M. Reza Behnam

The United Nations has designated June 20 World Refugee Day. Like other designated international days, the goal is to raise global awareness and to foster a sense of responsibility for the approximately 70 million people driven from their homes due to war, violence and persecution. On June 20, the world will focus on the expanding … Continue reading “Palestinians: Forever Refugees”

For 70 years, the United States and much of the world community have ignored the ongoing Al-Nakba-Arabic for "Catastrophe" – of the Palestinian people at the hands of one of the last remaining colonial powers, Israel. The establishment of Israel in 1948 meant the loss of civil society for the Palestinians. The Zionist plan for … Continue reading “No End to the Palestinian Catastrophe”

The Middle East, oil-rich but water-poor, with about six percent of the world’s population, has only one percent of the earth’s renewable water resources. Fourteen Middle East and North African (MENA) countries are among the 33 most water-stressed in the world. Climate change, drought and population growth have increased the demand for water in this … Continue reading “The Politics of Water and Peace in the Middle East”

Some ideas take on a character akin to sacred texts whose validity is rarely questioned. One such belief is that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the biggest threat to the Middle East and the United States. The threat narrative has become required foreign policy catechism in Washington, D.C. Menacing stereotypes and bellicose rhetoric are … Continue reading “Dispelling the Iranian Terrorism Myth”

On the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, Israelis celebrated, while Palestinians mourned. British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, on November 2, 1917, signed away the ancestral home of the Palestinians in a letter assuring Britain’s Zionist community of his government’s support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The dire … Continue reading “100 Years of Balfour”