoing massacres, and the political implications, featuring: Zunes, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, former GHF contractor Anthony Aguilar, and three physicians who have worked in Gaza. See Zunes’s ten-minute segment here (or below, starting at 1:09:00)

Bipartisan US Push Tries to Label Democratic African Government as “Terrorist”

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Truthout, August 2, 2025, By Stephen Zunes [podcast & source]
The UN treats the Polisario as the legitimate representative of the Western Sahara people. Washington’s designation of armed groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) has always been politicized, but it may now reach a new level of absurdity thanks to a bipartisan resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced by Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) and Jimmy Panetta (D-California), targeting the Frente Polisario, the government of Western Sahara, officially known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Morocco, an important U.S. ally, invaded Western Sahara in 1975 on the eve of its independence from Spain and currently occupies nearly 80 percent of the territory…

France to Break Away from UK and US While Recognizing Palestine as a Nation State

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Inter Press Service, UN April 18, 2025, Quoted by Thalif Deen [source]
    “Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the UN, told IPS it is rather bizarre that State Department spokesperson Bruce would bring up Hamas, which is a rebel Palestinian group openly challenging the internationally-recognized government of the Palestine Authority (PA), in a question about recognition of the state of Palestine.
    And the PA, he pointed out, had nothing to do with the October 7 terrorist attacks. It is revealing, however, that she emphasized the so-called Abraham Accords, which are designed to get Arab states to unilaterally recognize Israel instead of doing so in return for Israel ending the occupation and allowing for an independent Palestine, which has historically been the position of Arab governments.
    Putting Bruce’s bizarre response aside, however, the Trump administration’s policy is not that different from that of the Biden administration. Biden, like Trump, opposed any recognition of Palestine by the United Nations or any member state.
    One year ago, under Biden, the United States vetoed an otherwise-unanimous UN Security Council resolution recommending full membership for Palestine. It even claimed the International Criminal Court had no jurisdiction regarding war crimes committed from or on Palestinian territory because Palestine was not a state.
  The United States has long insisted that the only way a Palestinian state should be recognized was under terms agreed to by the Israeli government, despite the fact that the Israeli government has categorically ruled out Palestinian statehood, declared Dr Zunes…”

A Long Legacy of Hypocrisy on Occupations

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The Progressive March 6, 2025 (Please share widely)
[source] While concurring that the outrage over Trump’s support for Putin is quite appropriate, Zunes notes how administrations of both parties have supported invasions and occupations when the aggressor has been an ally, thereby weakening our ability to stand up to Russian aggression. His earlier articles on Ukraine include: