Tag: Foreign policy

Biden signs executive order with new framework to protect data transfers between the U.S. and EU

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President Joe Biden signed an executive order to implement a new framework to protect the privacy of personal data shared between the U.S. and Europe, the White House announced Friday.

The new framework fills a significant gap in data protections across the Atlantic since a European court undid a previous version in 2020. The court found the U.S. had too great an ability to surveil European data transferred through the earlier system.

The court case, known as Schrems II, “created enormous uncertainty about the ability of companies to transfer personal data from the European Union to the United States in a manner consistent with EU law,” then-Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary James Sullivan wrote in a public letter shortly after the decision. The outcome made it so U.S. companies would need to use different “EU-approved data transfer mechanisms” on an ad hoc basis, creating more complexity for businesses, Sullivan wrote.

The so-called Privacy Shield 2.0 seeks to address European concerns about possible surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies. In March, after the U.S. and EU agreed in principle to the new framework, the White House said in a fact sheet that the U.S. “committed to implement new safeguards to ensure that signals intelligence activities are necessary and proportionate in the pursuit of defined national security objectives.”

The new framework will allow individuals in the EU to seek redress through an independent Data Protection Review Court made up of members outside of the U.S. government. That body “would have full authority to adjudicate claims and direct remedial measures as needed,” according to the March fact sheet.

Before a matter reaches the DPRC, the civil liberties protection officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will also conduct an initial investigation of complaints. Its decisions are also binding, subject to the independent body’s assessment.

The executive order directs the U.S. intelligence community to update policies and procedures to fit the new privacy protections in the framework. It also instructs the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency, to examine those updates and conduct an annual review of whether the intelligence community has fully adhered to binding redress decisions.

“The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework includes robust commitment to strengthen the privacy and civil liberties safeguards for signals intelligence, which will ensure the privacy of EU personal data,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters Thursday.

Raimondo said she will transfer a series of documents and letters from relevant U.S. government agencies outlining the operation and enforcement of the framework to her EU counterpart, Commissioner Didier Reynders.

The EU will then conduct an “adequacy determination” of the measures, the White House said. It will assess the sufficiency of the data protection measures in order to restore the data transfer mechanism.

American tech companies and industry groups applauded the measure, with Meta‘s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, writing on Twitter, “We welcome this update to US law which will help to preserve the open internet and keep families, businesses and communities connected, wherever they are in the world.”

Linda Moore, president and CEO of industry group TechNet, said in a statement, “We applaud the Biden Administration for taking affirmative steps to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of American and European cross-border data flows and will continue to work with the Administration and members of Congress from both parties to pass a federal privacy bill.”

But some consumer and data privacy watchdogs critiqued the extent of the data protections.

BEUC, a European consumer group, said in a release that the framework “is likely still insufficient to protect Europeans’ privacy and personal data when it crosses the Atlantic.” The group added that “there are no substantial improvements to address issues related to the commercial use of personal data, an area where the previous agreement, the EU-US Privacy Shield, fell short of GDPR requirements,” referring to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Ashley Gorski, senior staff attorney at the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement that the order “does not go far enough. It fails to adequately protect the privacy of Americans and Europeans, and it fails to ensure that people whose privacy is violated will have their claims resolved by a wholly independent decision-maker.”

— CNBC’s Chelsey Cox contributed to this report.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

WATCH: Why the U.S. government is questioning your online privacy

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October 7, 2022
Ukraine joins Spain and Portugal’s joint bid to host 2030 World Cup

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Soccer Football – Carabao Cup Final – Chelsea v Liverpool – Wembley Stadium, London, Britain – February 27, 2022 Liverpool fan with the big screen in the background in support of Ukraine before the match Action Images via Reuters/John Sibley TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

John Sibley Reuters

Ukraine has joined Spain and Portugal in their bid to host the 2030 World Cup.

The partnership between the three countries was confirmed by leaders of the countries’ three soccer federations at UEFA headquarters Wednesday.

“This is the dream of millions of Ukrainian fans. The dream of people who survived the horrors of war or are still in the occupied territories, over which the Ukrainian flag will surely fly soon,” said Andriy Pavelko, president of Ukraine’s soccer federation, at a news conference Wednesday.

