Truthout, May 3, 2021, by Stephen Zunes [ source]
In an apparent response to growing calls for making US aid to the Netanyahu government conditional on Israeli adherence to human rights law, 330 members of the US House of Representatives signed a letter late last month insisting that the $3.8 billion in annual military aid the United States provides Israel remain unconditional.
Category: Middle East
Middle East Overview
If Biden Wants to Protect Troops, He Should Bring Them Home — Not Bomb Syria
Truthout, March 2, 2021, by Stephen Zunes [source]
The US has bombed Syria more than 20,000 times over the past eight years, so last week’s attack on a border post in northeastern Syria, which killed 22 militiamen and apparently no civilians, may not seem surprising to some… it is nevertheless disappointing that President Biden appears determined to continue the failed policies of his predecessors… Some members of Congress challenged Biden’s authority to order such an attack, which contravenes both international law and the US Constitution.
Biden Bombs Iran-Backed Militias in Syria
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When a Ceasefire is Not Enough
Sojourners Magazine: The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan was an avoidable tragedy. The disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region has been populated since at least the second century B.C.E. by Armenians, one of the world’s oldest Christian civilizations. The Muslim Azeris and others have lived there and in neighboring areas for centuries as well, and the region was ethnically mixed (albeit majority Armenian) when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991…
Trump’s deal on Morocco’s Western Sahara annexation risks more global conflict
Washington Post December 13, 2020: Last week, President Trump formally recognized Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara as part of a deal to get Morocco to normalize relations with Israel. But Morocco’s claim on Western Sahara is rejected by the United Nations, the World Court, the African Union and a broad consensus of international legal scholars that consider the region a non-self-governing territory that must be allowed an act of self-determination. This is why no country had formally recognized Morocco’s takeover — until now…
Trump Recognized Morocco’s Illegal Occupation to Boost the Israeli Occupation
Truthout: On December 10, the US became the only country to formally recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony forcibly seized by Moroccan forces in 1975. Trump’s proclamation is directly counter to a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark World Court ruling calling for self-determination. Trump’s decision was a quid pro quo…
A Dangerous Move to Crack Down on Protests Against Israel
The Progressive, Dec. 4, 2020: Late last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. government finds the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign to be inherently “anti-Semitic.” He pledged to “immediately take steps to identify organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct and withdraw U.S. government support for such groups”…
Pompeo Embraced Israeli Settlements, But Democrats Also Paved the Way for It
Truthout, November 28, 2020: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has faced widespread international condemnation for his recent assertions that illegal Israeli settlements constructed in the occupied West Bank are somehow legal and part of Israel, and that products from these colonies on confiscated Palestinian land should be labeled as “Made in Israel”…unprecedented [but] the culmination of decades of bipartisan support for Israeli expansionism… Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention — to which both Israel and the United States are signatories — prohibits any occupying power from transferring “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
DNC Platform Condemns BDS But Not Israel’s Occupation of Palestine
Truthout August 7, 2020: The Biden-led Democratic Party’s foreign policy toward Israel and Palestine may more closely resemble that of Republicans than the Democratic rank-and-file… representatives on the committee were solid in their continued U.S. backing for Israel’s corrupt right-wing government… nearly 4 to 1…
Congressional Democrats Supported Violent Force Against Protesters in 2010
Truthout June 19, 2020: Congressional Democrats have begun speaking out against police-perpetrated killings as well as the use of excessive force against protesters and journalists… Democrats have even rejected the notion that if some members of an initially nonviolent crowd fight back when attacked by security forces, it legitimates the targeting of protesters or those recording the incident, much less justifying lethal force. However, 10 years ago this week, a majority of congressional Democrats defended Israel’s killing of 10 passengers and crew on the Mavi Marmara sailing as part of a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the besieged Gaza Strip. The Israelis shot and killed 10 people aboard the ship, including five not resisting… most in the head.
