The Progressive April 18, 2016: In last week’s debate… Bernie Sanders reiterated both his longstanding position condemning Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and supporting Israel’s right to self-defense. But he also declared that the killing of nearly 1,500 Palestinian civilians by Israel during that fifty-day conflict represented a “disproportionate” use of force… But Hillary Clinton refused to acknowledge Israel had done anything wrong.
Category: Israel and Palestine
Israel and Palestine
Bipartisan Congressional efforts to support Israeli settlements and expansionism
The National Catholic Reporter February 29, 2016: The expansion of territory by military force is prohibited under the U.N. Charter, and the Israeli settlements are considered illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, a series of UN Security Council resolutions, and a landmark advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice…
What We Can Expect From Hillary Clinton on Israel/Palestine
Truthout December 5, 2015 and republished in FreeList.org: Hillary Clinton’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq (a flagrant violation of the UN Charter) and Morocco’s illegal annexation of occupied Western Sahara, as well as her hostility toward the International Criminal Court and attacks against the UN and key agencies, raise concerns her election would bring a return to the Bush administration’s neoconservative rejection of longstanding international legal principles…
Chancellor’s opposition to student resolution problematic
Santa Cruz Sentinel December 4, 2015: UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal, in an all-campus mailing sent out Nov. 19, expressed his opposition to a recently passed resolution by the Student Union Assembly in a manner which has raised serious concerns among supporters of corporate responsibility and academic freedom.
Why Netanyahu Needs Holocaust Revisionism and Israeli-Palestinian Violence
The Progressive October 27, 2015 [Also by the Huffington Post]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s October 20 speech claiming Hitler had not planned to exterminate Jews until a prominent Palestinian cleric pressured him to do so, while outrageous, is consistent with the longstanding narrative of the right-wing government and its U.S. supporters.
Bipartisan Attacks Against Anti-occupation Divestment Campaigns
National Catholic Reporter September 8, 2015
[Republished by the Huffington Post & PeaceandJustice.org]
In April, the student senate at Earlham College, a Quaker liberal arts institution in Indiana, approved a resolution by consensus recommending the college endowment divest from three U.S. companies (Motorola, Hewlett Packard and Caterpillar) which directly support the Israeli occupation in violation of international law. The resolution (thus far ignored by the college’s board of trustees) follows decisions by a number of Quaker-affiliated organizations — as well as the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, and other nonprofit groups — to divest from these companies. The response was swift…
The Troubling Implications of Hillary’s Anti-BDS Letter
Foreign Policy In Focus July 10, 2015
[Republished by Arab America, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux, the Huffington Post, Tablet Magazine, Truthout, and ZNetwork.org] On July 2, Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, a strong supporter of the right-wing Netanyahu government, denouncing human rights activists who support boycott/divestment/sanctions (BDS) against the Israeli occupation.
Interview: KPFA’s “Up Front” on Netanyahu’s speech before Congress and U.S.-Israeli relations (Audio)
KPFA March 4, 2015: Dr. Stephen Zunes’ segment begins at 36 minutes.
Netanyahu Still Swaying U.S. Congress
The Progressive, March 4, 2015: Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress on March 3 was rare and unprecedented in many ways.
• It constituted a major breach of protocol
• It took place just two weeks prior to national elections in the foreign leader’s home country
• Most strikingly, Netanyahu is the only foreign leader to have been invited to address a joint session of Congress with the express purpose of undermining U.S. foreign policy…
Opposition to Israeli occupation consistent with other human rights struggles
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…
The Latest Blow to Israeli-Palestinian Peace
Foreign Policy In Focus and Antiwar.com January 13, 2015
The Obama administration is responsible for the defeat of a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for a “just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Gaza and the Bipartisan War on Human Rights
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.
Netanyahu’s Ugly Game in Gaza
The Progressive and Transnational.org July 9, 2014
The right-wing Israeli government took advantage of the murder of three Israeli teen members of an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Back to whip up ultra-nationalist sentiments, engage in a new wave of repression in the occupied West Bank.
U.S. Culpability in the Failure of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
Foreign Policy In Focus June 5, 2014, also by Huffington Post and Uruknet, then a revised version July 6 by the Santa Cruz Sentinel, republished by Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, FreedomsPhoenix, and Znetwork.org
How the state Assembly tries to limit what I can teach
The Santa Cruz Sentinel & Transnational.org January 25, 2014
In preparing my syllabus for my introductory course on the Middle East this semester, it gives me pause the California Assembly is still on record declaring that discussing certain well-documented historic incidents in modern Middle Eastern history should “not be tolerated in the classroom.”
Attacks against anti-occupation activism increase
National Catholic Reporter, July 22, 2013
A version was also published by the Santa Cruz Sentinel July 12 as “California legislators attack UC anti-occupation activists.”
Israel, Syria and the United States
Truthout May 13, 2013: Zunes’s review of the last decade of Israel, Syria and US relations — culminating in Israel’s latest bombing raid on Syria — details cross-purposes and missed opportunities.
More Zunes Syria articles.
More Zunes Syria articles.
Interview: Scope of Syrian War Widens Following Deadly Israeli Strikes on Damascus (audio)
Free Speech Radio News May 6, 2013
Last week’s Israeli airstrikes [killed] least 100 Syrian soldiers… a UN human rights commission investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria said it had “no conclusive findings.” Read Stephen Zunes’s article, “The US Has No Credibility Dealing With Chemical Weapons”
Last week’s Israeli airstrikes [killed] least 100 Syrian soldiers… a UN human rights commission investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria said it had “no conclusive findings.” Read Stephen Zunes’s article, “The US Has No Credibility Dealing With Chemical Weapons”
Don’t Blame the Iraq Debacle on the Israel Lobby
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.
Israel’s settlements outside official border flout international law
National Catholic Reporter January 19, 2013
In mid-December, Israeli officials approved plans for the construction of more than 2,600 new homes to be built on Givat Hamatos, a hill on the outskirts of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. This settlement would be the first major new Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem outside of Israel’s internationally recognized borders since 1997…