Episode 45 – West Asia on a Powder Keg: Lessons from the Arab Spring With Professor Stephen Zunes. British podcast on civil resistance pro-democracy struggles, contemporary Middle Eastern politics, and other issues (1 hour)
Category: Peace Movement
Interview: Trump’s Student Crackdowns
KQSD-FM March 2025 (30 mins.) on the crackdown on antiwar student activists and related issues
Interview: Gaza, resumption of war and implications
KPFA-FM news March 23, 2025 (segment starts at the 10:30)
Interview: Ukraine, Palestine, and other issues
Ukraine, Palestine, and other developments March 2025 (segment starts at 31:30) for a community radio station in northern California
The US Palestinian Rights Movement
Discussion with Dr. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute, where we examined the trajectory of the pro-Palestinian movement over the past 50 years, including his history as an advocate for Palestinian rights from grassroots campaigns in the 1970s to his more recent leadership in the Democratic National Committee (University of San Francisco, 1-hour video)
What a Second Trump Presidency Could Mean for the Pro-Palestine Movement
The Progressive February 3, 2025
Examines how a Trump presidency will make U.S. policy towards Israel/Palestine even worse than under Biden, but how it might spawn a bigger backlash that could end up forcing real change in U.S. policy in the longer term. [source]
Video: A Year of Student Protest, Part 1: Goals & Achievements
Zunes is one two faculty members interviewed in this 8-minute summary of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests at the University of San Francisco campus
Interview for Oberlin College, Zunes’ Alma Mater, on Israel, Palestine, Mideast
Oberlin College Nov. 1, 2024: Written transcript for the student newspaper after giving a series of talks October 2024 [source]
The Chilling Effect of Equating Criticism of Israel to Antisemitism
The Progressive May 17, 2024:
Broadening the federal definition of antisemitism is a disingenuous attempt to quash dissent…
The New Assault on Academic Freedom: Professors across the country are being targeted by the right in order to score political points.
The Progressive May 15, 2024:
During the wave of campus protests opposing the U.S.-backed war on Gaza and calling for divestment from Israel, students weren’t the only ones facing arrest…
Interview: Suppression of Gaza War campus protests, outside agitators charge
“Flashpoints” on KPFA-FM and affiliated stations
(20-minute interview begins at the 13:15 mark):
Dr. Zunes contrasts blatant censorship and violent police suppression of Gaza War campus protests with anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s.
The Crackdown on Campus Protests is a Bipartisan Strategy to Repress Pro-Palestine Speech
The Progressive, May 1, 2024: Unlike apartheid-era South Africa, many universities aren’t even recognizing Israel’s human rights abuses. A wave of sit-ins and encampments have swept college and university campuses… led—as in past anti-war campus protests in 1968—by Columbia University. [source]
Antiwar/Solidarity Activism on Gaza: New Generation, New Challenges
TV Interviews: Police Attack and Clear Student Anti-War, Pro-Divestment Camp at UCLA
- Anti-war, pro-divestment demonstrations on many campuses
- Police attacks on student protesters at UCLA


Profile of Dr. Stephen Zunes in Swedish Press
Gothenberg University Magazine May 2024 (Sweden; in English): Profile on Dr. Zunes’ visiting research fellowship at University of Gothenburg, pages 20-21
Israel’s War on Gaza: 11 Zunes’ articles published Oct. 7-Dec. 31, 2023
- Applying International Law to Israel’s War and Hamas’ Attack; Yesmagazine.org/Trithout Oct. 18, 2023 [Video & Transcript]
- Political Costs of Biden’s Support for Israel’s War Mount [Source]
- U.S. Attacks on the ICJ are a Declaration of Empire [Source]
- Biden’s Gaza Failure Could Cost Democrats 2024 Election [Source]
- Scholars Weigh in on Gaza-Israel Conflict Counterpunch interview of Professors Zunes and international legal scholar Richard Falk [Princeton] on Israel, Gaza, and U.S. policy, 10/13/2023 [Source]
- How U.S. Policy Failures Have Helped Hamas [Source]
- Hamas, Israel and the U.S. Have Learned Nothing [Source]
- Biden’s Backing Israel War Crimes Carries on Sordid U.S. Tradition [Source]
- O Globo, Brazil’s largest newspaper, on Israel’s war on Gaza (English translation and original Portuguese transcript) [Source]
- Dr. Zunes is quoted in this Al-Jazeera article: Why are US Republicans pushing for aid to Israel but not Ukraine? [Source]
- More Articles and interviews on the Gaza Crisis
Movement for a New Society Reunion: International Training and Nonviolent Revolution
VIDEO of panel with 4 other activist presenters:
“Nonviolence, Peace & Transnational Part 2“
and Dr. Zunes’ PowerPoint of Photos from Sudan.
Sponsor: Movement for a New Society.
Remembering Martin Luther King, the Radical for Peace
The Progressive April 3, 2018: King challenged the draining of our national resources for the military, opposed the Vietnam War and other aspects of U.S. foreign policy and questioned an economic system that created enormous poverty amid great wealth. He was assassinated while organizing the Poor People’s March…
Power’s Prophet: Remembering Gene Sharp
The Progressive February 1, 2018: Dr. Gene Sharp, a Harvard University-based scholar, through his through analysis of centuries of nonviolent struggle, made a convincing case on utilitarian grounds that nonviolent struggle was a more effective and successful means of resistance than violence…
[Related article & Petition]
Interview: How Syria Divides the Left
Truthout July 10, 2017Interviewed Dr. Zunes
SZ: “Most credible academics and journalists on the
left, while varying to some degree in their analyses, generally agree
that the Syrian regime is horrifically repressive and not particularly
progressive by any measure. There is also a consensus that the bulk of
the armed opposition is dominated by reactionary Salafist
extremists and that the largely nonviolent movement that first emerged
in 2011 had strong progressive and democratic elements, but has largely
been crushed. Further, the U.S. and other outside powers (Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, Qatar, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Britain, France, etc.) should
not be bombing, sending arms, providing troops or contributing to the
carnage….”