Robert Fantina

Robert Fantina is an author and peace activist. His writing has appeared on Mondoweiss, Counterpunch and other sites. He authored Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy and Essays on Palestine.

Why Every President Since Truman Has Been An Israel Hawk

Despite the language featured in our own founding documents, the U.S. has aided Israel in denying those same guarantees of human rights and dignity to Palestinians for decades.

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
President Harry Truman receives an ornate bronze menorah as a birthday gift from David Ben-Gurion, prime minister of Israel, who called on the chief executive to discuss peace and economic development in the Middle East, May 8, 1951. Ben-Gurion said the menorah was made in 1767. This is the president's 67th birthday. (AP Photo/Henry Griffin)

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (Analysis) The establishment of the state of Israel is known throughout Palestine as the Nakba, or “Catastrophe.” As the British Mandate of Palestine ended throughout 1947 and 1948, at least 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homeland, and another 100,000 or more were massacred. Although the United

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In Just Seven Years, It Became Ok For American Academics To Openly Criticize Israel

In 2007, it was professional suicide to vocalize criticism of Israel’s apartheid policies that deny basic human rights to the Palestinian population. By 2014, however, this wasn’t necessarily the case.

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
Students tape their mouths shut in support for Steve Salaita, a professor who lost a job offer from the University of Illinois over dozens of Twitter messages critical of Israel. during a rally at the University of Illinois campus Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014, in Champaign Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (Analysis) When Prof. Steven Salaita was denied a tenured position he’d been offered at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, due to his public criticism of Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, it made international headlines and kicked off a firestorm. Thousands of academics around the world

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Apartheid South Africa And Apartheid Israel: One Was Shunned, The Other, Embraced

Congress and Reagan voted to impose sanctions against the apartheid state of South Africa, but what’s stopping our elected representatives from taking the same action against the apartheid state of Israel?

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
South Africa Palestine Apartheid Banner

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (Analysis) In 1948, the same year as the founding of the state of Israel, South Africa made a policy of apartheid the law of the land. This policy of racial discrimination would remain in place for 55 years, causing untold suffering for millions of people. Conditions under apartheid in South Africa may not be widely known

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Efforts To Legislate BDS Out Of Existence Will Only Backfire

Knowledge is power. And the more Israel publicly decries the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the more the public is exposed to the atrocities that inspired it in the first place.

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
Activists carried out some actions in solidarity with the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement which targets Israeli apartheid.

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (Analysis) From September 2000 to February 2005, more than 3,200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising. From June to October 2004 alone, Israeli forces launched major assaults in Northern Gaza, killing at least 150 Palestinians, injuring hundreds of others and leaving

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US Soldiers Fight For Freedom, Democracy Abroad, But Don’t Always Find It At Home

As the U.S. struts across the world stage, forcing its peculiar brand of democracy upon its unsuspecting, often oil-rich, victims, it deprives its own soldiers of the rights it purports to be spreading.

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
Former Marine Adam Kokesh is detained by Capitol Hill Police on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, as Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on the future course of the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (ANALYSIS) U.S. government officials often pay lip service to praising members of the military. They talk of heroism, courage, selflessness -- fine virtues which many people, not only soldiers, possess. These officials, they tell the world, send their hapless soldiers all over the globe to grant unsuspecting victims the same

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Bowe Bergdahl’s Case Highlights True Aims Of War And How We Select Our Heroes

The pompous pronouncements of the armchair warriors who run the country and the corporate-owned media hold dangerous sway in deciding that Sen. John McCain is a hero and Bowe Bergdahl is a traitor.

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl exits a courthouse at Fort Bragg, N.C. after a pretrial hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Ted Richardson)

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (ANALYSIS) In 2009, Bowe Bergdahl, an idealistic but disillusioned U.S. Army sergeant, left his post in Afghanistan and, without any weaponry, walked into the night where he was quickly captured by the Taliban. Thus began nearly five years of captivity that ended in May 2014, when President Barack Obama agreed to exchange

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How Did The US Go From A War On Terror To A War Of Terror?

Perhaps the notion of U.S. exceptionalism shouldn’t be derided as a myth. Indeed, the U.S. is exceptional in the violence it perpetrates upon innocent people around the world.

Robert Fantina
By Robert Fantina
Deputy chief minister of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province offers funeral prayers in front of dead bodies. At least 2,400 people have died in CIA drone strikes in the tribal region of north west Pakistan.

KITCHENER, Ontario --- (OPINION) On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in which he discussed the violence he saw in the streets of the United States and the violence of the Vietnam War. He described meeting with “desperate, rejected, and angry young men,” encouraging them to seek non-violent change in their communities and the

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