Category: Israel and Palestine

Israel and Palestine

Opposition to Israeli occupation consistent with other human rights struggles

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Santa Cruz Sentinel, February 6, 2015
In my late teens, I was active in the movement opposing South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia, calling for boycotts and divestment of companies supporting the occupation and sanctions against the occupying power. I was involved in similar efforts during the 1990s against the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. These movements played a role in winning these countries their freedom. More recently, I have supported boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. Many of us who have been involved in such campaigns over the years including UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Angela Davis, the speaker at this year’s Martin Luther King convocation, now support boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the Israeli occupation…

Gaza and the Bipartisan War on Human Rights

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Foreign Policy In Focus, October 17, 2014
[Republished by Counterpunch, Lobe Log, Militarist-Monitor, and URUKNET.info]
During and after Israel’s war on Gaza, bipartisan congressional majorities have worked to undermine war crimes investigations by the UN and human rights groups. Yet Americans found Israel’s seven weeks of attacks to be disproportionate and unnecessary, killing up to 1,500 Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Don’t Blame the Iraq Debacle on the Israel Lobby

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Santa Cruz Sentinel March 29, 2013 | UPDATED: Sept. 11, 2018
[Republished by Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and Truthout] This month’s 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq raised the question  why the U.S. made such a tragic choice. As many of us argued in the lead-up to the war, claims that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” the Iraqi government had operational ties to al-Qaida were false. Similarly, the corrupt and repressive sectarian government the U.S. helped establish in Baghdad has undermined any pretense the war was about promoting democracy.

The No State Solution (video)

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Alternative Focus video September 10, 2012
   The No State Solution is the latest contribution from Alternate Focus to examine the Israeli-Palestine conflict. This 28-minute video first explores political barriers to any solution, and then possible resolutions. The video features interviews with Dr. Stephen Zunes (Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco), Miko Peled (author of “The General’s Son”), and Jeff Warner (Jewish peace activist in Los Angeles and author of this review), interleaved with the filmmakers narrative are abundant modern and archival clips… [Also at YouTube]

U.S. policy at U.N. hurts prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace

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Full Article. [Source is no longer available. Related links].
Up until the mid-20th century, the time at which nonwhite, non-Western nations could be free, their specific boundaries and the conditions of their independence could only be gained through negotiations between the colonial occupiers and approved representatives of the conquered peoples. It was not the purview of the UN or any other international legal authority to adjudicate such matters, since the rights of those in the colonies were limited to what was willingly agreed to by the colonizers.

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

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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.

Democratic Leaders Undermine Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Their Own Procedures

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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”…

California State Assembly Seeks to Stifle Debate on Israel

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Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012. Republished by Huffington Post, Transnational.org, et al. The California State Assembly has just passed a bipartisan resolution (HR 35) by voice vote, which constitutes a serious attack on academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty to raise awareness about human rights abuses by U.S.-backed governments. While purporting to put the legislature on record in opposition to anti-Semitism on state university campuses, it defines anti-Semitism so widely as to include legitimate political activities in opposition to Israeli government policies.

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

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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…