U.S. Blocks Palestinian Officials From U.N. General Assembly for Second Year

For the second consecutive year, the United States has used the quiet instrument of visa denial to keep Palestinian officials away from the United Nations General Assembly — the world's most visible stage for collective diplomacy. What might once have seemed an administrative anomaly has now taken the shape of policy, raising enduring questions about who is permitted to speak before the international community and on whose terms. In the architecture of global governance, the power to exclude is itself a form of speech.