STEPHEN ZUNES
Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus, Zunes said: “[Iranian] General [Mohammed] Alavi’s comment regarding Iran’s contingency plans to attack Israel with air and missile raids was explicitly in reference to how Iran would respond if attacked by Israeli forces. Despite White House claims to the contrary, Iran was simply re-stating the policy it has in common with most countries: if a foreign power attacks your country, you defend yourself by attacking them as well. Israel has certainly made clear its willingness to do so if attacked by Iran. Why does Washington find this Iranian position so surprising or provocative?”
Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.
The U.K.-based Center for International Studies and Diplomacy has recently released a paper regarding U.S. plans for a possible attack on Iran titled “Considering a War with Iran.”
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SARA ROY
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the Israeli government has decided that it “would disrupt electricity and fuel supplies” to Gaza. The United Nations Secretary General, Ban-Ki Moon, said Wednesday: “Such a step would be contrary to Israel’s obligations towards the civilian population under international humanitarian and human rights law.”
Senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, Roy is author of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development and Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
Roy said: “It is false to say that Hamas controls Gaza and Fatah controls the West Bank. … Israel controls all borders and hence, the economy, all demographic and commercial movement, water and airspace. Despite its ‘disengagement’ Israel still occupies Gaza as it does the West Bank, where Israeli settlements and their infrastructure, and the separation wall are the primary expressions of Israeli domination. It is the occupation — which gave rise to Hamas — that is conveniently overlooked, indeed forgotten, by many observers in the U.S.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.
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