U.S. policy on Gaza crisis rife with contradiction
The Obama administration’s reaction to last month’s Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip is emblematic of the contradictions in its foreign policy seen throughout its first term.
Category: Israel and Palestine
Israel and Palestine
The No State Solution (video)
Alternate Focus
Dr. Stephen Zunes is interviewed numerous times throughout the video
U.S. policy at U.N. hurts prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace
Up until the mid-20th century, Western attitudes regarding national freedom was that the independence of white Western nations was a given, but independence for nonwhite, non-Western nations could only be under conditions granted by the occupying powers.
Abetting the Carnage in Gaza
The November 22 ceasefire between Israeli and Hamas forces is a huge relief for the civilian population on both sides—the primary victims of the conflict. But the Obama administration’s unconscionable decision the previous week to block a ceasefire effort by the UN Security Council not only resulted in additional civilian deaths but also serves as an indication that, despite the president owing his re-election to the hard work of his progressive base, his foreign policy will continue to lean to the right.
Can U.S. Citizens End Israel’s Legal Impunity?
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 of nearby Arab lands.
Interview: The Palestine / Israel Conflict: The Root Causes of the Occupation and the US Involvement (audio)
KPFK
On Letters & Politics, Philip Maldari of KPFA speaks with Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies and Stephen Zunes professor at Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco about the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Lybia. Also Mitch Jeserich interviews Laurence Shoup author of Rulers & Rebels, A People’s History of Early California, 1769-1901.
Democratic Leaders Undermine Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Their Own Procedures
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…
California State Assembly Seeks to Stifle Debate on Israel
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 of 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
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, noting how “the verdict continues the pattern of impunity for Israeli military violations against civilians and human rights defenders in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The verdict shields Israeli military personnel from accountability and ignores deep flaws in the Israeli military’s internal investigation of Corrie’s death.”
Divesting from All Occupations
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies July 25, 2012. Republished by Transnational.org et al. In response to ongoing violations of international law and basic human rights by the rightist Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu in the occupied West Bank…
Interview: Arab Revolutions, U.S. Middle East Policy, Iran, and Israel-Palestine (audio)
Arab Voices Radio
A live discussion with professor Zunes about the current uprisings in the Middle East and nonviolent movements; the foreign intervention by the U.S., Europe, China, Russia and others in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other Arab countries; the ongoing war rhetoric against Iran by the U.S. and Israel; the recent H.R. resolution 4133 that passed by a vote of 411-2 described by Zunes as “a dangerous piece of legislation which would undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, weaken Israeli moderates and peace advocates, undercut international law, further militarize the Middle East, and make Israel ever more dependent on the United States”; the prospects for real peace in the Middle East; and much more.
Bipartisan Assault on Middle East Peace
29 May 2012 Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies Also: Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, Rise Up Times, Salem News (Oregon) and interviewed on The Scott Horton Show. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed 411-2 a dangerous piece of…
University of California Takes Aim at Human Rights Activists
From the Vietnam War to the Central American revolutions to apartheid South Africa to the East Timor occupation to the invasion of Iraq, university campuses have been an important venue for concerned scholars and activists to raise issues regarding human rights, international law and US foreign policy.
However, in an effort to stifle this tradition, University of California President Mark Yudof has launched a campaign targeting human rights activists and others challenging the Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank and other policies of the right-wing US-backed Israeli government.
Remembering Israel’s West Bank Offensive
Ten years ago this month, following a particularly deadly series of Palestinian terrorist attacks, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an assault on several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank. The Bush administration largely supported the Israeli offensive, even as hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands of young men were detained without charge amid widespread reports of torture.
Obama, Palestine, and the United Nations
For those of us who hoped that President Barack Obama would usher in a new era supporting international law, the United Nations, and Israeli-Palestinian peace, 2011 proved to be a profoundly disappointing year.
Obama Ad Condemns Israel Aid Opponents
An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, “Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!”
This struck me as odd for two reasons:
First, it is disingenuous and misleading. The actual position taken by these Republican presidential candidates is that all foreign aid should initially start at zero as means of reducing the deficit, to be immediately followed by the resumption of aid on a case-by-case basis. As they themselves have acknowledged, they would immediately resume aid to Israel and perhaps even increase it. Ironically, U.S. “aid for Israel” goes almost exclusively to U.S. arms manufacturers, with which the Republican candidates have a close relationship.
U.S. policy undermines moderate Palestinians
The Palestinians declared an independent state back in 1988, which has been recognized by more than 130 of the world’s nations. The Obama administration, however, insists that it is still too early for Palestine to be admitted into the United Nations.
Answering Obama’s UN Address
During the Bush administration, I wrote more than a dozen annotated critiques of presidential speeches. I have refrained from doing so under President Barack Obama, however, because – despite a number of disappointments with his administration’s policies — I found his speeches to be relatively reasonable. Although his September 21 address before the UN General Assembly contained a number of positive elements, in many ways it also contained many of the same kind of duplicitous and misleading statements one would have expected from his predecessor.
Congress and Its Colonialist Agenda
Up until the mid-20th century, Western attitudes regarding national freedom essentially went like this: the independence of white Western nations (Great Britain, France, the United States etc.) was a given. Independence for nonwhite, non-Western nations (such as those in Africa, the Middle East and Asia), however, could only be under conditions granted by the occupying powers. The time at which these nations could be free, their specific boundaries and the conditions of their independence could only be reached through negotiations between the colonial occupiers and representatives (if approved by the colonial powers) of the conquered peoples. It was not the purview of the League of Nations, the United Nations, or any other international legal authority to adjudicate such matters, so went the argument, since the rights of those in the colonies were limited to what was willingly agreed to by the colonizers.
Washington Okays Attack on Unarmed U.S. Ship
The Obama administration appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists — including a vessel with 50 Americans on board — bound for the besieged Gaza Strip. At a press conference on June 24, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Campaign by saying it would “provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.”