Advertisement
Tag Archives: peace
What are Israel and Palestine? Why are they fighting?
Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, located just east of the Mediterranean Sea. Palestinians, the Arab population that hails from the land Israel now controls, refer to the territory as Palestine, and want to establish a state by that name on all or part of the same land. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over who gets what land and how it’s controlled.
Though both Jews and Arab Muslims date their claims to the land back a couple thousand years, the current political conflict began in the early 20th century. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe wanted to establish a national homeland in what was then an Arab- and Muslim-majority territory in the British Empire. The Arabs resisted, seeing the land as rightfully theirs. An early United Nations plan to give each group part of the land failed, and Israel and the surrounding Arab nations fought several wars over the territory. Today’s lines largely reflect the outcomes of two of these wars, one waged in 1948 and another in 1967.
The 1967 war is particularly important for today’s conflict, as it left Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, two territories home to large Palestinian populations:
Today, the West Bank is nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority and is under Israeli occupation. This comes in the form of “settlers,” Jews who build ever-expanding communities in the West Bank that effectively deny the land to Palestinians, and Israeli troops, who protect the settlers and enforce Israeli security restrictions on Palestinian movement. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist fundamentalist party, and is under Israeli blockade but not ground troop occupation. The two Palestinian groups may have reconciled on April 23rd, creating one shared Palestinian government for the first time since 2007. The peace negotiations fell apart and, in July, the conflict escalated to a full-on war between Israel and Hamas.
Continue reading
Would Security Council enlargement make the Council more effective?
Governments in all countries or most of them affirm their undying devotion to the United Nations and all its purposes and principles; they continually express their determination to uphold its objectives and to strengthen its effectiveness. Today, the underlying presumption has been that the UN is ‘ineffective’ because it has contributed little to the solutions of major problems in recent years. On one hand it has been argued that Security Council enlargement would make the Council more effective; in the other it has been argued that it would not since most countries today agree that Security Council needs to become more transparent, accountable and equitably representative. This essay will discuss: Would Security Council enlargement make the Council more effective?
From the beginning of the 1960’s, with the big increase in the membership of the United Nations, there had been proposals for an increase in the size of the Council. This was designed partly to reflect more accurately the composition of the Organization’s membership, particularly to provide more seats for Africans and Asians. Moreover, the proposal was resisted for some time by the Soviet Union, probably because of her objections to any amendments to the Charter.[1] By the 1980’s the Council was providing valuable assistance for the resolution of conflict and tension in the Gulf, Afghanistan, Angola and Namibia, just to mention a few. Historically, when the UN was formed there was a general desire to learn from the mistakes of the League of Nations ‘which mainly; it felt for four main reasons. First, it has no armed force. Second, it had lacked authority. Third, it has been paralysed during crises by the rule of unanimity. Fourth, the absence of several major powers had made it unrepresentative and impotent’.[2]
¿San Valentín global?
Hoy 14 de Febrero se conmemora el día de San Valentín también llamado día del amor. Para todos aquellos que tengan la gracia de disfrutar estar acompañados de la mujer/hombre de su vida o ‘un peor es nada’ hoy se recuerda ese sentimiento tan humano llamado amor. Y es que a la final; eso es lo que importa. El amor: por quienes te rodean, por lo que haces, por lo que eres y por donde estas; que a su vez tiene como consecuencia que las demás cosas alrededor de ti fluyan como deben fluir y contribuyan a tu crecimiento como ser humano. Pues sabemos que no hay nada más humano que el amor. Pero ¿que tal el amor entre países?.. ¿Existe? Las organizaciones sin fines de lucro y ayuda humanitaria lo hacen…..por amor? En este aspecto escritores como Larry Diamond (The Spirit of Democracy); afirman que los países actúan principalmente según sus intereses. Y que las relaciones diplomáticas no creen en amor sino en bienestar y cooperación ya sea nacional o internacional. En todos los sentidos se busca hacia la paz; es lo que se quiere sustentar a corto y largo plazo en cualquier nación pero… ¿amor? No me parece. ¿Por qué? Porque entre países se hace es guerra, no se puede hace el amor. Veamos que sucede en el mundo acerca del ‘amor’ entre países actualmente:
Can armed humanitarian intervention ever be justified?
Since its beginnings armed humanitarian intervention has represented a dilemma to war, peace and international ethics because it involves the moral issue of when to intervene and if these interventions are justifiable. Moreover there are the different theories in favour and against of armed intervention. This essay will discuss: Can armed humanitarian intervention ever be justified?
In order to make this essay clearer is to believe that a couple of definitions should be made beforehand; humanitarian intervention and armed intervention. Firstly, ‘humanitarian intervention is traditionally defined as the use of force by states to protect human rights. This definition presumes that states should do the intervening in order to maintain civil rights and of course the welfare and peace in society’.[1]Nowadays, it is sometimes argued that this traditional definition is obsolete because humanitarian intervention is increasingly a matter of collective action under UN auspices, not action undertaken by states acting on their own authority and under their own law. Secondly, we speak of armed intervention when that exercise involves the use of military force. An armed intervention is humanitarian when its aim is to protect innocent people who are not nationals of the intervening state from violence perpetrated or permitted by the government of the target state.[2] Additionally, armed intervention to stop a massacre is likely to be only the first of many measures needed to restore order to a chaotic society and prevent subsequent massacres. If prevention is important, then is to believe that the challenge for humanitarian policy is to move from responding to humanitarian crises to forestalling them.
Is anarchy a serious obstacle to co-operation?
In International Relations the concept of anarchy has been broadly discussed for several reasons; some scholars may argue that anarchism can be beneficial among the states and even more beneficial in IR dealings between countries. In opposition other scholars believe that anarchism is a serious obstacle to co-operation. This essay will discuss Is anarchy a serious obstacle to co-operation?
Yes; it is. The reason that makes me get in this position is the following: from the definition anarchy is defined as: “a system operating in the absence of any central government. Does not imply chaos, but in Realist theory the absence of political authority.”[1] Furthermore; in order to answer this question correctly, concepts involving Realism, Critical theory and Constructivism arise because they define the path in IR about anarchy most recently in the last years.
The Ages of Extremes
The Age of Extremes
During the 20th century, the world for the first time in human history witnesses’ global wars, human interest this time crossed national frontiers and even when it was not the end of the world there were moments when the end of a considerable proportion of the human race did not look far off. This essay will discuss first what factors make the 20th century the Age of Extremes and second what lasting impact do they have on international politics in the 21th century.
The concept of “global war” was in first instance an element that influence the 20th century as called the Age of Extremes. The First World War was the first modern, industrialized total war; it began between European states on European battlefields, but extended across the globe, the trigger was the Assassination of Arch duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 june 1914 . This time not only many countries were involved in war, even women were involved as Len Scott related “It was a total war in the sense that whole societies and economies were mobilized: men were conscripted into armies and women went to work in factories”
UK US effective leadership
Compare the powers of the American President and British Prime Minister. Which can provide more effective leadership?
After comparing British Prime Minister and American President roles is believed that the U.S president leadership can provide more effectiveness, the reason are the following:
The president of the US is the head of the State, while the British prime minister is the effective head of British government. In this case is believed that the US president as head of the state is able to make decisions without consulting the executive.
The Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution determines that the president is the sole commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces and of the state militias when they are called into national duty. In other words, the president is given the power to require responses from the principal officers in each constituent department of the executive. As commander-in chief the president leads an armed force of almost 1.5 million. There are also many civilian personnel involved, and the Department of Defense is the largest executive department.[1]
globalinfoblog.com 