He said the move was sanctioned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine has been under full-scale invasion by Russia since February.

Details were not given on how many games would be held in Ukraine, or in which cities, but the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv hosted the finals of the 2012 European Championship and the 2018 Champions League.

“Now it’s not the Iberian bid, it’s the European bid,” Spain’s soccer federation president, Luis Rubiales, said at the news conference, according to the Associated Press. “Together we represent the power of transformation football has in society.”

Spain and Portugal previously announced their joint bid in June 2021. The new bid faces competition from a collaboration between Egypt, Greece and Saudi Arabia, and a South American bid between Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile.

FIFA will vote to choose the host in 2024.

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October 5, 2022
Ex-CIA chief’s greatest concern in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is escalation ‘spiraling out of control’

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The greatest worry for former CIA chief General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.) concerning the war in Ukraine is the potential for unbridled escalation that would result in catastrophic consequences, he told CNBC Tuesday.

Asked what his top concern was with regard to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in which the U.S. is heavily supporting Ukraine to the tune of billions of dollars in military aid, Petraeus replied, “just as a general category, it’s just [the risk of it] spiraling out of control.”

“I think it is legitimate for U.S. leadership and for leadership of other countries to avoid starting World War III, as the phrase has been termed,” the retired general told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland.

Leaders in Ukraine and the West are grappling with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat of using nuclear weapons. Uncertainty over the likelihood of such action hangs over decision-making, even as Ukrainian forces stage bold counter-offensives in territory that Russia has illegally annexed.

Western policymakers must adequately signal their moves and refrain from going too far in terms of offensive military action against Russia, Petraeus said.

“Remember, in the beginning, there were these calls for no-fly zones over Ukraine, which I thought was just not fully thought through,” he said, recounting the urging by Ukrainian officials during the war’s early months to establish the defense mechanism that would enable U.S. planes to shoot down Russian jets in Ukrainian airspace.

“Because when you put U.S. aircraft into that airspace, and Russian aircraft … you can’t fly our aircraft without taking down the air defenses that could shoot them down. And now you’re into a U.S.-Russia war. And again, I think it’s understandable that U.S. leadership and that of other countries should have concerns about a spiraling beyond — as horrific as this is — a spiraling beyond where we are right now in the war in Ukraine.”

General David Petraeus.

Bill Clark | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images

Over the weekend, Ukrainian forces successfully recaptured the strategic town of Lyman in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk oblast, one of the four territories Putin announced as belonging to the Russian Federation in a speech Friday. Counter-offensives in the country’s south are also underway, amid reports of low Russian troop morale and Ukrainian forces capturing Russian units.

Still, battlefield success does not mean that Russia can’t retaliate in other ways, Petraeus stressed.

“Keep in mind, the one element Russia still will retain, even as it is losing on the battlefield in Ukraine, is the ability to punish Ukraine,” he said, describing the countless bombings and missile strikes against major civilian centers.

Russia “can continue to carry out missile and rocket and bomb attacks, as it has, almost petulantly. You saw when the counter offensive was succeeding outside Kharkiv, they pounded certain areas, and they’re not going after military targets,” Petraeus said. “They’re going after the electrical generation stations, the electrical transmission, other civilian infrastructure — almost again as if to punish the people for what their military forces are doing, all major violations, by the way, of the Geneva Convention.”

In response to Putin’s threat of using all weapons at his disposal, the Biden administration replied that any use of nuclear weapons would be met with a “decisive” U.S. response. What exactly that response would entail was not disclosed.

Ukraine recaptures Lyman, a key logistics hub for Russian forces.

Institute for the Study of War

“So again,” the former CIA director said, “it’s really about the situation just spiraling out of control in some way. Which is why it’s so important that as our national security advisor in the U.S., Jake Sullivan, has publicly stated, it’s very important that we have communicated in advance to the Russians, ‘if you do this, you can expect something along the lines of this’ — noting that obviously, there will always be a range of options presented to the president. And it depends specifically on you know, what happened, all this, that would determine what a response would be.”

“But we don’t want to start getting into some kind of climbing the nuclear ladder with Russia,” he stressed, “which could spiral out of control.”

A Ukrainian BM-21 ‘Grad’ multiple rocket launcher fires towards Russian positions in Donetsk region on October 3, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Anatolii Stepanov | AFP | Getty Images

Ultimately, Petraeus believes, Putin isn’t suicidal.

