KTVU July 21, 2025, Bay Area network affiliate [begins at 2:00]
As fears of hunger in Gaza grow, countries are calling for an end to the war. In a joint statement on Monday. Twenty-five nations have described recent deaths in the territory as “horrifying.” Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, on how this statement could impact Israel.
Category: Israel and Palestine
Israel and Palestine
Interview: Israel’s Attacks on Syria
KALW Radio, San Francisco, July 17, 2025, on Israel’s attacks on Syria and related developments.
Interviews: Israel, Syria, Gaza developments and ongoing mass killing
KPFA-FM Pacifica Network, July 19, 2025: Zunes
discusses Israel, Syria, Gaza, and other recent developments
[segment starts at 12:30] and July 13 on mass killing
[segment starts at 13:15; Note: Each broadcast must
load before you can drag the pointer to when it begins]
Interview: What’s the real motive behind Israel’s involvement in Syria?
Al Jazeera English Inside Story July 17, 2025 (16.5M subscribers):
Zunes joins a Syrian and Israeli analyst on latest developments in Israel’s war on Syria.
Video: Israelis continue to say no to war.
Zunes Facebook Video July 17, 2025: Meanwhile, the Trump administration and the leadership of both parties in Congress continue to say yes. As the U.S./Israeli-imposed famine on Gaza increases, I keep getting solicitations to contribute to Democratic candidates who insist on arming and funding Israel’s siege, bombing, and occupation. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership refuses to support their party’s nominee for New York City mayor who opposes such war crimes…
Video: What are the chances of a Gaza ceasefire deal soon?
CNA (Channel News Asia) July 6, 2025 (9 mins.)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said July 6 he hoped an upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump could “help advance” a Gaza ceasefire deal, after sending negotiators to Doha for indirect talks with Hamas. Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and director of the Middle Eastern studies program at the University of San Francisco, discusses on CNA’s Asia First why he believes a lasting ceasefire in Gaza remains unlikely.
CNA.Asia & CNA YouTube channel
US Threatens UN Members Seeking Two-State Solution to Israeli-Palestine Conflict
Inter Press Service, UN June 13 2025 (IPS) By Thalif Deen [source]
Zunes quoted on the extreme efforts the Trump administration is taking to prevent the emergence of even a Palestinian mini-state alongside Israel, including threats of “diplomatic consequences” against countries if they attend a UN conference on a two-state solution
Interview: Iran and the U.S. Now
July 3, 2025, Pacifica Radio/KPFA: Zunes discusses Iran and the United States following the latest bombing and war in a wide-ranging interview (starts at 5:40)
Interview: Updates on the Iran-Israel War: Conversations with Leading Analysts
Counterpunch July 1, 2025: Zunes discusses the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran along with Professors Richard Falk and Lawrence Davidson.
Interviews: U.S. bombing of Iran and ceasefire
Aired June 23-27, 2025, KTVU-2, Bay Area Fox affiliate:
3 interviews analyzing the U.S. bombing of Iran and the subsequent ceasefire
Authoritarianism and Resistance: What the World Can Teach Us
May 17, 2025, Stephen Zunes’s keynote
address at the 2025 Western Washington
Fellowship of Reconciliation Spring Assembly
Interview: Middle East expert weighs in on Iran-Israel conflict and ceasefire
KTVU Fox TV-2, Bay Area station, June 24, 2025
following yesterday’s ceasefire announcement.
Interview: Iran and ongoing violence, the broader context
WORT-FM Madison, WS, June 24, 2025:
Negin Owliaei and Zunes examine the U.S. war on Iran and its broader context. (55 mins.)
Interview: Israel, Iran and the U.S.
Santita Jackson Show Sunday, June 22, 2025 [Second Hour]
Also see Zunes’s Facebook notes on Iran, Israel and Palestine
Interview: CBS on US bombs Iran
CBS Bay Area affiliate KPIX June 22, 2025 [10 mins.]
Zunes argues why the action was unnecessary and what the implications for the future might be.
No Iranian threat ‘other than having US regional interests challenged’
Al Jazeera June 22, 2025 [source], 3-minute video,
also World News, Virtual Jerusalem, Israel Insider, Ticker:
Zunes says the suggestion that Iran posed any kind of threat to the US is “totally nonsense”… “Iran has no capabilities of reaching the United States with its missiles or other kinds of weaponry… And if the concern was about their nuclear programme eventually being militarised to make nuclear weapons, Trump would not have destroyed” the 2015 nuclear deal… “I have a feeling he’s been wanting to launch war on Iran for some time…” contrary to what Trump had campaigned on… [Iran has] “a number of options… They can attack US forces directly. There are up to 40,000 Americans within the range, not just of Iranian missiles but of drones and other weaponry… You have the fleet in the Persian Gulf, just off the Iranian coast. They can be vulnerable as well if they attack… it could impact global shipping, impacting oil prices and indeed the entire global economy… You also have proxy militias in Iraq who could target American bases there… So there are a number of ways American forces could be vulnerable, and I would be surprised if the Iranians don’t target at least some of these.”
The fallout of Trump’s Iran strike
The Daily Star, Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 22, 2025, [source]
[Quoting Stephen Zunes] According to Stephen Zunes, director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, Iran, too, “has a number of options” at its disposal. “They can attack US forces directly. There are up to 40,000 Americans within range, not just of Iranian missiles but of drones and other weaponry. The fleet in the Persian Gulf, just off the Iranian coast, is also vulnerable to Iranian attacks, and that could impact global shipping, oil prices, and indeed the entire global economy.” The proxy militias in Iraq could also “target American bases there.” And so, there are “a number of ways that American forces could be vulnerable,” and it would be surprising “if the Iranians don’t target at least some of these.” [source]
Interview: Trump Bombs Three Nuclear Sites in Iran
Civic Media Breaking News Jnne 21, 2025
[24 mins., also on Facebook and YouTube]
Civic Media carried a special report Saturday evening, anchored by Todd Allbaugh and joined by Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. He serves as founding director of the school’s Middle Eastern Studies Program, and is widely-regarded as one of the country’s leading scholars on U.S. Middle East policy.
“Since Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, they’ve not been limited in terms of reprocessing, so they have developed isotopes to a point where they could go in that direction within a couple years,” said Zunes. “But the idea that this was some kind of imminent threat that required military action at this time is nonsense. Not just because they could simply go back to the Iran Nuclear Deal, but even without that, they’re some time away from that…”
Interview: Why Israel Can’t Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Program: Conversation With Professor Zunes
Missed Opportunity on Iran
The Progressive June 19, 2025 and June 21 at
PeaceandJustice.org & SmirkingChimp.com as
Trump (and Biden) Could Have Forestalled War With Iran If They Wanted.
How the war on Iran isn’t really about containing Iran’s nuclear program, since staying in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and other diplomatic efforts would have made it physically impossible for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. Please circulate, share by email or any of the icon links below!