The latest chapter in the sometimes Orwellian world of Middle Eastern politics occurred this weekend, as the Trump administration, which unilaterally walked away from Obama’s Iran deal, attempted to convince the world to enact a global arms embargo on the Islamic Republic, citing the very treaty it had itself destroyed. President Trump said he was unlikely to…

The U.S. government is in a love affair with Israel, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the halls of the United Nations. Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley once asserted, “Nowhere has the UN’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than its bias against our close ally Israel.” Indeed, since 1949,…

The United States is Israel’s best friend and ally in the world. It contributes over $10 million a day in no-strings-attached military aid despite the fact that Israel’s human rights record, according to the State Department’s own admission, is deeply problematic and contravenes U.S. law. The U.S. has dropped out of or defunded a number of United Nations…

United Nations agencies are warning that the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to trigger famine and outbreaks of other diseases that could prove far more deadly than the coronavirus itself. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) expressed grave concern over what they described as an “alarming…

The practice of dumping banned, toxic chemical waste on poorer societies by big corporations in rich countries must end, say experts at the United Nations Human Rights Council. “In nearly every case there is no legitimate public interest justification,” said Baskut Tuncak, a Turkish-American UN special rapporteur on the environment and the disposal of toxic waste.…

Palestine has been annexed, occupied, stolen, and Palestinians have been dispossessed, exiled, caged, detained, subjected to an apartheid regime, and killed by the state of Israel for over seven decades. Every few years the world wakes up to protest some aspect of Israeli apartheid, occupation, or a massacre, and then it returns safely to its…

SADAA, YEMEN — It was not the first time that the mother of Faisel Ahmed al-Jaser heard the small radio perched in the corner of her kitchen report that Saudi aircraft were once again dropping bombs in the area. This time, though, was different. She sensed something was amiss when she heard the aircraft buzzing…

The governments of China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela – all under sanctions from the United States – sent a joint statement to the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN’s High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Director-General of the World Health Organization calling for an end to the unilateral American economic…

UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s report on Venezuela echoes the US government’s talking points, which are designed to terminate the two-decade-old Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. The report fails to acknowledge Venezuela’s manifest accomplishments or even recognize victims of US-backed right-wing violence in Venezuela. The US economic war against Venezuela, US threats of a…

AD-DUMAYR, SYRIA — A little over a year ago — just after the Syrian army and its allies liberated the towns and villages around eastern Ghouta from the myriad armed jihadist groups that had waged a brutal campaign of torture and executions in the area — I interviewed a number of the civilians that had…

SA’DAH, YEMEN — The familiar sound of heavy artillery once again returned to Yemen’s Hodeida province following a period of relative calm in the strategic coastal region. At least 66 artillery shells and a steady stream of heavy machine-gun fire tore through the village of Al-Shijan on Monday, as Saudi-led forces renewed hostilities in the…

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — For the first time in recorded history, the U.S. and the Afghan government, whose forces are trained by Americans, killed more civilians than did the Taliban in the first quarter of 2019, according to a United Nations report. Increased bombing campaigns by the U.S. and increasingly reckless search operations by pro-government forces…