“I don’t think for all of the grievance-filled rhetoric that we heard the other day in his speech, I don’t think that he is suicidal,” he said. “I don’t think he wants to bring about the end of the Russian Federation as he knows it — I mean, the irony is that this is someone who despised Gorbachev,” he said, referencing Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, whom Putin and many Russians blame for its collapse.

Putin has long decried the collapse of the Soviet Union as the most catastrophic historical event of the 20th century.

But Putin, Petraeus argued, “is doing colossal damage to the Russian Federation on a scale that Gorbachev did to the USSR, because of this incredibly catastrophically bad decision to invade his neighbor.”

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October 4, 2022
U.S. set to announce new sanctions on Russia over Ukraine area annexation

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President Joe Biden speaks during the First State Democratic Dinner in Dover, Delaware.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is expected Friday to announce new economic sanctions on Russia in response to its disputed annexation of four regions of Ukraine, a White House official told NBC News.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier Friday announced, “There are four new regions of Russia,” referring to the Ukraine areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Putin cited referendum votes by residents of those Russian-occupied areas, which he said approved becoming parts of Russia. Those votes are widely viewed by Western officials as rigged and illegitimate.

“The results are known, well known,” he said.

Earlier this week, the White House said the U.S. would never acknowledge the results of the “sham referendum” and would continue providing Ukraine with military and humanitarian support.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced $1.1 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine.

The upcoming aid package, the 22nd such installment, brings U.S. commitment to more than $16.2 billion since Russia’s invasion in late February.

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September 30, 2022
Fake referendums in occupied Ukraine set the stage for annexation — and immense danger for Ukraine

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Election commission members count votes of refugees from Russian-held regions of Ukraine for a referendum at a polling station in Simferopol, Crimea, on Sept. 27, 2022.

Stringer | Afp | Getty Images

The results from a series of so-called referendums that have taken place in occupied parts of Ukraine —which predictably show a resounding majority voting to join Russia — set the stage for Moscow to announce their annexation in the coming days.

That, analysts say, could mark a dangerous point in the war for Ukraine with the possibility that Russia could turn to unconventional weapons, even nuclear weapons, to “defend” what it will then say is its territory and citizens.

“As for the risk of Russia using these votes and subsequent annexation of those territories as a pretext for nuclear strikes — we are conscious of this risk, we understand that it is real,” Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, told CNBC Wednesday.

“Even if Russia’s leader is himself crazy enough to contemplate or even consider conducting a nuclear strike on Ukrainian territory, hopefully not all those people who surround him are that crazy. But again, this is not something we can count on so we, as Ukraine, have to be prepared for the worse and the international community has to be prepared not to budge, not to cave to this nuclear blackmail.”

President Vladimir Putin and other top officials in Moscow have frequently warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons if it feels there is an existential threat to the Russian Federation.

Just on Tuesday Putin ally and former President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Telegram that Russia had a “right” to use nuclear weapons “if aggression with the use of conventional weapons threatens the very existence of our state.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), accompanied by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (L) and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, oversees the ‘Vostok-2022’ military exercises at the Sergeevskyi training ground outside the city of Ussuriysk on the Russian Far East on September 6, 2022.

Mikhail Klimentyev | AFP | Getty Images

Medvedev once again repeated Moscow’s false mantra that Ukraine was being controlled by NATO countries and said “we will do everything to prevent the appearance of nuclear weapons in our hostile neighbors,” adding that “they understand that if the threat to Russia exceeds the established danger limit, we will have to respond.”

Those comments came after Putin said last week that the Kremlin will “certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It is not a bluff.”

Annexation expected

The referendums, widely described as a “sham” by the international community, are seen as having created a pretext for Russia to annex the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south and pro-Russian, separatist “republics” in Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. The regions amount to around 15% of Ukraine’s territory.

A woman attends a referendum at a mobile voting station in Mariupol on September 25, 2022.

– | Afp | Getty Images

Results from the referendums, in which coercive and illegal voting practices were widespread (electoral officials reportedly went door-to-door to force and collect votes), showed that between 87% and 99% of residents in those regions had voted to join the Russian Federation. The results are widely seen as rigged and Ukraine and its Western allies have denounced the votes and refuse to recognize them.

