Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, July 1, 2000
[Source] It is not surprising that Jerusalem has become the sticking point in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Israeli refusal to share the city with the Palestinians and the Clinton administration’s refusal to push the Israelis to compromise make successful negotiations extremely difficult…
Category: Middle East
Middle East Overview
The U.S. Must Pressure Israel to Compromise
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, June 1, 2000
[Source] As the Clinton administration pushes for a high-level resumption of final status talks between Israelis and Palestinians, we are again hearing the mantra that both sides need to compromise, both sides cannot have everything they want and other familiar exhortations. This has been the administration’s approach since the singing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993. As seemingly reasonable as this search for a middle ground may be, however, it is fundamentally flawed…
U.S. Must Insist Israel Return to the Peace Talks and Withdraw from Lebanon
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, February 1, 2000
[Source] Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s decision to pull out of the peace talks with Syria is a shameless capitulation to Israel’s far right and raises serious questions as to whether the Israeli government is seriously interested in peace. President Clinton must demand that Israel return immediately to the negotiation table and come into full compliance with UN Security Council resolutions or risk an immediate cutoff of U.S. military and economic aid. The Israeli government broke off the talks following an attack by Lebanese guerrillas against Israeli occupation forces inside Lebanon…
The U.S. and the Israeli-Syrian Peace Process
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
February 1, 2000, by Stephen Zunes. Also at
TheFreeLibrary.com, February 15, 2000, and
updated at FPIF October 4 and 12, 2005 [source]
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Key Points
* The U.S. role as a superpower with strong strategic and economic interests in the region often conflicts with its role as mediator in the Israeli-Syrian peace process.
* Syria has moderated its once-belligerent posture toward the Israelis and is now closer to accepting the existence of Israel and living in peace.
* The United States has maintained its strong support for Israel’s negotiating position, even though Israel now takes a more hard-line posture than its autocratic neighbor.
U.S. Policy Hampers Chances for Israeli-Syrian Peace
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, December 1, 1999
There is little hope for real progress in the Israeli-Syrian peace talks unless the Clinton Administration is willing to uphold human rights and international law along with its commitment to Israel’s legitimate security needs. Since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, these issues have been at the heart of the dispute. [Source]
Iran: Time for Detente
Foreign Policy In Focus, November 1, 1999
by Stephen Zunes [Updated from FPIF.ORG January 23, 1997]
The strident anti-Americanism of Iran’s Islamic regime has been a direct consequence of past U.S. interference in Iranian internal affairs. Iran’s control by anti-Western elements has been a major obsession for U.S. policymakers, resulting in stringent economic sanctions and other measures. Despite recent reforms, the U.S. has been hesitant to forge closer relations with Iran due to lingering hostility to the Islamic government and a fear that supporting moderates would create a backlash against them. The ongoing struggle in Iran between Islamic reformers and Islamic hardliners, along with struggles within the U.S. foreign policy establishment between hawks and those seeking accommodation, has left U.S.-Iranian relations in a state of flux. A three-way power struggle…
U.S., Greece, and Turkey
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, November 1, 1999
[Source] President Bill Clinton’s visit to NATO allies Greece and Turkey is raising new questions about the ongoing strategic relationship the United States has with these two historic rivals, particularly in the light of the anti-American demonstrations which delayed and shortened the planned presidential visit. It was U.S. support of the pro-Western governments of these two countries in the late 1940s against a widely-perceived communist threat which most historians point to as the origins of the Cold War…
Continuing Storm: The U.S. Role in the Middle East
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, April 1, 1999
[Source] Throughout the centuries, Western nations have tried to impose their order on the region now commonly known as the Middle East. For certain periods of time they have succeeded, only to find themselves at the receiving end of a popular and oftentimes violent backlash. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph in the Gulf War, the United States stands—at least for a time—as the region’s dominant outside power…
The Strategic Functions of U.S. Aid to Israel
PDF: Middle East Policy, October 20, 1996
by Stephen Zunes [Download as plain text]
The United States aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world, or indeed, like any in history. In sheer volume, the amount of aid is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries, totaling $77.726 billion through fiscal year 1996.Foot note 2_1 No country has ever received as much Congressionally-mandated aid as has Israel, including South Vietnam. Indeed, Israel receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual GNP per capita of several Arab states, including Egypt, Mauritania, Sudan, Yemen and Morocco.Foot note 2_2 What is perhaps even more unusual is that Israel, like its benefactor, is an advanced, industrialized, technologically-sophisticated country, as well as a major arms exporter. This paper examines the nature and extent of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, the strategic roots of such a policy, how the relationship has been affected by the changing world order, the aid policy of the Clinton Administration, its military component, its impact on Israel, the debate within both Israel and the United States, and the impact of aid on the Middle East peace process….
The Dangers of Miscalculation in the Middle East
Christian Science Monitor, May 03, 1996, [source]
Zunes recommends this piece by his colleague, Marwan Bishara,
director of the Jerusalem Council on International Relations.
Those fighting terrorism must not forget that it’s fueled by oppression and economic deprivation.
Clinton on Wrong Side of Jerusalem Issue
Christian Science Monitor, By Stephen Zunes April 27, 1994
[Source] A little-noticed policy shift by the Clinton administration on Jerusalem has implications beyond the fate of one city in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It marks a retrenchment in the American commitment to international law and the authority of the United Nations. The United States abstained from a section of a recent UN Security Council resolution condemning the February Hebron mosque massacre, objecting to a paragraph that referred to the Arab part of Jerusalem as occupied territory. This eastern half of Jerusalem was seized by the Israeli Army in June of 1967, along with the rest of the West Bank, which was controlled by Jordan…
Arms Sales Ironies
Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 14, 1992, By Stephen Zunes
[source] The timid opposition in Congress to the Bush Administration’s announced sale of 72 highly sophisticated F-15E jet fighters to Saudi Arabia shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. Congressional support for Israel may require opposing the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, underwriting Israeli settlements and occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza, and even banning the Palestinians from operating an information office in Washington. But selling sophisticated weapons to a hostile neighbor of Israel’s has rarely been considered problematic…
The Appeal of Bigotry
Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 16, 1990, By Stephen Zunes
[Source] The assassination of Meir Kahane brings on mixed emotions for most Americans familiar with his career. First of all, many acknowledge the tragedy of taking any human life, particularly for political purposes; it is yet another unfortunate manifestation of the easy availability of handguns; and it is another depressing reminder of the increasing violence in the clash between Israeli and Palestinian nationalism. On the other hand, such an end was almost inevitable. As with the assassination of American Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell over 20 years ago, there is a sense that leaders of violent hate groups will die violently themselves…