Middle East

UN Agency in Talks with Israel on African Asylum Seekers

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA | TEL AVIV (IDN) – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is negotiating with Israel to resettle a portion of African asylum seekers in third countries deemed by the UN to be "safe," perhaps including Western countries, in exchange for some of the refugees to be given permanent residency in Israel, according to The Times of Israel.

The aim is to halt Israel's plans to deport thousands of asylum seekers to African countries, widely believed to be Rwanda and Uganda. "Such an arrangement could be realized, though the necessary details need to be worked out," Sharon Harel, the external relations officer at the UNHCR office in Israel, told the newspaper.

: Jaya Ramachandran; THE WORLD; Middle East; 11 February 2018

Photo: Mansour Al-Otaibi (centre), Permanent Representative of the State of Kuwait to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of February, briefs journalists on the Council’s programme of work for the month. 01 February 2018. United Nations, New York. UN Photo/Evan Schneider.

Kuwait Presidency Keen on Enhancing Security Council Working

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – While the Middle East, counter-terrorism and Africa will draw the Security Council's focus in February, the Kuwait Presidency has chosen as its centrepiece a ministerial-level briefing on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in the maintenance of international peace and security, with the Secretary-General as the main speaker.

Council President Mansour Ayyad Sh. A. Al-Otaibi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Kuwait to the UN in New York, told journalists on February 1 that It has also planned an open debate on working methods. Kuwait is the chair of the Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 05 February 2018

Photo: The entrance to Holot immigration detention centre, Negev desert, Israel. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Decision to Deport African Immigrants Sparks a Debate in Israel

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Under a so-called “infiltrator’s law”, more than 1,000 African asylum seekers in Israel face deportation from Israeli detention centres starting in March.

Speaking at a recent Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the harsh enforcement policy. “We are not acting against refugees,” he said. “We are acting against illegal migrants who come here not as refugees but for work needs. Israel will continue to offer asylum for genuine refugees and will remove illegal migrants from its midst.”

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 01 February 2018

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (here shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before their working dinner at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on February 14, 2017) believes that “Iran seeks dominance in the Middle East and the destruction of our ally, Israel”. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Trump Appears to be Getting Ready to Wage War in Syria

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – President Donald Trump said it would never happen. Now it is. During the election he said he did not want more interventions – no more Iraqs, no more Afghanistans, Libyas or Syrias.

A year into his presidency the American military is involved in all these places and he’s aching to get boots on the ground in North Korea and perhaps even Iran. At least he’s not thinking about it in Ukraine – that would really set the cat among the pigeons.

Last week his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said that waging war in Syria is “crucial to our national defence”. This is a big deal but few seem to be talking about it. The pundits and congressmen are either asleep at the switch or taking a holiday.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 30 January 2018

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.