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Projects Action Agenda for Electoral Reform Campaign
for Migrant Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards New Internationalism -- U.N. and the Middle East Social Action and Leadership School Sustainable Energy and Economy Network
IPS (202)
234-9382
Graphics adapted from work by Naul Ojeda. Click here to see more of his work.
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Since 1996, IPS has been working in the U.S. and in various international venues towards the broad goal of crafting a new kind of UN-centered, democratic and people-based internationalism. The project's work is in three major areas: the fight for peace with justice in the Middle East, defense of the United Nations against U.S. domination, and the challenge to U.S. unilateralism and military interventionism, especially in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Directed by IPS Fellow Phyllis Bennis, the project works closely with a number of partner organizations both in the U.S. and abroad. MIDDLE EAST PEACE WITH JUSTICE This project works primarily on two issues: Iraq and Palestine/Israel. In both arenas the project focuses on education and activism regarding the problems caused by failed and failing U.S. policies, and how those policies should be retooled to meet the goal of a comprehensive peace with justice, rather than an unequal imposed stability. IRAQ - Bennis has been working on the issue of the aftermath of the U.S. war against Iraq since the Gulf crisis began in 1990. Much of her work has focused on opposing economic sanctions, which continue to devastate the Iraqi population while having little impact on the regime, while simultaneously working to oppose the on-going U.S. military strikes against Iraq. At the U.S. policy level, the call is to delink economic from military sanctions: ending all economic sanctions, and redefining military sanctions to focus on arms suppliers, primarily the U.S. and its allies, and on a regional arms control regime rather than solely focusing on Iraq. The project is also in the forefront of the national and international challenge to the Bush administration's threat of a new war. In early 1999 Bennis participated with former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday in a six-week, 22-city speaking tour sponsored by seven national peace, Arab-American and faith-based organizations, aimed at building opposition to economic sanctions (www.afsc.org/iraqhome.htm ). She testified, with Halliday and others, in several congressional hearings on the same issues. And in August 1999 she accompanied the first group of U.S. Congressional staffers to Iraq, to report back to their bosses on the impact of U.S. policy in Iraq: on the humanitarian crisis facing Iraqi civilians and on the effect of depleted uranium. (Read the Report from Congressional Staffers' 1999 trip to Iraq.) The project works closely with members of the Black and Progressive Caucus of Congress and their staff, including those who traveled to Iraq, in educational work aimed at ending economic sanctions, and most urgently, work aimed at preventing a catastrophic U.S. war against Iraq. Bennis travels frequently for speaking engagements at universities and community, church, and peace organizations across the country and abroad. Op-eds and other articles from the Project appear frequently in numerous U.S. and international newspapers and magazines (see www.merip.org) and Bennis is a regular guest on numerous television and radio programs. The project is a co-sponsor of the National Iraq Task Force, and participates in most of the national anti-sanctions campaigns in the U.S. PALESTINE - The Project's work is based on a commitment to ending Israel's occupation and realizing Palestinian national rights, including the right to an independent and viable state. The three areas include U.S. policy towards the Palestinians, Europe's role in the Middle East peace process, and the role of the UN and international law. Early Project work has included holding a conference on alternatives to a "two-state" solution for Palestinian nationalism, including Palestinian scholars and analysts from the West Bank and Gaza, as well as numerous U.S. Palestinian and American counterparts. U.S. POLICY - From the time of the collapse of the Camp David talks and the beginning of the "second intifada" in September 2000, Bennis was involved in discussions and analysis about the central role of U.S. policy in the Palestine-Israel conflict. Those discussions and analysis (see Strategy Paper - "A Memo on Palestine & the U.S., on Palestinians & Americans") led to the creation of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. Bennis now serves as co-chair of the Campaign steering committee. The Project is also part of the steering committee of the new UN-based international coordinating committee of NGOs on Palestine. Other Project work in this arena also includes speaking (in venues including the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, numerous universities, and conferences throughout the U.S.) and writing in a number of magazines and newspapers. Bennis has worked with members of the Progressive Caucus of Congress to arrange appearances before Congress of Yasir Arafat and other Palestinian leaders. The Project is a member of the North American Coordinating Committee of NGOs working on the Palestine question, and Bennis served as a special analyst for the NACC in examining major developments such as the Madrid process, the Oslo Accords, the Wye River Memorandum, etc. Project work also challenges Israeli settlements and U.S. reluctance to challenge the illegality of settlement policy. Bennis played a major role in 1998's successful campaign to urge Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to end their contract with a settler company. EUROPE'S ROLE - This work focuses on increasing European participation in Middle East diplomacy, and urging Europe to challenge more directly U.S. control of the diplomatic process. Bennis addressed the European Parliament in Brussels on this issue, and has written and spoken widely in European venues and European media. The Project works closely with partners in Europe, particularly at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, and TNI fellows based in Germany, Brussels, the UK and Spain, to create collaborations dealing with Europe's alternative approaches to Israel-Palestine diplomacy. UN & INTERNATIONAL LAW - The focus is on maintaining the
primacy of international law and UN resolutions in Middle East policy,
against U.S. efforts to deny the relevance or undermine the significance
of them. The project works with civil society organizations as well as
government officials from UN member states to build support for new United
Nations initiatives to reclaim the diplomatic center on the Israel-Palestine
conflict. This means including all pertinent UN resolutions as relevant
to Middle East diplomacy. Bennis has been a featured speaker about the
primacy of the UN role in Israel-Palestine diplomacy at UN conferences
on Palestine, in venues including Madrid, Toronto, New Delhi, Prague,
Athens, New York, Paris and elsewhere. UNITED NATIONS - This area of the Project's work challenges U.S.
domination of the United Nations, and works to maintain the centrality
of the UN in international diplomacy. Bennis' 2000 book, Calling the Shots:
How Washington Dominates Today's UN (contact www.interlinkbooks.com) continues
to be used both for university classes and as a background primer for
activists wanting to support the UN. She speaks often in both university
and political settings on this issue, and her writings appear in a wide
variety of journals and books. The Project also supports campaigns aimed
at forcing the U.S. to pay its back dues and peacekeeping arrears to the
United Nations, and related issues of UN legitimacy and primacy.
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