UN Speeches as Posturing During a Genocide

The UN report, “Gaza Genocide” (A/80/492) states that “the prolonged unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territory” by the state of Israel “has now escalated into a full-fledged genocide” with “the direct participation, aid and assistance” of other countries. Hence, the “collective crime” is “internationally enabled.”[1] Just before I wrote this, two Iranian dissidents sitting next to me in a coffee shop declared to me that the destruction by Israel in Gaza is not a genocide. I looked up the UN report, and replied, “It’s not just a matter of opinion anymore.” The two Iranians, doubtlessly in the US because they opposed their own regime in Iran, quickly left the coffee shop. Rather than being open to something more than their opinion, they left. Doubtless they had not expected the scholar sitting next to them to cite a well-documented source. To be sure, even political officials of governments critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza (and the wanton violence of “settlers” in the West Bank were too inclined to posture for attention than even to be consistent in symbolic political actions (while refusing to occupy Gaza militarily, standing up to the holocaustic Israeli regime).

The full essay is at "UN Speeches as Posturing During a Genocide."

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1. “Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime” (A/80/492), The United Nations, 20 October 2025.

Life

The musical group, R.E.M.’s most popular song is arguably “Losing My Religion.” The first two lines of the lyrics are, “Life, it’s bigger; It’s bigger than you.” It’s bigger even than our homo sapiens species. I sing that song periodically in karaoke, though as too many people in charge of karaoke are corrupt in that they slide in their friends, new arrivals, and even regulars into rather than at the end of the line, I go less and less often. To an ethicist, corruption even on that small level is intolerable, as indeed the mentality of such a DJ is culpable. It is easy to commit the fallacy of anthropomorphizing unethical, sordid intent onto other species, especially with regard to their biological need to feed in order to survive. In the film, Life (2017), astronauts, a physician, and a scientist on board a space-station orbiting Earth wisely avoid precisely that fallacy even though a species from Mars being cultivated by Hugh Derry, the scientist, feeds on all but one of the six humans on board.

The full essay is at "Life." 

Russian Bombs Usher Ukraine’s UN Address

Human nature itself must be attuned to walking out before a speech by political leaders who intentionally have enemy civilians killed and severely injured, and to being attracted to hear leaders who represent the victims. So, at the UN in September, 2026, many delegates at the UN’s General Assembly walked out before a speech by Israel’s Netanyahu, who was wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Gaza (and arguably even in the West Bank), and Russia’s Putin did not even attend the opening session of speeches, whereas the address by Ukraine’s President Zelensky was to a full room. The contrast between Zelensky and the other two men could not be starker, and yet the UN was open to all three, serial violations of the UN Charter notwithstanding. The international organization can be said to have its legs wide open, and paradoxically to be impotent even with regard to enforcing its own charter. As a visiting research scholar at Harvard in 2025, I had the opportunity to speak personally with former UN officials, all of whom admitted that, given the vetoes in the Security Council, the UN itself could not even be reformed so the organization could even pass meaningful resolutions against a powerful member’s ally; something stronger at the global level would be needed if international law stood a chance of being enforced rather than merely given lip service. In 2026, even the notion of international law risked being relegated as an oxymoron, assuming that law itself—to be considered law rather than guideline or policy—requires a viable enforcement mechanism. To say that something is a law but is not enforced is to say that something really isn’t a law.

The full essay is at "Russian Bombs Usher Ukraine's UN Address."

On E.U. States Negotiating the E.U. Budget

Having state governments at the front in putting together a federal budget is problematic for several reasons. Those governments can easily form ideologically clashing groups that result in stalemate at the expense of the federal level. That states have a built-in political interest in safeguarding their own turf means not only that they would tend in a positive sense to ward off too much federal encroachment at the expense of the states and federal-state balance necessary for the check-and-balance function of federalism, but also that the states could exploit a structural conflict of interest to deny the federal governmental institutions adequate sovereignty and money to act effectively in the common or general interest as represented by the union rather than any one state or subset of states. The lack of progression of negotiations in the Council of Ministers in 2026 on the upcoming seven-year federal budget demonstrate that perhaps the European Parliament rather than the Council of Ministers should come up with the budget and sent to the European Council for passage.

The full essay is at "On E.U. States Negotiating the E.U. Budget."

The Exception

The medium of film is capable of bringing nuances of power to audiences, even when the story-world is steeped in autocracy and totalitarianism. The Exception (2016) is such a film, for in terms of power the film shows the relationship between the Nazi government of Germany and (retired) Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Netherlands, which has just been occupied by Germany. The Nazi officials represent the state, whereas Wilhelm’s “soft” power stems from royalty. As Wilhelm’s attendant, Col. Sigurd von Ilsemann, observes, no one is safe from Nazi reprisals, not even Wilhelm and his high-brow wife. So he is not the exception alluded to in the title in the sense of being exempt from raw Nazi power; the night of the long knives demonstrated that no one is safe, even though the former king still means a lot to the German people. The exception refers instead to Capt. Stefan Brandt, and in particular to his moral scruples concerning the Nazi mass murders in eastern Europe. As the story unfolds with a visit by Himmler, Wilhelm becomes an exception in this sense too. Even in a totalitarian autocracy, a surprising amount of soft power can exist in opposition. Taking a moral stand can manifest "soft" power even though an ethic is semi-permeable by power-aggrandizement.

The full essay is at "The Exception."