In a statement Wednesday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said “forcing people in these territories to fill out some papers at the barrel of a gun is yet another Russian crime in the course of its aggression against Ukraine” and said the occupied regions remained Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

Calling on the international community to condemn Russia’s latest act of aggression and immediately hit Moscow with more sanctions in a bid to stop the annexation, Ukrainian Foreign Minster Dmytro Kuleba said on Facebook that “you cannot stop the annexation with words of deep concern and personal sanctions — serious steps are needed.”

For Russia’s part, it says it just wants to “protect” Russian citizens and ethnic Russians living in occupied regions — having itself set up a process of “Russification” of occupied or separatist areas with the handing out of Russian passports and promotion of Russian culture and education.

On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, said that Russia would “bring peace” to the Donbass and would invest and develop the region and other territories, as he claimed Russia had done in Crimea (which was also annexed in 2014 after a falsified referendum).

The results of sham referenda in occupied territories in Ukraine.

It’s now expected that Putin, who is expected to address Russia’s Duma, or lower house of parliament, on Friday, could announce then that the occupied regions are being incorporated into the Russian Federation.

Russian news agency Tass reported that the Duma may even debate bills incorporating Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine into Russia as early as Thursday. While another official, Valentina Matviyenko, who chairs the parliament’s upper house, said lawmakers could consider annexation legislation on Oct. 4, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Federica Reccia, Russia and CIS analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, noted Tuesday that “Russia is racing to consolidate its positions in Ukraine and integrate Ukraine’s south-eastern regions as quickly as possible.”

“Annexing these regions would provide Russia with a pretext to redesignate them as ‘de jure’ Russian territories, giving Russia a justification to retaliate with disproportionate force against any attacks on them,” she said in emailed comments.

“Annexing these territories will open up a very dangerous phase in the conflict, potentially increasing the risk of bringing NATO closer to a confrontation with Russia,” she noted.

Danger for Putin too

Putin is no doubt eager to bring the conflict in Ukraine to a conclusion as soon as possible. Looking to overwhelm Ukraine’s effective counter-attacking forces, Putin last week resorted to a military mobilization, calling-up around 300,000 reservists to be sent to the frontline, a move that prompted many eligible fighting men to try to flee the draft.

The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said Tuesday that Russia’s leaders “almost certainly hope that any accession announcement will be seen as a vindication of the ‘special military operation’ and will consolidate patriotic support for the conflict.”

“This aspiration will likely be undermined by the increasing domestic awareness of Russia’s recent battlefield sets-backs and significant unease about the partial mobilisation announced last week.”

For all the Kremlin’s saber-rattling over nuclear weapons, there are a number of analysts that remain skeptical as to whether, in the end, Putin would actually resort to using them, noting that he has purposefully cultivated an enigmatic persona.

“He has spent 15 years cultivating an image of himself as this unpredictable figure who, like a rat in a corner, might strike out in ways we don’t foresee or ways we see as irrational,” John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told CNBC Wednesday.

“It’s a classic KGB [the main security agency for the Soviet Union for whom Putin worked before entering politics in the late 1990s] ploy” he said. “Putin is a master psychologist.”

Herbst said that Putin was losing friends and alienating his remaining allies, such as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian President Narendra Modi, as the war dragged on and that his military mobilization had left him isolated and criticized on a domestic level.

As such, rhetoric around the use of nuclear weapons had its use for an increasingly desperate Putin looking to strike fear into the West.

“He is trying to make the notion that he might use nuclear weapons as his [way] out of this crisis. He wants to make sure the U.S. and NATO don’t send more weapons to Ukraine so the Ukrainian counteroffensive doesn’t continue,” Herbst noted.

“We cannot rule out something irrational on Putin’s part but it would be extremely dangerous for him and for Russia.”

Ukrainian official Yuriy Sak said Kyiv hoped that Russian fear of a reprisal from the West would stop it from going too far.

“Russia has been using nuclear blackmail since day one of this aggression, their propaganda machine is talking about this on a daily basis. At the same time, we have heard the leaders of the free world, the G-7 and U.S. say that, should this God forbid happen, Russia will face very severe consequences and we hope that this will serve as a deterrent,” he said.

