Category: Peace and War

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…”

Putin’s Illegal Conquests Wouldn’t Be the First the White House Has Endorsed

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New Lines, September 8, 2025: Zunes provides an extensive analysis of how the U.S. position citing the illegality of Russia’s annexation of conquered Ukrainian territory has been compromised by U.S. recognition of illegal Israeli and Moroccan annexations of conquered territories, and thus Trump’s apparent willingness to acquiesce to Russian aggression would not constitute a major break in U.S. policy: Putin’s Wouldn’t Be the First Illegal Conquests the White House Has Endorsed…

Hamas’ control of Gaza brought on by US policy

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Zunes’s letter to the editor in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept. 4, 2025
Hamas’ control of Gaza brought on by US policy
Many thanks to Tim McGirk (Guest Commentary, Aug. 21) for his open letter to Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who continues to support Trump’s policy of facilitating Israel’s war and famine on the civilian population of Gaza. The former Time magazine Jerusalem bureau chief correctly noted a number of Panetta’s dishonest appraisals of the situation.
     Unfortunately, McGirk’s review of Gaza’s history may have led some readers to believe the people of that territory elected Hamas to rule them. While this extremist Islamist party did win a plurality in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, they shared governance with the moderate Fatah party until 2007, when the Bush administration pushed Fatah to forcibly remove Hamas from government.
     In a brief civil war, Hamas was defeated in the West Bank, but was able to violently seize power in Gaza, where they have tragically remained in power ever since. If the Bush administration hadn’t kept supporting Israel’s occupation and settlements (thereby weakening the moderates) and hadn’t meddled in internal Palestinian politics, Hamas’s control of Gaza and the subsequent horrors would never have occurred.
—Stephen Zunes, Santa Cruz

Democratic Leadership Still Hasn’t Caught Up to the Party’s Base on Gaza

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In These Times, September 4, 2025, by Stephen Zunes
Nearly two years in to the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, there are clear signals the Democratic Party’s
base is moving far away from supporting the Israeli government and its war machine. And while party leadership is beginning to show some hopeful signs it might be starting to listen to constituents’ changing attitudes on the issue of Israel and Palestine…

A Two-Year Road to Genocide. Israel-Palestine Conflict. Its Past, Present, and Future.

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Wyoming Star, August 13, 2025, ByJoe Yans, quoting Stephen Zunes
Stephen Zunes: … This is not a religious conflict, first and foremost, and that hasn’t stopped extremists, both Jewish and Muslim, from trying to turn it into one. Not to mention some Christian fundamentalists in the West. But in these two competing nationalisms, Israel ultimately won. And while Zionism for Jews was a national liberation movement for historically oppressed people, like many of the nationalist movements arising during the late 19th Century, it felt more like a colonial settler enterprise, like the French in Algeria or the British in Rhodesia… And because of the support from the West and their own technological prowess, the Israelis have had the upper hand, not only claiming 78% of historic Palestine in the First War, which led to the fleeing and expulsion of the majority of the indigenous Palestinian population, but, since 1967, they’ve had effective control of the rest of Palestine, giving the Palestinian Authority these tiny urban enclaves, surrounded by Israeli settlements…