Middle East

Photo: A US military officer and YPG and YPJ commanders tour an area hit by Turkish airstrikes in April 2017. YPG, the People's Protection Units, is a mainly-Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria's Syrian Democratic Forces. YPJ, The YPJ is an acronym whose translation means Women's Protection Units. It is the all-female brigade of the YPG. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Trump's Kurdish Militia in Syria

By Pier Francesco Zarcone*

ROME (IDN) – The U.S. decision to train about 30,000 men of a Kurdish militia on the Turkish-Syrian border was considered a reckless initiative with catastrophic consequences – and that immediately turned out to be the case – but, paradoxically, it is also understandable in the global Syrian situation. Let us leave aside the issue of violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian state, given that the United States makes and undoes international law as it pleases and the media present this as if it were normal.

The reasons for judging the U.S. move as reckless can be easily identified. The lesser of these lies in the notorious unreliability of Kurdish political-military organisations, accompanied by bungling opportunism and yet constantly exploited and betrayed by their allies of the moment.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 23 January 2018

Photo: Independent Expert on Human Rights Michel Forst. Credit: Jean-Marc Ferré

UN Experts Censure Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Violations

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – Despite being elected as member of the Human Rights Council at the end of 2016, Saudi Arabia has “continued its practice of silencing, arbitrarily arresting, detaining and persecuting human rights defenders and critics,” according to a group of top United Nations human rights experts.

“We are also seeking the Government’s clarification about how these measures are compatible with Saudi Arabia’s obligations under international human rights law, as well as with the voluntary pledges and commitments it made when seeking to join the Human Rights Council,” the group of experts said.

: Jaya Ramachandran; THE WORLD; Middle East; 08 January 2018

Photo: Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, briefing the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East on 5 January 2018. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UN Asks Iranian Authorities to Address Legitimate Concerns of the Population

By Tayé-Brook Zerihoun

Tayé-Brook Zerihoun is the Assistant Secretary-General for United Nations Department of Political Affairs. The following are extensive excerpts from his ‘briefing’ to the Security Council on ‘The Situation in the Middle East’ on 5 January 2018.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran started on 28 December 2017 when hundreds of Iranians gathered, in a largely peaceful manner, in Mashhad, the country’s second-largest city, chanting slogans against economic hardship.

Over the following several days, protests occurred in other urban areas, including Tehran, as well as many rural areas. Some of the slogans also expressed disappointment at slow or limited change in social strictures and political freedoms, and criticized what demonstrators decried as the privileged position of the clergy and elements of the country’s security establishment. In some cases, demonstrators demanded that Iran cease costly involvement in the region.

: UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Middle East; 08 January 2018

Photo: Demonstration in Tel-Aviv against nuclear weapons. Credit: The Israeli Disarmament Movement.

Israeli Disarmament Movement Steers Through Nuclear Ambiguity

By Bernhard Schell

AMMAN (IDN) – The Israeli media ignored the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in honour of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on December 10, 2017 in Oslo. The Israeli Ambassador to Norway however attended the event.

The silence of the Israeli media, according to observers, was not surprising though ICAN's eminent partner in the Middle East, the Israeli Disarmament Movement (IDM), founded and chaired by Sharon Dolev, has influenced the Israeli public discourse for the past six years.

ICAN also has partners in Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen.

: Bernhard Schell; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 27 December 2017

U.S. Politics Increasingly Governed by Policy of Unilateralism

By Rodney Reynolds

NEW YORK (IDN) – The politics of the Trump administration are being increasingly governed by the twin policies of unilateralism and isolationism.

After Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, he withdrew from a historic 2016 climate change agreement signed by 195 countries – and the only signatory to do so.

And this year, he announced plans to dilute the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal signed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), namely the U.S., UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany and the 28-member European Union (EU) – much against warnings by all the other signatories.

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; Middle East; 20 December 2017

Photo: Roman siege and destruction of Jerusalem (David Roberts,1850). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Trump's Damning Move Raises the Stakes Over Jerusalem

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Poets as diverse as William Blake and Yehuda Amichai have sung the praises of the heavenly Jerusalem, a land without strife or rancour, war or bitterness, envy, acquisitiveness or hatred.

Until last week and President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s de facto capital, Israel, Fatah, Hamas and their common interlocutor, the U.S., had the historic opportunity to take a giant step towards making the present day Jerusalem acquire, at least in some of its aspects, the earthly prototype of the heavenly Jerusalem.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 12 December 2017

Photo: The Israeli Air Force (IAF) AH-64 Apache were used in April 2007 as platform for shooting guided missiles at Palestinian targets and employed at the targeted killings policy against senior militants and terrorists leaders. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

UN Fears Middle East Engulfing into the 'Vortex of Religious Radicalism'

By Santo D. Banerjee

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – U.S. President Donald Trump's decision recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has been widely welcomed in Israel but it has also caused much anger among Palestinians and anxiety across the Middle East and beyond – at the United Nations too.

On December 6, Trump announced that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel. In this recognition, he said that final status issues, including the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty, remain for the parties to determine.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 09 December 2017

Photo: Miroslav Lajvak, President of the General Assembly at the special meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. UN Photo/Kim Haughton

UNGA Adopts Six Resolutions on Palestine, Middle East

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Seventy years since the United Nations adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine as Resolution 181 (1947) on November 29, 1947 a hectic debate in the General Assembly has reaffirmed that peace in the Middle East is nowhere on the horizon.

In fact, several delegates voiced concern that the texts of six resolutions the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted on November 30 "perpetuated a one-sided view that isolated and targeted a single Member State," Israel. Two of the resolutions declared Israel’s actions in the Syrian Golan and East Jerusalem "null and void."

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 01 December 2017

Photo: Briefing by Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UN Envoy Expresses Hope and Concern About the Gaza Accord

By Santo D. Banerjee

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – A senior United Nations official has emphasized the urgency to resolve the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and to return the enclave to full civilian and security control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as agreed in the Cairo accord on October 12, 2017, described as a "landmark development".

According to media reports, the agreement between the Fatah and Hamas factions allows the Palestinian government to resume its responsibilities in Gaza. A statement released by Egypt, which facilitated the accord, said the Palestinian government should assume its full responsibilities to manage the enclave by December 1, 2017.