Category: Middle East

Middle East Overview

A Shaky Ceasefire Is Better Than An Ongoing Genocide

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By Stephen Zunes The Progressive, October 16, 2025;
republished by CommonDreams.org, October 17, 2025,
“It’s Up to the Global Community to Transform
the Gaza Ceasefire Into a Lasting Peace.”
But recent violations by Israel call the new deal into question. Whether Israel actually withdraws from the occupied Gaza Strip and upholds the ceasefire remains in question, so long as the Trump administration and US congressional leadership of both parties refuse to condition military aid to Israel.

Interview: Recognition of Palestine. Symbolic Breakthrough or Empty Gesture?

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Wyoming Star, By Joe Yans, Published October 1, 2025:
“… Given that both the Israeli government and the leading opposition have categorically ruled out Palestinian statehood and that the Democrats, like the Republicans, categorically rule out pressuring Israel to compromise, they essentially oppose Palestinian statehood as well. Trump has threatened various forms of retaliation against US allies that have recognized Palestine…”

Ongoing genocide in Israel/Palestine and U.S. culpability now

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Project Save the World Forum, Substack, August 30. 2025 (1 hour).
Zunes’s conversation with longtime peace activist Jennifer Bing of the American Friends Service Committee and Canadian Peace Studies scholar, Metta Spencer… in a candid, unfiltered exchange [that] captures the tremor of a moment when the usual defenses crumble under the weight of new evidence, new voices, and a new generation whose sightlines had previously been blocked from public view… Zunes lays out the “international legal definition of genocide” as it applies to the Gaza crisis. He points to the targeting of journalists, healthcare workers, and first responders; to scenes of people dying in line for food; to the denial of basic sustenance and medical supplies. [source]