Includes bibliographical references and index.

The role of the UN Secretary General: a historical assessment / Andrew Gilmour -- Palestine, the Third World, and the UN as seen from a Special Commission / Lori Allen -- On behalf of the United Nations: serving as Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council for Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967 / Richard Falk -- The UN statehood bid: Palestine's flirtation with multilateralism / Noura Erakat -- Why the UN is not the problem in Syria / Asli Bali and Aziz Rana -- Constructing Security Council Resolution 1701 for Lebanon in the shadow of the "War on Terror" / Karim Makdisi -- The UN Security Council and ghosts of Iraq / Poorvi Chitalkar and David M. Malone -- Iraq: war, sanctions, and more: twenty years in the shadow of Chapter VII / Coralie Hindawi -- Libya: a UN resolution and NATO's failure to protect / Jeff Bachman -- Peacekeeping and the Arab world: India's rise and its impact on UN missions in Sudan / Zachariah Mampilly -- The UN human rights game and the Arab region: playing not to lose / Fateh Azzam -- The politics of the sanctions on Iraq and the UN humanitarian exception / Hans Christof von Sponeck -- An agency for the Palestinians / Jalal Al Husseini -- Challenged but steadfast: nine years with Palestinian refugees and UNRWA / Filippo Grandi -- UNHCR and the Iraq Refugee Operation (2007-2009): resettling refugees, changing the Middle East humanitarian landscape / Arafat Jamal -- The Syrian refugee crisis in the Middle East / Shaden Khallaf -- The Middle East: a mandatory return to humanitarian action / Caroline Abu-Sada -- The UN, ESCWA, and development in the Arab world / Omar Dahi -- The United Nations and Palestine, liberation and development / Raja Khalidi -- Peacebuilding in Palestine: Western strategies in the context of colonization / Mandy Turner -- ILO and workers' rights in the Arab region: the need to return to the basics / Walid Hamdan -- Development as counterinsurgency in peacekeeping: the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and "Quick Impact Projects" / Susanne Kassem -- The protective shields: civil society organizations and the UN in the Arab region / Kinda Mohamadieh.

"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"--Provided by publisher.