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September 29, 2022
Spirit of America Welcomes Zack Hosford as Director to Increase Citizen Engagement in National Security Issues

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Foreign policy leader joins the nonprofit to develop new ways for Americans to work together

Press Release
–

updated: May 26, 2021

ARLINGTON, Va., May 26, 2021 (Newswire.com)
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Spirit of America, a nonprofit citizen service organization that supports the safety and success of U.S. troops and diplomats serving abroad, has hired Zack Hosford to develop new initiatives that will engage citizens in fulfilling its mission to preserve the promise of a free and better life.

As a director, Hosford will focus on strategic ways to promote American ideals in the face of challenges presented by near-peer competitors and increasing authoritarian influence. As with all of Spirit of America’s work, Hosford will bring innovative thinking to leverage the strength of Americans who want to work together to make the country and world safe for our nation’s democratic values.

Hosford joins Spirit of America with broad experience in foreign policy and national security. Most recently, he served as the acting director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Previously, he was the senior foreign policy advisor to Senator Edward J. Markey, a senior advisor for Asia-Pacific Strategy within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, and a fellow in the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), among other roles.

He holds a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a bachelor’s degree from Franklin and Marshall College.

“I am both excited and honored to join Spirit of America, an organization dedicated to service,” Hosford said. “As the world won’t necessarily promote democracy, human rights, and fair competition on its own, the engagement and involvement of American citizens will be critical in helping achieve those ideals.”

“Zack is an accomplished leader who will help us engage citizens in new, innovative ways to strengthen our security and to bring the entire world closer to the shared values we uphold. I am excited to welcome him to the Spirit of America team,” said Jim Hake, CEO.

About Spirit of America
Spirit of America is a privately funded nonprofit that engages citizens in strengthening America’s security and advancing America’s values. Founded in response to the attacks of 9/11, Spirit of America has pioneered a new category of philanthropy and national security. It is the only organization officially approved by Congress and the Department of Defense to work alongside deployed U.S. troops and diplomats and provide private assistance to support their missions.

Spirit of America is the way to help those who serve America abroad return home safely and proud of their success. In the world’s toughest places, people experience the best of who Americans are and what we stand for. Learn more: http://spiritofamerica.org.

Contact
Lauren Pauer
Spirit of America
571-970-1370
lauren@spiritofamerica.org

Source: Spirit of America

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May 26, 2021
Evergreen Podcasts Partners With Author David A. Andelman on a New Podcast

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Press Release
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updated: Jan 15, 2021

CLEVELAND, January 15, 2021 (Newswire.com)
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Evergreen Podcasts is thrilled to launch A Red Line In the Sand, a companion podcast to the new book of the same title. Both the podcast and book were created by a longtime columnist for CNN and veteran correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News, David A. Andelman. David combines history and global politics to help us better understand the exploding number of military, political, and diplomatic crises around the globe.

“It’s a privilege to bring the vital message of A Red Line in the Sand to Evergreen’s fabulous global audience,” says Andelman. “This compelling, moving examination of the world’s largest web of red lines at any single moment in history deserves the kind of treatment that only Evergreen’s producers and engineers can provide.”

Both the podcast and the book tell the riveting and illuminating behind-the-scenes stories of the world’s most intense “red lines,” from diplomatic and military challenges at particular turning points in history to the ones that set the tone of geopolitics today. More red lines exist in the world today than at any other single moment in history.

As he traverses the globe, Andelman uses original documentary research, previously classified material, interviews with key players, and reportage from more than 80 countries across five decades to help us understand the growth, the successes and frequent failures that have shaped our world today. Andelman provides not just vivid historical context but a political anatomy of these red lines. How might their failures be prevented going forward? When and how can such lines in the sand help preserve peace rather than tempt conflict?

A Red Line in the Sand is a vital examination of our present and the future—where does diplomacy end and war begin? It is an object lesson of tantamount importance to every leader, diplomat, citizen, and voter. As America establishes more red lines than it has pledged to defend, every American should understand the volatile atmosphere and the existential stakes of the red web that encompasses the globe.

Where to Listen:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | All Major Podcast Platforms

About David A. Andelman
David A. Andelman is an award-winning international communications professional — international and financial news, magazines, newspapers, television, radio, internet, books — with extensive experience and contacts in all major media at home and across 82 countries where he has lived and worked.

