Category: Israel and Palestine

Israel and Palestine

Video: Israelis continue to say no to war.

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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?

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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

No Iranian threat ‘other than having US regional interests challenged’

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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

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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

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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…”

Missed Opportunity on Iran

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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!

US Policy Toward Israel/Palestine Under Trump

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Americans for Middle East Understanding, April 27, 2025
The Trump administration will certainly take a more hardline policy in support of Israel’s right-wing leadership and in opposition to Palestinian rights. Given President Biden’s strident support for Netanyahu’s wars on Palestinian and Lebanese populations, which had already isolated the United States in the international community, the shift in policy will probably be less dramatic than on practically any other major political issue.

Interviews: The Israel-Iran War, June 2025

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*Al Jazeera English, June 19, 2025 [source no longer available]
*For a Bay Area TV network affiliate, KTVU, June 13, 2025
*A 50-minute interview for a British podcast
*A ten-minute interview for a radio show/podcast in upstate New York
*For a national Indian news show, June 13
(along with a pro-war Wall Street Journal reporter):
*A 50-minute interview with a New Zealand radio show and podcast, June 17, hosted by an American expat (in which I also talk about Gaza and about Trump and the resistance)