Huffington Post October 11, 2010. Also by ZNetwork.
Once again, as President Barack Obama began pressuring the right-wing Israeli government to freeze the expansion of its illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, leading Congressional Democrats have joined in with Republicans to try to stop him.
Category: Israel and Palestine
Israel and Palestine
Pavlovian Congress Jumps to Israel’s ‘Self-’ Defense
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 25, 2010, also in Znetwork.org
In a letter to President Barack Obama date June 17, 329 out of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives referred to Israel’s May 31 attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla in international waters, which resulted in the deaths of nine passengers and crew and injuries to scores of others, as an act of “self-defense” which they “strongly support.” Similarly, a June 21 Senate letter — signed by 87 out of 100 senators — went on record “fully” supporting what it called “Israel’s right to self-defense,” claiming that the widely supported effort to relieve critical shortages of food and medicine in the besieged Gaza Strip was simply part of a “clever tactical and diplomatic ploy” by “Israel’s opponents” to “challenge its international standing.”
Israel’s Dubious Investigation of Flotilla Attack
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies June 24, 2010: Also by OpEdnews.com, Common Dreams, Huffington Post & Znetwork
Few decisions of the Obama administration have outraged the peace and human rights community as much as its successful efforts to block an international inquiry into May’s Israeli aid flotilla attack. Instead, supported by leading Republican and Democratic members of Congress, the Obama administration has thrown its weight behind an investigative committee handpicked by right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu… [source]
Democratic Party Defends Israeli Attack
OpEdNews Op Eds, June 16, 2010, and Common Dreams
Tens of thousands of Israelis protested in the streets of Tel Aviv last weekend against their right-wing government’s attack on an unarmed humanitarian aid flotilla sailing in international waters. International condemnation of the raids continued in foreign capitals. Meanwhile, in Washington, Democratic congressional leaders were lining up alongside their Republican colleagues to defend the Israeli assault. Countering the broad consensus of international legal scholars who recognize that the attack was in flagrant violation of international norms, prominent Democrats embraced the Orwellian notion that Israel’s raid, which killed at least nine activists and wounded scores of others, was somehow an act of self-defense… [source]
Will the Flotilla Attack Be Our “Kent State” Moment?
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 7, 2010;
also CommonDreams, ZNetwork & Baltimore Nonviolence Center blog
Israel’s attack on the unarmed flotilla last weekend could be a “Kent State moment.” When white middle-class students were gunned down on a college campus, it woke up a whole new segment of American society to police killings of minority students. Similarly, while the Israeli military has been killing Arab civilians for years, now that they have attacked European and American peace activists it has created a whole new dynamic. [source]
U.S. Support for Israel Mirrors 80s Support for El Salvador Junta
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
June 3, 2010; also Huffington Post & ZNetwork
It’s like the 1980s all over again. During that decade, the Reagan administration – with the support of Congress – sent billions of dollars worth of unconditional military and other support to the right wing-junta in El Salvador, just as the Obama administration is today with the right-wing government in Israel. When Salvadoran forces massacred 700 civilians in El Mozote, Congressional leaders defended the killings, saying that the U.S-backed operation was “fighting terrorists.” Similarly, when Israel massacred over 700 civilians in the Gaza Strip early last year, Congressional leaders defended the killings for the same reason. [source]
Israel’s Latest Violation
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 2, 2010; also Antiwar.com, CommonDreams, Huffington Post, OpEd News, Truthout & ZNetwork
Every time Israel’s right-wing government engages in yet another outrageous violation of international legal norms, it is easy to think, “No way are they going to get away with it this time!” And yet, thanks to the White House, Congress and leading American pundits, somehow, they do. Israel’s attack on an unarmed flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels in the eastern Mediterranean — resulting in more than a dozen fatalities, the wounding of scores of passengers and crew, and the kidnapping of 750 others — has so far proven no different. [source]
Interview: Gaza Freedom Flotilla Attack (audio)
Talk Nation Radio: Listen at Archive.org
The Gaza War, Congress and International Humanitarian Law
Middle East Policy Council April 16, 2010; also Institute for Palestine Studies, ResearchGate, Typeset.io & Wiley
The large-scale killing of civilians during Israel’s three-week assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09 received widespread condemnation from human-rights advocates and international legal scholars the world over. In both Europe and North America, public reaction to the grossly disproportionate Israeli response to Hamas rocket attacks was the most negative ever expressed against an Israeli military action. In Israel itself, soldiers who had witnesses some of the atrocities joined Israeli peace activists in exposing war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). However, the U.S. Congress, under the leadership of the Democratic Party, overwhelmingly defended the Israeli offensive, even to the point of attacking leading defenders of international humanitarian law. [source]
John Hall: Still the One? Why Democrat John Hall does not deserve MoveOn endorsement
Alternet, March 8, 2010 and Huffington Post, May 10, 2010: In the face of expected Republican gains this year, receiving the support of MoveOn, one of the country’s largest progressive advocacy groups, is of particular importance for Democratic candidates. One of only a handful of House incumbents to receive the coveted endorsement by MoveOn’s political action committee is Democrat John Hall, who represents the 19th district in upstate New York. John Hall is the former frontman for the band Orleans (“Dance with Me,” “Still the One,” etc.).
