De Ja Vu (Again)

by Nicholas Tilipman

I’ll be honest here. Since the culmination of my internship with UNA-USA, I have spent the remainder of the summer securing my schedule and preparing overall for the upcoming school year. As such, I had little or no time at all to keep in touch with the news or post on this blog.

Well, there is good news to those of you who may have enjoyed my previous posts: You didn’t miss much. That’s right, since I moved back to school this past Saturday, I have come back to the habit of reading the news and staying in touch with world events, only to realize the lack of any sort of change in the current global conflict. All the headlines are precisely the same as I have left them a little less than a month ago.

Sure, the Israeli-Lebanese conflict has settled and fresh, new conflicts have begun to escalate, but nothing in particular caught my attention as being any different. Two Fox News journalists were kidnapped in Gaza (for reasons that remain uncertain, if not absurd), there is still a tremendous amount of violence erupting in Iraq, and best of all, Iran faces yet another deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

I recall that the last blog I wrote was devoted to praising the UN for taking what I thought to be some serious action against the numerous conflicts in the Middle East. The Security Council had finally set a deadline for Iran, threatening some form of punishment (though still undisclosed) if they did not cooperate. Now, it seems there are still deliberations instead of action being taken.

Furthermore, Kofi Annan has embarked on a rapid tour of the Middle East with his entourage. I am beginning to wonder whether this will be the catalyst for any type of change in the region.

Don’t get me wrong, working for UNA has exposed me to a wide array of successful UN programs. It is just getting hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when I read the news only to find the same conflicts manifesting in different areas and to find that the only headline that remotely widens my eyes is the one entitled “Heath Ledger set to play Joker.” Let’s hope Annan’s visit to the Middle East puts me to rest.