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.

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."

Castigating NGO’s: An American Israeli-Surrogate on Gaza Reconstruction

Besides international law, international organizations, or NGOs, function internationally beyond the reach of the nation-state. From the standpoint of national sovereignty, the sheer existence of the NGO as an institutional arrangement can be viewed as a potential threat and thus smartly to be expunged. One strategy that a country’s government bent on protecting national sovereignty could use to discredit NGOs is to label them using the turbo-charged “T” word, even in the case of an NGO that is oriented exclusively to providing humanitarian aid. By 2026, Israel had decimated the infrastructure and buildings in its occupied Gaza strip, and Russia had been bombing residential buildings in Kiev and other large cities in Ukraine for four years, so it could not be said that humanitarian aid was not needed in the world. Parts of Africa ravaged by draught and war, such as in Somalia, were also in vital need of humanitarian aid. To discredit NGOs providing such assistance, whether in terms of shelter, food, or medicine, meant being open to the charge of callous disregard for the suffering of very large numbers of people.  The case of Gaza—in particular, the position of the Trump administration on NGO’s being involved in the reconstruction of the strip—demonstrates the harm that is involved in turning the NGO institution-type into a controversial and even suspicious thing in order to do the bidding of a belligerent ally while removing a potential external threat to national sovereignty.

The full essay is at "Castigating NGO's."

Israel in Lebanon: On the Hubris of Hatred

Hatred warps reasoning as well as ethical judgment along the lines of a warped time-space fabric around a large mass. In other words, the sheer gravitational pull of self-centeredness can bend both thought and judgment. As essentially egoist, this phenomenon can itself be considered to be unethical, for what are actually equivalent ethical harms are perceived as unequal at the expense of other people or peoples. Even though Israel’s military attacks in, and invasion of, Lebanon in 2026 could be said to be in violation of international law, Israel’s national security minister said on June 19^th that all of Lebanon must burn because four Israeli soldiers had just been killed in combat when their tank was hit near Kfar Tebnit. The official’s statement is significant in that it lays bare the false equivalence of the lives of four Israelis and the entire population of Lebanon. The warped judgment and related ratiocination behind such a baseless equivalence can be grasped from the standpoint of utilitarianism.

The full essay is at "Israel in Lebanon." 

On the Global Order: Experts Missing the Big Picture

Although the reasoning of government officials in foreign policy can be impeccable, they are susceptible to being so oriented to the intricacies of the “chess” playing that they may actually be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, a ship that sank in the icy Atlantic in 1912. At a talk by American foreign-policy experts at Yale’s School of Global Affairs in March, 2025, Ely Ratner, who served as an assistant secretary of defense, and Celeste Wallander, who was also an assistant secretary, joined Andrea Kendall-Taylor of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) to speak mainly on U.S. foreign policy in regard to Russia and China; only scant mention was made of the situation in Gaza even though a holocaustic genocide was well underway there. What the speakers said about the post-World War II world order was most telling; what they did not say, however, spoke volumes.

The full essay is at "On the Global Order."

Guidelines Puffed Up as Law: Should under the Subterfuge of Must

During the coronavirus pandemic (2020-2022), Arizona’s Ducey administration allowed bus and light-rail employees to go maskless even though they were in close contact with the public. Bus drivers were even getting sick. The “rationale” of the Phoenix transit authority was that the federal regulation is “just a mandate.” Because the word mandate means “an authoritative command,” the rationale that being a mandate renders a law or government regulation as optional can only be spurious at best; this is a case of arrogant ignorance that can’t possibly be wrong about itself in the member-state that ranked 49^th out of 50 on public education. As an authoritative command, a law, even as implemented in regulations, has what Kant called necessity in that law itself cannot be bent; it stands firm in itself as law. In contrast, a guideline connotes flexibility rather than necessity. It follows that enforcement must pertain to laws (including regulations) but not to guidelines. I contend that what are commonly referred to as international laws are actually international guidelines. Such “laws” lack viable enforcement mechanisms and thus are actually guidelines for governments engaged in international relations.

The full essay is at "Guidelines Puffed Up as Law."

President Nicolás Maduro: Captured by the U.S.