About Evergreen Podcasts
Evergreen features a growing catalog of entertaining and informative podcasts, rooted in high creative values and production quality. We are a community where people think big, capturing the color and diversity of modern thinkers. From entrepreneurs and musicians to philosophers and artists, Evergreen is in the business of uniting audiences with boots-on-the-ground storytellers. Evergreen’s talented creative team works with top brands and thought leaders to publish inspiring stories through branded content, original shows, and partner podcasts.

Evergreen Podcasts was founded by Joan Dolan Andrews in January of 2017. During its first year of operation, Evergreen launched four podcasts with nearly 18,000 podcast downloads. The company now has over 60 podcast programs and delivered more than 4 million downloads in 2020.

Other history podcasts published by Evergreen include From First Lady to Jackie O., This American President, The Medal of Honor Podcast, Burn the Boats, Warriors in their Own Words, Conflicted: A History Podcast, and Written In Blood History. All podcasts produced and distributed by Evergreen Podcasts can be streamed globally on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, and other major podcast platforms.

Press Contact:

Name: David Allen Moss

Email: dmoss@evergreenpodcasts.com

Source: Evergreen Podcasts

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January 15, 2021
Forget What You Think You Know About the Israel-Palestine Conflict

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Jeremy R. Hammond’s new book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict explains not only why peace in the Middle East has remained so elusive, but also why you won’t hear the answer from the US government or mainstream media.

Press Release
–

Jun 20, 2016

Cross Village, Michigan, June 20, 2016 (Newswire.com)
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Worldview Publications will release Jeremy R. Hammond’s new book, Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on July 9, 2016.

In a meticulously documented account, Jeremy R. Hammond deconstructs standard mainstream narratives about the conflict, shattering popular myths and navigating the maze of conflicting information to reveal a clear direction forward.

“Obstacle to Peace is a call to action. To achieve peace, there needs to be a proper understanding about the true nature of the conflict. The book’s purpose is to empower readers with knowledge to effect the necessary paradigm shift.”

Jeremy R. Hammond, Author of Obstacle to Peace

The publication date coincides with the anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s 2004 advisory opinion finding that Israel’s settlements and separation wall in the occupied West Bank are violations of international law.

The Court’s ruling underscores the legal foundations of the two-state solution to the conflict, which include the requirement of international law that Israel fully withdraw from the Palestinian territories it occupied during the June 1967 “Six Day War”.

As Obstacle to Peace details, the framework for negotiations under the US-led “peace process” is one that rejects the applicability of international law. Far from being designed to produce a peaceful settlement, the so-called “peace process” is the process by which Israel and the US block implementation of the two-state solution.

The book sets out to demonstrate that US policy is itself a primary impediment to a peaceful solution and constitutes a rejection of the right of the Palestinians to self-determination. The book also closely examines the role of the mainstream media in manufacturing consent for the US’s rejectionist policy.

“Obstacle to Peace is a call to action,” says author Jeremy R. Hammond. “To achieve peace, there needs to be a proper understanding about the true nature of the conflict. The book’s purpose is to empower readers with knowledge to effect the necessary paradigm shift.”

Obstacle to Peace will be available on July 9 from Amazon.com and other fine retailers, in both hardcover and paperback editions, with electronic editions later to be announced.

Review copies are available, and the author is available for interviews. View the media kit at:

http://www.obstacletopeace.com/media-kit/

# # #

About the Author

Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent political analyst and publisher and editor of Foreign Policy Journal. In 2009, he received the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his coverage of the US’s support for Israel’s 22-day full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip, “Operation Cast Lead” (Dec. 27, 2008 – Jan.18, 2009). He is the author of three books: The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination (2009), Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman (2012), and Obstacle to Peace (2016) Find him on the web at JeremyRHammond.com.

Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Jeremy R. Hammond

Worldview Publications

P.O. Box 181, Cross Village, MI 49723

Publication Date: July 9, 2016 • ISBNs: 978-0-9961058-0-4 (hardcover); 978-0-9961058-1-1 (paperback) • 538 pages • Trim Size: 6” x 9” • $37.99 (hardcover); $22.99 (paperback) • Political Science/History

Source: Worldview Publications

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June 20, 2016