Phyllis Bennis Associate

Our people — Associate

Phyllis Bennis is also a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC where she directs IPS's New Internationalism Project. Her work concerns US foreign policy issues, particularly involving the Middle East and United Nations (UN). In 2001 she helped found the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and now serves on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace as well as the board of the Afro-Middle East Center in Johannesburg. She has been a TNI Fellow and now Associate since 1998.

Twitter: @phyllisbennis (external link)

Phyllis bennis biography (PDF, 99.06 KB)

Phyllis worked as a journalist at the UN for ten years, and has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East issues. She was twice short-listed to become the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

A life-long peace activist dating back to her early activism during the Vietnam War, Phyllis works with many anti-war and Palestinian rights organizations. She speaks widely across the US and globally on platforms of progressive organisations, contributes to many teach-ins for activists, and is active in public education through her frequent contributions to US and global media. Phyllis is the author of numerous articles and books. See a full list of articles here, and of her books here. Key recent publications include:

The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People's Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, The War Economy & Militarism and our National Morality (co-author Poor People's Campaign & IPS, 2018)
A Green New Deal Needs to Fight U.S. Militarism (Jacobin, 2019)
If America Can Find $716 Billion for the Military It Can Fund the Green New Deal (The Guardian, 2019)
A Bold Foreign Policy Platform for the New Wave of Left Lawmakers (In These Times, 2018)
(co-authored) Shrinking Space and the BDS Movement (TNI, 2018)
Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (7th updated edition, Interlink, 2018)

Areas of expertise:

Middle East politics and the Arab Spring; US-Iran Relations; Palestine-Israel, Iraq & Afghanistan wars; U.S. Foreign Policy; U.S. domination of the United Nations.

Media experience:

Phyllis Bennis appears frequently on US and international radio and television, including al Jazeera, BBC, Democracy Now!, The Real News Network, the Laura Flanders Show, NPR and more. She regularly contributes to The Nation, In These Times, Common Dreams, Los Angeles Times. Recent articles have also appeared in Newsweek, Otherwords, Jacobin, The Guardian (UK). @phyllisbennis

More info: IPS profile or Facebook.

Latest work

Remembering the world's biggest peace protest
EU Security Policies

War on Terror

Shrinking Space
February 15th, 2003, saw the largest peace demonstration the world had ever witnessed. 14 million people stood up against the Iraq war. Twenty years on, Phyllis Bennis shares her personal memories of the protest. What were the successes and struggles of the organisers, and what can today’s peace movement learn from them?

Video by

Phyllis Bennis

Publication date: 14 February 2023
Power, empire and US elections: internationalist perspectives Webinar recording

Authoritarianism
Four activist scholars reflect on the 2020 US elections. The attention to Trump has distracted from Biden's agenda. How will his administration reshape geopolitics and global governance, for poverty and war, for migration and climate, for democracy and tyranny around the world? What will the elections mean for the current set of authoritarian rulers around the world, and what will they mean for progressive forces worldwide? What will be the challenges and opportunities for campaigns committed to social and environmental justice?
Video by

Laura Flanders

Phyllis Bennis

Walden Bello

Cathy Feingold

Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Publication date: 10 November 2020
If War Breaks Out with Iran, It Won’t Be an Accident

A range of U.S. policies have been deliberately designed to provoke an Iranian response.

Article by

Phyllis Bennis

Publication date: 3 July 2019