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the sitting president of Venezuela was captured by the U.S. military and sent to New York, where he would face a federal indictment involving the trafficking of narcotics to the United States. President Trump’s decision to go forward with the military plan no doubt had to do with the South American state’s tremendous oil reserves, just as President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq surely had something to do with that Middle Eastern state’s oil fields. Elected representatives at the federal level of the U.S. have known since 1974 that skyrocketing gas prices could easily result in voter-resentment. Whether the capture of Maduro was motivated by his drug activity reaching the U.S. or Venezuela’s oil, the invasion and capture by U.S. forces is in line with the Hobbesian notion that might makes right, and even that 90% of ownership of property lies in possession. Lest it be thought that President Trump broke with precedent internationally in capturing the sitting president of another country, his strategy can be understood as being along the trend that had been gaining traction because the post-World War II international order had become hamstrung in the impotence of international bodies including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.

The full essay is at "President Nicolás Maduro."

Paradigm-Change in International Relations: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine as a Primer

“We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force.”[1] This statement was signed by E.U. leaders, as well as officials at the state level, and even leaders of sovereign European states such as Britain and Norway several days after U.S. president Trump had met with officials from Ukraine at the White House on October 17, 2025. If only the Europeans had been so unified in 1939; it is difficult to fathom how the world would be 14 years short of a century later had World War II not taken place. Force as a de facto decider of territory has been the default through human history. For the principle of the European political leaders to become the default would represent a step forward in our species’ political development, but the even though principle sounds great, it also looks hopelessly idyllic and not at all realistic.

The full essay is at "Paradigm-Shift in International Relations."

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1. Euronews, “European Leaders Back Ukraine Ceasefire Proposal at Current Contact Line,” Euronews.com, 21 October 2025.

The United Nations: Weak Even in Defending Itself

Besides its humanitarian work, the UN can boast of providing a situs in which officials of national governments can talk to and with each other. The best opportunity for in-person speeches and conversations annually is during the opening of the General Assembly. Even granting there being value to such communicating. the UN was not founded for this purpose; rather, it was founded to end war, and neither speeches nor in-person meetings, typically not directly between warring nations, so obviously have failed to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s occupation and genocide that may even be reckoned as another holocaust. All this aggression has come with impunity, and in this regard, the UN has failed. Even a UN official’s attempt to defend the international organization during the 2025 session of the General Assembly was weak. At the very least, the UN needed to hire some public relations firms, but even a patina of efficacy only goes so far. The staying power of such an institution is itself, I submit, a problem in that organizations tend not to get “the memo” on when it is time (and even past time) to close up and urge that another, different organization be established.

The full essay is at "The United Nations." 

A Drone Wall for the E.U.: Russian Aggression Assuages Euroskeptic States

Speaking after his meeting with U.S. President Trump in Alaska during the summer of 2025, Russia’s President Putin said that if no agreement is reached with Ukraine, the force of arms would decide the matter. In other words, might makes right, or at least military incursion is a legitimate way to decide political disputes between countries. I would have hoped that such a primitive mentality would be antiquated in the twentieth century, but, alas, human nature evolves only at a glacial pace undetected within the lifespan of a human being. In September, 2025, the United Nations was under attack from within the General Assembly because of the continuance of the veto held by five countries in the Security Council; the U.S. had just vetoed a resolution for an immediate cession of Israeli destruction in Gaza. As a former deputy secretary of the UN had admitted to me during the fall of 2024, the veto itself renders the UN unreformable; a new international organization would have to be established sans vetoes for efficacy to be possible. Even so, absent a real enforcement mechanism, such as a military force, a resolution even of a vetoless organization would merely be parchment. The impotence of the UN is one reason why NATO, a defensive military transatlantic alliance, has been valuable in the face of military threats by Russia. Yet in September 2025, after Russian drones had flown into four E.U. states, E.U. President Von der Leyen felt the need to take the lead by again stressing her proposal for a drone wall along the E.U.’s eastern border; she was not deferring to any international alliance, much less to the United Nations. I submit that Von der Leyen’s initiative is yet another means by which the E.U. can be distinguished from international “blocs,” alliances, and organizations. Unlike the latter three, the E.U. has exclusive competencies and is thus semi-sovereign (and the same goes for the state governments).

The full essay is at "A Drone Wall for the E.U."

The UN in the US: Trump Bans Abbas

Should the UN’s General Assembly and Security Council be located in New York City? Both New York and the Union in which New York is a member-state have assumed the obligation of being proper hosts to people from around the world who come to the UN for its business. Even though that international organization has displayed an impotence in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli military incursion that has decimated Gaza and its residents, having an international forum in which talking can take place is not for naught. As an open speaking club of sorts, the United Nations permits adversaries and allies alike to make their views known to each other and the rest of the world. Even though the very existence of the vetoes in the Security Council styme action, that members of the UN so easily get away with violating resolutions renders the entire resolution-process de facto nugatory in real significance. So essentially, the UN building in New York City enables diplomats and heads of governments alike to speak out and with each other. It is vital, therefore, that the US take an expansive approach to issuing visa-waivers so institutional members of the UN can be as well represented as they desire to be. In this regard, the host—the United States Government—should refrain from applying its partisanship in international disputes by restricting the waivers to cover the bare essentials of personnel coming to the UN in New York from abroad.

The full essay is at "The UN in the US."

Beyond Description, Atrocious, Inhumane: The New Normal?

“The situation for Palestinians in Gaza is beyond description, beyond atrocious and beyond inhumane.”[1] So wrote Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, on May 17, 2025. He could have been looking at films taken when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated in 1945 at the end of World War II. It was a shock to the world back then. The scale of the inhumane atrocity of over a million people living in rubble and starving by design in the next century raises the question of whether extreme inhumanity toward a group in searing hatred was becoming normalized, and thus tolerated by the world absent even a coalition of the willing to step in and counter what even democracy could inflict.

The full essay is at "Beyond Description, Atrocious, Inhumane."

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1. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, LinkedIn.com, May 17, 2025.

On International Multilateralism: A Harsh Verdict on the UN by a Former Undersecretary

Speaking at Harvard in late September, 2024, Noeleen Heyzer, a former undersecretary and later a special envoy of the UN, related the need for multilateral governance internationally to the need for the UN to evolve. The UN Charter created a system in which both large and small nations would be held accountable to international law in a rule-based order. This would protect the weak from the strong, but the Security Council had long been dominated by the veto-wielding  powerful countries, so the UN has been unable to end wars. The UN had become, according to Heyzer, “severely weakened.” “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," she explained. Peaceful coexistence that rectifies power imbalances was at the time decimated in Ukraine and Gaza. National vetoes in the Security Council were inflicting much damage in this regard. The implications for the UN, she admitted to me after her talk, are not at all good even concerning whether the international organization can  even reform itself sufficiently to rise above being an abject failure.

The full essay is at "International Multilateralism: The United Nations."

Unenforced Law: The International Court of Justice Declares Israeli Occupation Illegal

On July 19, 2024, the UN’s court rendered an opinion to the UN’s General Assembly on the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem. The Israeli government wasted no time in publicly dismissing the International Court of Justice even though the UN had created Israel. As if the creature is greater than its creator, which is a rather unbiblical view, Israel’s prime minister had dismissed two earlier verdicts of that court against Israel’s military incursion into Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of more than 35,000 and displaced over a million Palestinian residents. What are we to make of international law itself? Can we rightly call it law even though no enforcement mechanism necessarily exists for it? By necessarily, I mean something more than a voluntary coalition of willing countries, which of course cannot be counted upon.

The full essay is at "The International Court of Justice on Israeli Occupation."

Toothless International Human Rights: Genocide in Gaza

It strains credulity to believe that vengeance against the Palestinian residents of Gaza was not among the motives of the Israeli government’s ministers in retaliating for the Hamas attack against occupation on October 7, 2023. Within days, Israel’s president publicly accused every Palestinian in Gaza of being guilty. Because it cannot be assumed that every resident of Gaza who had voted Hamas into office was in favor of the attack, and the residents who had voted for the PLO could even less be assumed to be supportive of Hamas, the Israeli notion of collective justice is ethically flawed. Deficient as a subterfuge for the very human instinctual urge to inflict disproportionate vengeance, the espoused justification did not hold South Africa off from charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). At the time, both South Africa and Israel were parties to the Genocide Convention. Because the ICJ was at the time the principal judicial body of the United Nations, the UN’s lack of enforcement power—notorious even on resolutions passed by the Security Council—meant that even a conviction could send the message that a national government can get away with even genocide.

The full essay is at "Crimes Against Humanity: Israeli Genocide"

Turkey's President Enables Euroskeptic Ideologues

The European Union is not a military alliance, like NATO or the ancient Spartan League. Nor is the E.U. merely a free-trade agreement like NAFTA. In terms of the history of federalism, the E.U. instantiates “modern federalism,” wherein governmental sovereignty is split between federal and state levels, rather than confederalism, wherein all such sovereignty is retained by the states. Both the U.S. and E.U. instantiate modern federal systems, although ironically the U.S. was originally a confederal system of sovereign states. In likening the E.U. to NATA in 2023, President Erdogan of Turkey unwittingly committed a category mistake. This in turn weakened his attempt to leverage his power in approving Sweden as a country in NATO with his demand that the E.U. admit Turkey as a state. 

The full essay is at "Turkey's President Enables Euroskeptic Ideologues."

The U.S. Enabled Turkey to Invade Syria: Absent the U.N.

Turkey invaded Syria on October 9, 2019 “to flush Kurds allied with the US out of northeastern Syria.”[1] Strategically, Turkey wanted to distance the Kurds from Turkey so they could not aid Kurdish separatists in Turkey should the latter rise up in attempting to establish Kurdistan. U.S. President Don Trump, who had just cleared American troops from northeastern Syria, had advanced knowledge from Turkish President Recep Erdogan that he planned to invade the area once the American troops were out. A rare bipartisan unity in Congress criticized the removal of American troops and the president’s acquiescence on Turkey’s plan to attach the Kurds, an American ally—a plan that could possibly give ISIS a toehold in the region. Both the Congress and the president had their respective rationales, yet neither side looked past the apparent dichotomy to arrive at a solution consistent with the points made by both sides.

The full essay is at "Dichotamous Thinking in Foreign Policy."

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1. Nicole Gaouette, “Republican Anger at Trump Grows as Turkey Launches ‘Sickening’ Attack on US Allies,” CNN.com, October 9, 2019 (accessed same day).

When Platitudes Undermine Real Change: The Case of U.S. President Obama

U.S. President Obama’s 2010 speech at the UN’s annual opening lacked tangible proposals.  For example, he urged progress on the Middle East peace talks, but proffered no proposal.  He said Africa could be prosperous agriculturally, but gave no proposal for how.  He claimed that corruption in governments of developing countries is a problem, but offered no solution.  Pointing to corruption in general diffuses responsibility so talking about it does not shame anyone into making hard choices. Such platitudes belied the president's claim to being an advocate of real change. 

The full essay is at "Platitudes Undermine Real Change."

Should the E.U. Represent Its States at the UN?

In 2010, it was proposed that the E.U. have an increased role at the UN in order to boost Europe’s profile as major player at the international level. One proposal would have given the E.U. the powers enjoyed by fully-fledged UN members, such as the right to make proposals and submit amendments, the right of reply, the right to raise points of order and the right to circulate documents. While there is no demand in the draft for a more prominent seating position for the EU, it was possible that the E.U. could have been moved to the center of the UN’s assembly chamber. Wherever the E.U. would have been situated, additional seats alongside a new European UN ambassador would have been made available for High Representative Catherine Ashton, the E.U. Foreign Minister, and her staff. Experts believed at the time of the proposal that such a role for the E.U. in the General Assembly would not significantly enhance the E.U.’s ability to influence policy at a UN level; instead, the proposal would have provided an opportunity for the E.U. to portray itself as a unified power on the international stage.

 

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.

Keeping the Palestinian Authority Down at the United Nations

In “defiance of retaliation threatened” by the United States and the state of Israel, the Palestinian Authority announced in November 2012 that it planned to hold a vote in the U.N. General Assembly on the Authority’s request to become an observer state. According to The Wall Street Journal, “(s)uch a designation would give the Palestinian Authority the right over its airspace and territorial waters.” The Authority could participate in General Assembly debates, sponsor resolutions, and nominate candidates for Assembly committees. The Authority would be able to accede to treaties and join specialized U.N. agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the International Criminal Court. The Authority could thus press charges against Israelis before the Court.

The full essay is at "Keeping the Palestine Authority Down."