Obama’s Human Rights Record a Disappointment
Bipartisan Attack on International Humanitarian Law
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
November 4, 2009 by Stephen Zunes; also at Alternet
In a stunning blow against international law and human rights, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution Tuesday attacking the report of the UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. The report was authored by the well-respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone and three other noted authorities on international humanitarian law, who had been widely praised for taking leadership in previous investigations of war crimes in Rwanda, Darfur, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Since this report documented apparent war crimes by a key U.S. ally, however, Congress has taken the unprecedented action of passing a resolution condemning it… [source]
The Goldstone Report: Killing the Messenger
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
October 7, 2009 by Stephen Zunes; also at Alternet
On October 1, the Obama administration successfully pressured the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to drop its proposal to recommend that the UN Security Council endorse the findings of the Goldstone Commission report. The report, authored by renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, detailed the results of the UNHRC’s fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. These findings included the recommendation that both Hamas and the Israeli government bring to justice those responsible for war crimes during the three weeks of fighting in late December and early January. If they don’t, the report urges that the case be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible prosecution. [source]
How Clinton and the Democrats Made Possible Israel’s Settlements Expansion
Huffington Post July 16, 2009 by Stephen Zunes [source]
President Barack Obama has inherited a difficult challenge in pushing Israel to end the expansion of its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. With the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically rejecting the idea of a freeze and with Democratic-controlled Congress ruling out using the billions of dollars of U.S. military aid to Israel as leverage, the situation remains deadlocked.
Will Democrats Finally End their Support for West Bank Settlements? (Part Two)
Huffington Post, July 10, 2009
(This is the second of a two part series: click here for part one)
Recent calls by President Barack Obama for the government of Israel to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank marks a sharp reversal from Democratic Party policy toward the Israeli colonization of Palestinian land. Indeed, for the past 20 years, Democrats in Washington have largely supported such Israeli expansionism in which Israeli occupation forces confiscate Palestinian land in territories seized in the June 1967 war to build Jewish-only communities… [source]
As Obama Tries to Shift the Debate, Will Democrats Continue to Endorse Israel’s Colonization of the West Bank
Alternet June 6, 2009 by Stephen Zunes [source]
President Barack Obama has inherited a difficult challenge in pushing Israel to end the expansion of its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. With the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically rejecting the idea of a freeze and with Democratic-controlled Congress ruling out using the billions of dollars of U.S. military aid to Israel as leverage, the situation remains deadlocked.
Defending Israeli War Crimes
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
May 28, 2009, by Emily Schwartz Greco and Stephen Zunes
In response to a series of reports by human rights organizations and international legal scholars documenting serious large-scale violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli armed forces in its recent war on the Gaza Strip, 10 U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the Israeli action. It is virtually unprecedented for state attorneys general — whose mandates focus on enforcement of state law — to weigh in on questions regarding the laws of war, particularly in a conflict on the far side of the world. More significantly, their statement runs directly counter to a broad consensus of international legal opinion that recognizes that Israel, as well as Hamas, engaged in war crimes. [source]
Pelosi the Hawk
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS April 27, 2009, by John Feffer & Stephen Zunes
Reports by international human rights groups and from within Israel in recent weeks have revealed the massive scale of war-crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law, committed by Israeli forces during their three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Despite this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has steadfastly stood by her insistence that the U.S.-backed Israeli government has no legal or moral responsibility for the tragic consequence of the war.
This is just one episode in a long history of efforts by Pelosi to undermine international humanitarian law, regarding actions by a country she has repeatedly referred to as America’s most important ally in the Middle East. It’s also part of her overall right-wing agenda in the Middle East. As the powerful Speaker of the House, Pelosi could very well undermine efforts by President Barack Obama in the coming years to moderate U.S. policy toward that volatile region. [source]
The Budget’s Foreign Policy Handcuffs
Foreign Policy In Focus, March 20, 2009 [source].
by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
Hopes that a Democratic administration with an expanded Democratic congressional majority might lead to a more ethical, rational, and progressive foreign policy were challenged with last week’s passage of the 2009 omnibus budget bill, which included many troubling provisions regarding the State Department and related diplomatic functions…
Presentation: Nonviolent Action in the Islamic World
Nonviolent-Conflict.org, March 11, 2010:
Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, discusses the long history of strategic nonviolent action throughout the Islamic world, in the Middle East and beyond. Based in part on the social contract implied in Islamic teachings which advocate the withdrawal of obedience from unjust authority, nonviolent civil insurrections have played a major role in the struggle for freedom and human rights for more than a century. Dr. Zunes, looks at case studies from Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, Western Sahara, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others…