INTERVIEW: Biden’s Sponsorship of the Invasion of Iraq
The Scott Horton Show, Mar 12, 2020
[Skip ahead to 29:30 for Zunes’ segment]
Stephen Zunes talks about Joe Biden’s shameful history helping to advocate for the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003. These days he claims he was caught up in the aftermath of 9/11 and was simply mistaken about the intelligence, like everyone else who voted for the war. But Zunes reminds us that Biden was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at that time, with a Democratic-majority congress. With his influence, he probably could have stopped the war singlehandedly. If that weren’t enough, Zunes says that Biden was actually advocating “boots on the ground” to depose Saddam Hussein before 9/11. On this issue alone, Biden should be disqualified from the presidency…
Sudan’s Democratic Revolution: How They Did It
Reposted April 2020 from Inside Arabia by ICNC,
Nonviolence International and The Conversation
Conditions under Sudan’s oppressive autocratic regime did not fit into what Western analysts see as the right ones for a successful pro-democracy civil resistance movement and yet they have emerged victorious—for now. Among other things, its success points to perhaps the single most important factor: nonviolent discipline…
Worth the Price? Joe Biden and the Launch of the Iraq War
Joe Biden and the Launch of the Iraq War is a documentary short reviewing the role of then-Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) in leading the U.S. into the most devastating foreign policy blunder of the last 20 years. This 19-Minute documentary features observations by Dr. Stephen Zunes
[from minute 4:00-5:30; Posted Feb 21, 2020 by Mark Weisbrot.]
Klobuchar Has Pushed Extreme Right-Wing Policy on Israel/Palestine
Truthout February 14, 2020; reposted at Portside.org: Much of the media has been focusing on the rise of centrist Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar as a serious contender in the Democratic presidential primary. Many progressives criticize her positions on climate change, environment, economic inequality, social welfare, the criminal legal system and her surprisingly right-wing foreign policy perspectives.
Trump “Peace Plan” Too Extreme Even for Former Right-Wing Israeli Prime Minister
Truthout, February 12, 2020: In an extraordinary joint press conference at the UN, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert outlined their objections to Trump’s so-called “peace plan” [to] allow Israel to annex large swathes of territory conquered in the 1967 war that it has since illegally colonized with Israeli settlers [and] leave small noncontiguous enclaves of remaining Palestinian territory surrounded by a greatly expanded Israel…
INTERVIEWS: Trump ‘Peace Plan,’Middle East Update with Stephen Zunes
A “peace plan” for Israel-Palestine? War on Iran?
A way out of Afghanistan? East-West Conflict Over Syria?
Numerous tinderbox situations in the region are all made more dangerous by Trump’s impulsive, ill-informed actions.We take an authoritative look at the region’s many hot spots.
March 5, 2020 (58-min. video): Other Voices TV, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, hosted by Paul George, Director Emeritus, with Midpen Media Center, Palo Alto.
To the Brink of War with No Upside, January 17, 2020,
WhoWhatWhy.org Podcast interview with Stephen Zunes
Zunes debunks the Trump administration’s changing rationale for assassinating Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s response, and the risk of war. Among Zunes’s intriguing claims:
- Too little is said about Democrats’ role in the hostilities
- Exactly the same beefs the US has with Iran apply equally to many American allies
- Evidence does not support Trump’s key assertions about the Iranian general whose death he ordered.
Interview: Today’s US-Iran Crisis Is Rooted in the Decision to Invade Iraq
Truthout January 20, 2020. Listen at ScottHorton.org.
The ramifications of the illegal, unnecessary and predictably tragic U.S. decision to invade Iraq are still with us. This includes the ongoing crisis with Iran, which brought us perilously close to all-out war in early January, resulted in the tragic downing of a civilian airliner and remains in a hair-trigger situation..
Interview: Proof that Soleimani killed hundreds of Americans is “groundless”
There Is Zero Actual Evidence Iran Is Responsible for Killing Hundreds of Americans
TheProgressive.org, January 7, 2020 & Republished by:
CommonDreams.org, RadioFree.org, and GVWire.com (Fresno).
Trump’s Recognition of Israeli Settlements Is Rooted in Bipartisan Support
The Progressive, November 21, 2019: Three previous U.S. administrations all ignored the gross power asymmetry between the Palestinians under occupation and the Israeli occupiers—an imbalance compounded by the fact that as the chief mediator in negotiations, the U.S. is also the primary military, economic, and diplomatic supporter of the occupying power. [T]he illegality of the settlements couldn’t be clearer. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention…