Vijay Prashad & Karim Makdisi 
Land of Blue Helmets 
The United Nations and the Arab World

Born in 1945, the United Nations came to life in the Arab world. It was there that the UN dealt with early diplomatic challenges that helped shape its institutions such as peacekeeping and political mediation. It was also there that the UN found itself trapped in, and sometimes part of, confounding geopolitical tensions in key international conflicts in the Cold War and post–Cold War periods, such as hostilities between Palestine and Iraq and between Libya and Syria. Much has changed over the past seven decades, but what has not changed is the central role played by the UN. This book’s claim is that the UN is a constant site of struggle in the Arab world and equally that the Arab world serves as a location for the UN to define itself against the shifting politics of its age. Looking at the UN from the standpoint of the Arab world, this volume collects some of the finest scholars and practitioners writing about the potential and the problems of a UN that is framed by both the promises of its Charter and the contradictions of its member states. This is a landmark book—a close and informed study of the UN in the region that taught the organization how to do its many jobs.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction – Karim Makdisi and Vijay Prashad


PART ONE – DIPLOMACY


1 • The Role of the UN Secretary-General: A Historical Assessment – Andrew Gilmour

2 • Palestine, the Third World, and the UN as Seen from a Special Commission – Lori Allen

3 • On Behalf of the United Nations: Serving as Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council for Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967 – Richard Falk

4 • The UN Statehood Bid: Palestine’s Flirtation with Multilateralism – Noura Erakat

5 • The Wrong Kind of Intervention in Syria – Asli Bâli and Aziz Rana


PART TWO – ENFORCEMENT AND PEACEKEEPING


6 • Constructing Security Council Resolution 1701 in Lebanon in the Shadow of the “War on Terror” – Karim Makdisi

7 • The UN Security Council and Ghosts of Iraq – Poorvi Chitalkar and David M. Malone

8 • Iraq: Twenty Years in the Shadow of Chapter VII – Coralie Pison Hindawi

9 • Libya: A UN Resolution and NATO’s Failure to Protect – Jeff Bachman

10 • Peacekeeping and the Arab World: India’s Rise and Its Impact on UN Missions in Sudan = Zachariah Mampilly


PART THREE – HUMANITARIANISM AND REFUGEES


11 • The UN Human Rights Game and the Arab Region: Playing Not to Lose – Fateh Azzam

12 • The Politics of the Sanctions on Iraq and the UN Humanitarian Exception = Hans-Christof von Sponeck

13 • An Agency for the Palestinians? – Jalal Al Husseini

14 • Challenged but Steadfast: Nine Years with Palestinian Refugees and the UN Relief and Works Agency = Filippo Grandi

15 • The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Iraq Refugee Operation: Resettling Refugees, Shifting the Middle East Humanitarian Landscape – Arafat Jamal

16 • The Syrian Refugee Crisis in the Middle East – Shaden Khallaf

17 • The Middle East: A Mandatory Return to Humanitarian Action – Caroline Abu Sa’Da


PART FOUR – DEVELOPMENT 18 • The UN, the Economic and Social Commission for West Asia, and Development in the Arab World = Omar Dahi

19 • The United Nations, Palestine, Liberation, and Development – Raja Khalidi

20 • Peacebuilding in Palestine: Western Strategies in the Context of Colonization – Mandy Turner

21 • The International Labour Organization and Workers’ Rights in the Arab Region: The Need to Return to Basics – Walid Hamdan

22 • Peacekeeping, Development, and Counterinsurgency: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and “Quick Impact Projects” – Susann Kassem

23 • The Protective Shields: Civil Society Organizations and the UN in the Arab Region = Kinda Mohamadieh


List of Contributors

Index

About the author

Karim Makdisi is Associate Professor of International Politics at the American University of Beirut and Research Director of the UN in the Arab World program at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs. Vijay Prashad is Professor of International Studies at Trinity College and Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.